2018 began very cold. Colder than average, and broke many records. Not being sensitive to cold is not a bad thing, given in reality we have more days with temperatures over 60° overall in a single calendar year. (Again that’s if you think logically. Boston is an area of neurotic people using “feelings” as a datapoint. I do not know any “feelings” that is universal since “feelings” is a subjective view.)  It wasn’t that long that we had a near 80° swing from a low of near 20° to 60 something degrees in mid January. Followed by somewhat of a typical winter in February that was so cold it couldn’t snow, to late that February joining the club for the first time since records were logged for having an 80° day, then winter returned into March and April.

Of course the Boston Marathon was a memorable visual to see the first American woman to win since a couple years before I was born in sub freezing temperatures. But hey, from a contrarian point of view, if people can persevere in 90° April days with a heat index, then why can someone tough it out in the cold too?

Spring was non existent and summer came in June and came in full force by July with very high humidity that I couldn’t recall the last day we had excessive heat warnings. August was more of a soaker with thunderstorms, but that month was drenched with high humidity.

By late September, it was already reported that the record days of over 70° was made of over 40 days. The National Weather Service (at least in New York via Craig Allen’s Facebook page) doesn’t keep records of dew points, of which that area was very humid.

Oh and did I tell you that the water temperatures in the ocean were already at the August average by early July? Oh and did I tell you that the water was near bath temperature by mid August where some readings were in the mid 70s?

Not to mention the freak tornadoes?

When it came to getting the weather, I remember the day very vividly where it all changed. It was Tuesday, October 23rd. This Tweet explains it all

This is what triggered a set of tweets (including tagging directly to all the stations weather departments.

And it did come out of nowhere. That very same day the South Coast had waterspouts and other odd stuff that could be considered to be dangerous. Before I indicted the weather departments, I did check out their pages to ensure that this was true. As perverted as it was, they didn’t have any warning about this random storm at all, in their morning and midday dayparts, as they go on social media in chunks if there isn’t anything breaking.

The Sad Prediction of Meteorology in Local News

I have totally boycotted all local meteorologists after October 23rd. I use the app on my phone. Why? BECAUSE I LOST FAITH in the hyped, up sensationalized, frivolous data-centric content the local stations do. I am not against them personally (and that also includes Hayley LaPoint, whom I have been critical against, and it’s not personal) the general managers and news directors are leading a profit center, known as the local newscasts, and if you haven’t noticed, there is more newscasts than ever.

No I am not some ol grizzly, the fact that some markets like Miami are adding 3PM newscasts, just as they had signed off midday just two hours before is no joke. In 2017, as NBC launched their O&O station, all stations except for Ch 4 had a 7:00 news. And now it’s not just WHDH that owns 4:00, all said stations have the same setup. Given that CBSN is launching streaming news on the local level at their O&Os, this may explain why WBZ-TV is on a traditional format for now.

It’s so important now, that the age of syndication programming may be on it’s last legs because the industry’s need to fill with “local programming” (i.e. not reboots of Evening Magazine or extending Great Day to more Tegna TV stations – they really mean “local news”.)  Have you noticed The Peoples Court  – a syndie that was never online suddenly pulled a 180 and is on social media like crazy? They know their loyal fans, and they embrace them and they understand if they want to still have their slot…whatever time that could be, hoping a duopoly can keep them at 4:00 PM slot there, they could survive the TV’s last hurrah. Local news will be the last.

Now in order to fill up this content, 80% of the audience says the stereotypical “news consultant” (the individuals who are in the business of making the TV station money) believe the consumer is more interested in weather; therefore, it’s important to put it on first. Because the viewers will get bored after the Creep of The Day, and the House Fire and the interview of the survivor who would say “I didn’t call the fucking assignment desk to have you fight the fire!” (Someone please say that to a Fox 25… Boston 25 reporter – thanks!)

My predictions is the weather will become more trivialized and as a result, the viewers will continue to leave. Trivialization means special graphics are used for social media to remind viewers of various sunset times leading up to DST and the  start of summer, x amount of days with y conditions, records, records and records- but never compiling neighboring data to confirm climate change. Not to mention they’ll mix in stats like the days leading up to Spring Training because so many of the WCVB viewers as an example are cosmo Bostonians who hate winter. Since these cosmo Bostonians are alleged Red Sox  fans, give them something to look forward to.

If this example doesn’t confirm that 68% of meteorologists that don’t believe in climate change, then I don’t know what is.

My prediction in 2019, is that the reason why local media is dead, is because of the actions in 2018 by our hack meteorologists. Intelligent viewers (over traditional “media consumers”) have already left watching local media and are using apps instead, and if there are loyal people, well that’s because they are always willing to watch a “familiar face” on screen and do it because of habit. But I am not as loyal, I am fed up with the stat driven bullshit that has no logical information. There isn’t an assignment editor and hell there isn’t even an editor in the first place. And when they get things wrong, they still have a job, and when they fuck up on a storm like on October 23rd, no one gets an apparent reprimand.

Low information consumers are their only audience.

Local weather killed local news, therefore murdered local media that was driven by those “consultants”. Hope they sweat to their death just like how local news will be in 2019 due to their abusive actions in 2018.

Good Riddance!

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