Winter doom warnings are losing their impact
Forget the winter’s coming warnings – winter’s here. It blew up from Antarctica by way of Invercargill. It’s been on the way for some time, since summer in fact, but given the sense of doom with which it’s being reported, you’d think Snowmageddon was coming.
I got on the internet earlier in the week and read the MetService’s severe weather outlook page.
Its forecasters had ‘‘low confidence’’ that ‘‘snow accumulations’’ would reach ‘‘warning criteria above 400 metres in Fiordland, Southland, Otago and South Canterbury’’. In MetService world, low confidence means a one-in-five chance that the event will actually happen. For Canterbury, it was ‘‘moderately confident’’ (two chances in five, so closer to 50-50) of heavy snow above 400m. So that’s Windwhistle (440m), Springfield (390m) and on up into the high-country stations, ski fields and alpine villages like Arthur’s Pass – the kind of country where people don’t freak out if they wake to a half-metre of overnight snow.
Sure, it’s important people who may be impacted by predictable events are warned. But you can be sure that farmers, fisherfolk, publicans with alfresco pubs and others whose livelihoods are at the mercy of weather do not need the general news media for their alerts. The huge rest of us who live in lowland towns and cities, not so much.
It reminds me of some Asian countries where the television stations use the potential threat of typhoons to fill holes in their bulletins, while scaring the bejesus out of viewers. There’s breathless commentary about where the latest storm is expected to make landfall and how much energy it’s carrying – all accompanied by a satellite map showing the track and a superimposed fan of possible future tracks.
In fact, aside from being reasonably certain that the typhoon won’t completely reverse course and head back out into the Pacific Ocean, where the eye will be in 12 hours is anyone’s guess. Informing people of what might happen is, I guess, a reasonable response to pressure to find interesting material for people to watch and read. You don’t have to spend all that time asking witnesses what they saw and reconciling different accounts into a coherent report.
All you need is a reasonably trustworthy person to say something like: ‘‘If things go as we expect, all hell is going to break loose. We’re doomed, doomed I tell you.’’
But like the man holding an obviously well-used ‘‘The End is Coming’’ sign, I do worry a bit about the long-term impact of retailing doom warnings.
Sure, some outlets are reporting ‘‘the worst storm of the year’’, but that’s like reporting that this is the worst Friday of the week, isn’t it?
Make sure you hold your breath for next week’s headline – ’’Winter to stay until September. Jandal sales plummet.’’
I could be wrong in my anti-scare-mongering position and due to the fact that I have to file copy a few days in advance there’s still room for me to look like a dweeb. But maybe this is a fairly normal winter weather pattern and we should stop with the making everyone so afraid; maybe it’s just winter.
If you’re reading this and all that’s happened is it’s been windy and cold and you’ve seen some pictures on the evening news of Dorklanders struggling out of upside down Range Rovers near Turangi, and some high-country farm workers wrapped up in wets – feeding baleage to their stock – you could be forgiven for thinking a little less of those who say their role in society is to bring you the news.