The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf' or The National Weather Service

Edouard hit Galveston to much fanfare – for a thunderstorm. Usually these aren't named, but if they form over a body of water, then they can be. Especially if the Weather Service needs to glorify itself.

Because there is a television station that spends all day, every day telling us about the weather, it must be glorified. Instead of just having weather like we always had before, now we have Weather. Important. Rain. Snow. Sleet. Hail. And everything gets a Severe Weather Warning.

I get severe weather warnings if it is sunny and hot. I watched all winter when northern states were issued severe weather warnings when it was cold. Hot and cold are problems, but they aren't severe. They might be if you are caught outdoors without access to shelter. But that means every day is full of severe weather.

Yes, according to the National Weather Service, that would be just about right. Everything is a crisis. Everything needs our immediate attention. And funding. Money is important. Weather is important. Weather has its own television station, so it must be Very Important.

This was supposed to be a huge hurricane year because of the global warming caused by mankind's use of fossil fuels and cows farting. Just because there have been Ice Ages and glacial retreats since before mankind came down out of the trees is no reason to believe that there is a cyclical weather pattern that has increases and decreases in temperature.

And we, as a race of selfish, piggy beings with the world revolving around us, must be the cause. We are behaving like five year olds who believe their parents' divorce is somehow their fault. The world is huge and we can abuse natural resources. But even nasty, grubby humans can't change the weather on Mars, who's temperature is also rising.

Anyway, back to the Weather Service. In order to appear important, they issue warning for heat, cold, rain, rain elsewhere, fog, and any other reason they can think of. Then, when something really bad happens, people don't listen. Katrina was just one more storm with the Weather Service up in arms yet again. Ho hum.

But that time it was real. After screaming "Wolf!" over and over and again and again, it isn't really any wonder people don't listen. Since Ed, the Storm, blew in with sustained winds that are lower than some of our afternoon showers here, we can assume there have been five named storms so far this year. On the Atlantic side. Storms big enough and bad enough to rate a name. And so far, they have been pretty much a bunch of nothings.

This year, there is an added feature on the National Weather Service's Hurricane Watch page. They are putting little yellow or orange circles on the map about areas that are pre-storm or forming storms. But you have to look quickly because these forming storms peter out into nothingness. Just one more way to keep poking at us.

There are storms out there, but not daily. Even though the TV needs to have something to say for the 24 hours per day they are on the air. And there is really very little to say about the weather. Unless there is something devastating. A tornado blowing through, a hurricane with real hurricane-force winds, tsunamis, hail the size of baseballs.

But the weather isn't all that co-operative. Meteorology isn't that exact. And so the weather folks don't keep saying maybe and perhaps a storm will hit. It might not and it could well be mild. That doesn't sell airtime. Nope. There are Storms approaching and You should Beware – and listen to the Weather Channel. Because you know, we have weather every single day.