Before we had ‘snowpocalypse,’ it was just called ‘winter’
Wednesday February 5, 2014, 11:45 PM
By VIRGINIA ROHAN
RECORD COLUMNIST
Disruptive snow! Polar vortex! Thundersnow! Extreme weather event!
Whatever happened to the plain old winter snowstorm? If you grew up, say, in the 1960s, there was a simple drill when it snowed: Your parents listened to the radio to see if your school was closed. If it was, you proceeded accordingly — and with so little event that, as an adult, you probably don’t remember any individual snow day of your youth.
Today, television treats every advancing storm as if it’s the “snowmageddon” (or “snowpocalypse” or “snowzilla”). Meteorologists deliver forecasts — referencing American and European models as if it’s a competition — with the kind of gravity news operations once reserved for, say, the Cuban Missile Crisis.
With multiday forecasts, TV weather people start banging the drums days in advance of an approaching storm. Last winter, The Weather Channel even started naming major winter storms — mainly for hashtag purposes.
All this can seem excessive, especially in cases like the storm that hit us Tuesday going into Wednesday, which turned out to be far less severe than predicted with a range of 4.5 inches in Paramus to 7 inches in Ringwood, according to Bob Ziff, spokesman for North Jersey Weather Observers.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/weather/Rohan_Before_we_had_snowpocalypse_it_was_just_called_winter.html#sthash.9yp7Tigo.dpuf
