PERSPECTIVE-Let’s put politics aside for the moment.
As we creep closer to the rainy season in Southern California (if there is a rainy season), the local weather reporters break out of their Steve Martin/LA Story mode and put on their best dour expressions, then unleash doom and gloom projections.
Mind you, the doom and gloom are relative.
For example, I listened to KNBC’s Fritz Coleman (photo) the other day as he reported on the Polar Vortex’s approach towards the nation’s interior.
Pretty sobering.
After he was through, pausing just a second to take a breath, he put us Angelenos on notice. In the same somber tone he used to describe the frozen plague descending on the East, he warned of the potential for rain later in the week.
The potential, not even a certainty.
It doesn’t take much to send our local weather people into a vortex of fear, as Jimmy Kimmel reminded us last year around this time.
I recall one reporter hushedly utter that there was a “threat of drizzle.”
Perhaps I am being too critical. After all, it may have been Category 3 drizzle. Time to cover the outdoor grill and stock up on your favorite Chardonnay, with some extra Brie, from Trader Joe’s – that is, if the shelves have not already been cleared by your panicked neighbors.
Yes, I know burn areas can be devastated by steady periods of rain. One can understand the voices of concern when the Pineapple Express or a front from the Gulf of Alaska is bearing down, but those are relatively infrequent events.
But this is Hollywood, where drama rules and where the weather reporters have names like Dallas Raines (actually, Raines is one of the best in the business and is a certified meteorologist).
That’s all for this week. I must hunker down – maybe even change my wiper blades – and start thinking about next week’s article – if there is a next week, to paraphrase the late Don Pardo’s Spanning the World sign-off.
(Paul Hatfield is a CPA and former NC Valley Village board member and treasurer. He blogs at Village to Village and contributes to CityWatch. He can be reached at: [email protected])
–cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 93
Pub: Nov 18, 2014
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