It has started to rain. I repeat, it is raining out.
So go ahead and panic.
I hate winter. Almost as much as I hate the hype that accompanies winter weather.
It rains all the time in this region. If this was July, we wouldn't be getting these news bulletins about the fact that it has started raining and the roads are wet.
But it's not July. It's February. Winter time. And that means we are going to get hype. Actually, it started yesterday.
If we were in New England, where they are expecting as much as two feet of snow, maybe I could understand it. We're not in New England. No matter. We're getting non-stop weather madness.
At least on our front page today we tilted the story to just how much snow we might end up getting.
To the best of my knowledge, here is what is going to happen. We're going to get rain here in the suburbs for most of the day. Later this afternoon and tonight, it is going to change over to snow. How much snow we get depends on where you are. Looks like 1-3 inches in the city, more north and west.
Don't ask me where the hell the "northern and western suburbs" are, because they seem to change with every forecast. I never realized that Allentown and the Poconos were suddenly part of the northern and western suburbs.
There seems to be a line that will fall across northern Chester, Montgomery and Bucks Counties into New Jersey where they will be higher accumulations of snow, maybe along the line of 4-8 inches. But the region is not going to be paralyzed.
The same can't be said for New England. By all appearances, they are going to get hammered by what may in fact be one of the "Storms of the Century."
But not here.
Here is a link to our Weather page from Accuweather.com. They are still saying it is going to rain here in Clifton Heights for most of the day. They are saying the changeover to snow tonight will leave a coating to an inch. Does that sound like something we should be panicing about? Hey, what do I know, I'm just a newspaper editor.
So why did I just hear a reporter on TV breathlessly reporting a couple of flakes in Bucks County and urging people to stay home and watch the storm coverage on his station?
I've said for a long time that this kind of coverage borders on being a public disservice. I'm not going to win this battle.
We are going to get buried today - not by snow, but by over-the-top forecasts.
It's going to be a long day.
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