What prompted this rant is a simple forecast I saw about today's weather.
I needed to schedule some outside earth moving today and checked the weather last night here in Central Florida.

Seemed pretty positive, massive Thunderstorms rolling in after noon but only small chance in the early AM.
Sounded like a "go" to me and the neighbors.

To make a long story short, weather held off long enough to get the digging done with no issues.
However, NOTHING happened all day. NOTHING, NADA, ZIP.
Forecast at 8am, 90% chance of Thunderstorms. By 11am it had dropped to 10%. They couldn't see 3 hours out?
Blue skies with only minor clouds. How can a weather channel get it so wrong?
And this is far from being the first time.

Here in Florida, and I'm sure elsewhere, weather plays a huge part in our plans.
But I think what really got to me was hearing that farmers and others who depend on the weather
PAY $$ for accurate forecasts and they actually are accurate.
Perhaps the weather channels should pay for those same forecasts?
To be fair, these paid forecasts are for a limited area, not on a nationwide scope,
but does make me wonder if the weather channels actually employ real Meteorologists?
Their track record, especially on Hurricanes, has been less than stellar.

Those of us in Florida have become so accustomed to the bad Hurricane forecasts,
that we largely ignore them now.
The only one I pay attention to now is NOAA weather.
Here's a good example from a few days ago.
The weather channels ranted on and on about some possible? developing low in the Gulf.
So I go to NOAA and no mention of it at all. Nothing.
Meanwhile the weather channels are ramping up the bulls--t about it might become a possible
storm if? things change more in it's favor. So the weather channels' best advice is weather changes?

I think the Weather Channels, in general, have become just another fake news medium to sell advertising
and ramping up some bogus weather news keeps people watching.
It's become so bad, I've turned off any weather notifications I have on my phone.

I've lived in Florida now for about 17 years and only 4 Hurricanes made the locals a bit nervous,
and this is out of literally dozens of ramped up warnings to leave.
In point of fact, these over blown warnings caused more issues than they solved.
There is a real danger in this "cry wolf" reporting. Important information might be ignored.
People just become numb after so many false alarms.

Now I'm not saying to totally ignore everything on the weather channels, just use the old expression.
"Trust but Varify". At least see what NOAA is saying.
The weather channels aren't flying aircraft into storms. Guess who is? NOAA.

I'm sure you've all seen the Spagetti Models of Hurricane tracks?
Did you know that NONE of the weather channels have anything to do with those?
They are created by experts in the field and the weather channels just copy them for their own use.
What surprised me was the most accurate ones come out of a European think tank.
Guess we can't even do that right here in the USA.
If even ONE of those tracks looks like it might hit someplace, that's the lead story for weather channels.
8 other tracks might show it going out to sea but you know which one the story will be about.
(I often wonder if the channels actually edit those to look worse than they are?)

In closing I'd like to see weather channels focus more on actual reporting than
trying to boost ratings by over hyping the weather.
Hire some actual Meteorologists rather than depend on cut and paste reporters.
Before you say, "they all have meteorologists", I'll say the best ones were laid off long ago in cost cutting efforts.
Many of you remember the "old" and good ones who are no longer on the air.
Replaced by talking heads wearing raincoats and standing in puddles. (Even the puddles are sometimes faked)