Back Talk Lake Highlands

TV news directors, aren't you ashamed of yourselves?

I woke up this morning, and it was raining. Somehow, the ice storm of the century missed us.

So what did I see when I switched through the four local stations? Wintry blast! Winter weather closings! Freezing rain!

At best, this kind of reporting is silly. At worst, it's irresponsible. Can anyone who works for a TV station defend this foolishness? Or do you think your audience is really that stupid?

Because this is what bad winter weather really looks like:

Where is the blizzard of hype?

There is a tiny chance it will snow later in the week. Yet, when I ran through the forecasts for the four local TV stations, none of them had their WINTER STORM WARNING!! graphics up. Rebecca Miller at Channel 5 actually went out of her way to point out that the chance of bad weather was minimal.

I am deeply confused. Are the TV stations going to give up scaring us to death with the weather forecast? If so, does this mean they will actually start reporting news instead of crime, fires, and lost puppies?

50 inches of rain

Actually 50.05, according to the National Weather Service. That's the fifth rainiest since the weather service started keeping records in 1898. The wettest was 1991, with 53.54 inches.

Normally, we get 34.66 inches. We got 29.75 in 2006 and just 18.97 in 2005.

And I promise, now that the year is over, not to post any more rain items or pictures for a while.

50 inches of rain

We're at 49.23 inches for the year, so we should make 50 over the weekend. If we do, it will be just the fifth time this area has had 50 inches of rain since the weather service started keeping records in 1898.

Our current total makes this the fifth rainiest year on record, and with decent rain in the last two weeks of the month we could move into third. That's the 1973 total, with 50.62 inches. The rainiest year was 1991, when we had 53.54 inches.

And, believe it or not, we have had almost 16 inches of rain more than normal.

The fifth rainiest year

The weekend's rain pushed this year into the fifth wettest since the weather service started keeping records in 1898. We're at 47.71 inches, 5.83 behind the record, set in 1991.

But it doesn't look like we'll beat it, or even move into fourth place. The average is 2.57 inches in December, which would leave us just short of 1957, when we had 50.47 inches of rain.

And, depending on how you interpret the information, the snow we had on Thanksgiving was the first time it has snowed here on the fourth Thursday in November. I use the word interpret because I remember snow on Thanksgiving 1993, although the weather service calls it "freezing rain and sleet."

Closing in on the rainfall record

This month's deluge, which included a record on Oct. 15, has moved us that much closer to setting an annual rainfall mark. We're at 46.49 inches, just seven inches away from the 53.54 standard set in 1991. That's good for seventh place since the weather service started keeping records in 1898.

Can we beat the record? The average annual rainfall for the last 2 1/2 months of the year is about 5 1/2 inches, so it will be close.

And despite the unseasonably warm October, we haven't had a 100-degree day since Aug. 15 and only had five all year, all in August. We normally have 16 100-degree days.