When Did We Become Such Big Weather Scaredy Cats? (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Silverman]

Meanwhile, near-record highs down here. Yeesh.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Trade ya!

 

[DaveF]

I was in LA this week and it was perfect. Stupid LA.

Back home and it's chilly again! Stupid NoVA.

 

[Dougofthenorth]

Lately we have set records for the coldest day(s) ever recorded for this area (125 years plus)

 

[Ron1973]

I used to never be a scaredy-cat on weather then 2009 happened. The worst ice storm on record down here and we were without power for 3 weeks.

I've never seen a winter like this one out here. We've had ice before obviously (the blizzard in the late 70's everyone talks about was an ice storm here....no power for 8 days then) but it's been nothing but sleet/freezing rain all winter it seems. Thankfully I've only had to use the generator one time and that was in December; we were offline for about 16 hours.

 

[Bryan^H]

Well, there is always "breaking weather alert" on my news stations for severe thunderstorms, right on down to ice advisory. Practically every time anything slightly out of the norm happens, the news stations cry that the sky is falling.


Cut to three weeks ago, 90 mile an hour winds cut through my area devastating my neighborhood ripping shingles off my roof knocked two trees over in the lot next to my house, and one small tree over in my yard. blew out windows of my neighbors house. And not a peep on the news stations that day....until after it happened.

 

[Malcolm R]

Yeah, the news channels have become especially bad for whipping up weather panic. For the last few days, the headlines on their websites in extra large fonts have been something like:

"35 Million People Threatened by Violent Weather!!!!"

Weather used to be a local phenomenon, not national news.

 

[The Drifter]

I think that with the national/international news available 24/7, the general public's awareness re: natural disasters has obviously increased, but I'm not sure if the natural disasters themselves have actually gotten worse. I.e., I heard in the past 1-2 months numerous people have died in the U.S. due to freezing to death because of the extreme cold. I'm sure this also happened in previous years, but I don't remember hearing about it as much (if at all) - so it's probably just being reported more - nationally, that is.

I know that I myself am more aware of natural disasters/inclement weather patterns now than I was 14-15 years ago. The turning point here was when Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, LA (and the surrounding areas) back in August 2005. This was truly devastating, and we hadn't seen a disaster like this in recent history

That being said, one of the worst natural disasters occurred when a Category 4 storm hit the Corpus Christ, TX coastal area in 1919. It seems that between 600 - 1,000 people died here, making this one of the biggest natural disasters in U.S. (recorded) history:

https://tpwmagazine.com/archive/2004/oct/legend/

And, there was the infamous San Francisco earthquake in 1989, which resulted in a lot of fatalities & a huge amount of property damage as well:

https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/1989-san-francisco-earthquake

 

[Kevin Hewell]

And, there was the infamous San Francisco earthquake in 1989, which resulted in a lot of fatalities & a huge amount of property damage as wel

Which was nothing compared to the 1906 quake.

 

[TJPC]

Toronto news is the worst here. Every storm from flakes to blizzard is a “Snowpocalipse”. If you believed any weather forecast from a TO station, you would not leave the house.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Toronto news is the worst here. Every storm from flakes to blizzard is a “Snowpocalipse”. If you believed any weather forecast from a TO station, you would not leave the house.

And "Weather Statements" galore!