Your Severe Weather Team 11 in HD Winter-Weather Forecast!
Summary: The highly puffed, perfunctory, seasonal weather-guessing segment. Reporter: Julie Bologna, Scott Harbaugh on WPXI Channel 11 Airtime: 3 minutes, 53 seconds on Nov. 3 Visuals: * Computer-generated snow flurries behind Bologna and her weather charts. Highlights: * When anchor David Johnson ponders, "Remember last February, which proved to be the snowiest month of the winter? ... Are we in store for an even snowier winter this year? Most areas have already experienced the first snowfall, but it looks like a lot more is on the way this winter." * When anchor Peggy Finnegan spews these deep thoughts: "Mmm ..." * When Bologna boasts, "Well, I've been crunching the numbers and looking at the computer models. ... [N]ow, the mean temperature in November, which is when you take the high and the low, you add them together and divide by two, and you do that for every day of the month." Then as, she does a month-by-month breakdown from November through April of her mean-temperature predictions, she says, "Now, if you were to take all of these numbers, and add them together, divide by six -- this gives you a general, rough idea of what the overall mean temperature would be." Whoa, whoa, whoa, Julie! You get paid to do the math. * When Bologna warns, "I think you may wanna get those shovels ready, because I'm forecasting above-average numbers. ... We get most of our snowfall in January, historically, about 12.3, I'm forecasting above that." * When Bologna throws more numbers at us faster than a hurtling snowball: "So, you add 'em up, average number, in inches, 40.2, I'm forecasting above that -- at 51.8. ... Of course, it wouldn't be a winter-weather forecast unless we find out about the possibility of a white Christmas." * When Harbaugh takes over: "[H]onestly, most of the area usually doesn't get a white Christmas. Only 20 percent of the time in the Pittsburgh area is there at least 1 inch of snow on the ground during Christmas day. ... [T]he question for a lot of folks is, 'Will we have a white Christmas?' ... I say YES!" * When Bologna comforts us, "But of course, no matter what Mother Nature brings us, I'll be here to get you through the storm safely and calmly." What We Learned: So basically, WPXI is forecasting that it's going to be winter. Unanswered Question: Why doesn't Julie tell us why we really need the shovels here? News Value: 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Isn't it great to know Julie's going to be there for us when we're driving on a sheet of ice, ready to shit our pants as we plow head-on into a telephone pole on a brick street in Brookline?
