Weather Weary

Last Monday (December 5, 2005), the company phone rang at 5:36 a.m. (We handle day and overnight bus tours, among various trips, including cruises.) The caller was group leader for a casino bus trip departing at 11:30 a.m. She wanted to cancel the trip. In recent days, the TV weather forecasters were predicting the winter’s first major storm. Her trip did not leave Philadelphia until 11:30 a.m., but presumably people already were calling her regarding the ominous warnings. She said she had heard it already was snowing heavily in Atlantic City (the report was untrue). She agreed to wait until 9:00 a.m. when a final decision to cancel could be made. And at that time, she canceled the trip.

Another Atlantic City trip that morning, from a Philadelphia suburb, did proceed. Its group leader said he was not overly-concerned by the forecast, but he asked that the departure from the casino be moved up one hour (in other words, he wanted to leave Atlantic City at 6:00 p.m. instead of 7:00). The casino agreed. The rest of this particular part of the story is that the trip proceeded without incident.

But that first trip was postponed until mid-January.

The main cause of the above developments was not the weather. It was the weather foretellers. The TV weather guys. During the past decade, they have succeeded in scaring the hell out of many people, and the damage likely has amounted to millions of dollars. And yet nobody will be able to develop an appropriate money loss total, and nobody at the TV stations cares.

So many times, the forecast has been ominous; the eventual result: not nearly as severe. This is not a direct slap at meteorologists. They are more accurate than the TV weather prognosticators (some of whom also are meteorologists). Weather reporting on the TV newscasts seems to involve personnel who relish dwelling on the most severe possibilities. And the viewing public has been sold a bill of goods. The obvious theory here is that the TV weathercasters want to boost the ratings.

And it all comes at a considerable cost.

In my business, a postponement or cancellation always costs money. If it is a postponement, the bus driver (based on the rugged rules of being a charter/tour motorcoach operator) loses a day’s pay. It is the rub of the green. The purpose of the trip may not be replaceable. If you are going to New York to see the Rockettes in the “Christmas Spectacular” at Radio City Music Hall, you are out of luck. Only once in its 75 years has the weather resulted in a show cancellation.

In extraordinary cases, Radio City would seek to offer another show date, but because the Rockettes and their annual show are so popular (they do about 200 performances at Christmastime), it may be impossible to provide a makegood.

If you cannot “make good” on the trip, you have to open your wallet, one way or another.

Yes, there are times when the storm is severe enough to cause a group to cancel. But these situations are in the minority. Even so, because of the scare tactics on the TV weather reports during newscasts, the public has become panic-stricken. Surely there are times when passengers cannot get out of their driveways to get to the trip pickup point, but in a majority of situations, the people are just too scared to venture out. And the snow may be an inch, or such as last Monday, less. When the forecast is updated by weather events, the people do not listen; they go by the prior scare and stay home.

In other words, the “storm of the century” mentality has become so rampant, people are quick to cancel. Last winter, one major storm did shut down trips for a few days, causing one group leader to cancel his trip scheduled nearly one week after the snowstorm.  By the time of the trip day, the church parking lot had been completely cleared, and of course the streets and highways were open. But the people canceled, anyway.

There is some justification for being scared to death, but it is completely overblown. And the implications of the TV weather reports affect many industries, not just the bus business. It seems that practically everybody anticipates coming disastrous results if you don’t stay home.

John Bolaris, former weathercaster at Channel 10, Philadelphia, probably will be for years ahead the most infamous TV weather scarer. A couple of years ago, he was so convinced a major storm was poised to strike Philadelphia some days later, he succeeded in convincing his station to allow him to announce during the evening entertainment fare (before the 11 o’clock news) that he would have a report on “the storm of the century” at 11 o’clock.

This prompted other stations to provide similar ominous forecasts, and people were canceling things all over the place.

Isn’t it time to stop this stuff ??