Monday, April 13, 2009

90% Chance of Absurdity

We've had some pretty strong storms in the state lately (it's spring, after all--flowers blooming, sirens screaming), and Pappy called this evening to inquire about the weather. Last night's thunderstorms had knocked out their power, and although that had been restored, they didn't have their cable back on and wanted to know whether to expect Round 2 tonight.

Since AT&T is our ISP, we suffer from frequent Internet outages in tandem with the abysmal customer service, so I had to turn on the Weather Channel to get the info. TWC had a little more punch than it had the last time I visited.

Back in the day, you got a nice lady or gentleman standing next to a weather map, with occasional video of people in windbreakers being blown sideways. But on duty tonight were cute triathlete Mike Bettes and excitable former cheerleader Stephanie Abrams.

Stephanie used large sweeping motions with her arms to show how the winds rushed down out of the thunderstorms. She added, "It's helpful to know the name of the county you're in, as well as names of the counties surrounding yours, because if a storm is in a county near yours, it could be heading into your county next."

Hoo boy! Quick--how do I find out the name of my county (especially if my Internet connection isn't working)??

Mike was describing "gravity waves" and "wake lows" as we viewed images of fallen trees in the Atlanta area. "Wow!" exclaimed Stephanie. "I think you just got the ladies all hot using that terminology. . . not me, of course, because I know what they mean."

Later, the pair used a jump rope to illustrate how a "wake low" behaves, and they both kept a straight face. Then, and I am not making this up, an older meteorologist proceeded to jump rope.

I'm not quite sure what to make of all this personality in my TV weather, but at least now I know where to turn for help when a storm is brewing in an adjacent county whose name escapes me. And I hope Pappy and the fam are having a quiet evening.

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