I was watching a cool performance by Wyclef Jean and Shakira on the Ellen show, when the news station interrupted it to notify about a Tornado Watch in the area. Now, admittedly, I’m from Nebraska, where tornadoes are somewhat more common - but for a Tornado Watch, displaying a graphic in the corner of the screen will suffice. Why? Because a Tornado Watch means that the weather conditions are ideal for a tornado, not that one is impending. In my experience, there are many more Tornado Watches than actual Tornado Warnings.

This is part of a cycle that I’ve noticed lately of severe weather being sensationalized. Make a big deal about a storm, and if it becomes a big deal, then you get to say that you made the biggest deal about it. But is anyone listening anymore?

Nebraska recently had a series of Tornado Watches that were being hyped by the media. My mom told me about a radio show she was listening to, where the announcer was freaking out about the “severe weather” and taking calls to document where the weather was bad. One listener called in to say, “Uh, yeah… it’s really wet here… and when I close my eyes, it gets really dark.” He was thoroughly rebuked by the radio announcer.

In the wake of recent weather catastrophes, I’m not trying to say that severe weather isn’t a serious issue. But when we start calling every nasty-looking cloud “severe weather,” we create a Cry Wolf mentality that has people joking about it more often than taking it seriously. When we simply have the potential for severe weather, the key is to inform, not to alarm. Yet when you are striving to be the news station informing viewers first / loudest / most, I guess it’s hard not to sound alarmist.