Bob CollinsThe snowstorm that didn’t live up to expectations wasn’t a lot of fun for a few hours yesterday, but do you feel “pummeled” by it?
That’s what CBS said today, the storm pummeled millions, a figure derived by taking the total population of the area where it snowed. Sounds awful.
It was so bad that a CBS reporter, wearing no hat, had to exert effort to lift the snowball he’d made to show how much we’ve been pummeled.
The same reporter, standing by the river on Nicollet Island during a live shot on the CBS Evening News last night, declared another 8-12 inches of snow “is expected over the next 12-24 hours.” That was a lie; no one was predicting that.
On NBC’s Nightly News last night, a reporter properly highlighted the agony in Oklahoma, and gamely tried to transfer the urgency about the storm’s Minnesota appearance where the Mall of America, apparently, was paralyzed by clear parking lots. Well, except for that devastating pile of snow where the reporter staged her report.
How do people survive living here?
ABC also made Minneapolis ground zero for its story. “The roads are only slush covered,” he declared, “but tomorrow morning’s commute is going to be a whole lot worse.” You wish, sir. It was fine.
“Potentially (this is) the biggest snowfall Minneapolis has seen in almost two years,” the meteorologist said.
Swing and a miss. Total snowfall in Minneapolis as of this morning: 3.4 inches.
The Weather Channel also shipped its star reporter, Jim Cantore, to Minneapolis, even though the weather story is in the southwestern U.S. and lower Midwest.
Nonetheless, he reported the weather as “gorgeous” this morning.
For the record, the storm was known on The Weather Channel as “Delphi”.
“If we were perennial weather-wimps living in Dallas, Atlanta or Washington D.C. a half foot of slush would be cause for panic, a run on stores,” meteorologist Paul Douglas wrote today. “Martial law. From the breathless media reports I saw yesterday you would have thought we were due for a volcanic eruption, tsunami or an alien invasion.”
