Eyes on the Skies

Deep inside all of us, there is a little kid who remembers the excitement of a coming snow day.

As Wednesday night faded into Thursday morning and as we started hearing the updated weather forecast for East Tennessee, I think that little kid in all of us started to tap into those memories of by-gone days.

Finally, around mid-afternoon, the sleet and rain turned to snow and, if you were in the downtown area, it didn’t take long until sidewalks, flower beds and the grass was covered. The streets began to slush-up at that point, schools were turning out early and folks were beginning to make their way home a bit early.

After a week of gloomy weather and lots of rain, I think the prospect of a ‘wintery mix’ was uplifting to us all (not to mention profitable for area grocers) even if it did mean potentially treacherous driving conditions for the evening commute and snow-capped cars when we began to make that commute.

We seemed to get many more snow storms when we were kids so I guess we’re charmed by the novelty of the event. I mentioned some of my childhood snow memories to you before.

I remember one time that I did NOT mention earlier. I was sitting at the kitchen table on a week night. I was using my dad’s Texas Instruments calculator and struggling my way through seventh grade math. For some reason, we were listening to the radio.

There – on the airwaves and out of the darkness – I got my reprieve from math homework. School was called off the next day.

Another incident I remember from back in the day was the time I went to basketball practice even though school was out. It was such a hard freeze during that snowstorm that my dad had to use warm water to melt the ice that had frozen his car shut.

It strikes me odd, looking back, that we were allowed to practice ball even though school was not in session. That wouldn’t happen now.

Later, when I got into my P.R. career, as Director and Marketing for Roane State, I was often the designated person to call a bunch of media to let them know we were closing because of snow. As recently as six or seven years ago, we had a number of snow events that necessitated such a call.

If I suspected we might get a cancellation call, I’d sleep with the phone near-by. Often, I’d get a call around 5 a.m. or so to let me know we were going to cancel. Then, it was my job to alert the media. Other members of my team called local radio stations but I made the calls for t.v.

Before the stations automated their calls, I’d speak to some morning show producer. I’m sure I was about the 50th call he or she had taken. I’d say my line: “Roane State is closed today because of snow.” And then, before the station would log that info, I had to give them my password. You can imagine the reason for a password.

Of course, it’s hard to maintain professional dignity when you are saying a word like ‘snow bunny’ or ‘bobsled.’ It was much better, later, when you just punched in the information from your telephone touchtone with a organizational code and a password.

These days, I’m not making those kinds of calls but, like the rest of us, I keep an eye on the skies. (I’m not sure about this modern trend from The Weather Channel of naming winter storms, though. Does that really add anything? Iago? No, in East Tennessee, we didn’t have anyone with a name…just snow and sleet after rain!).

As with today’s event, forecasting the weather in East Tennessee can be a chore – especially in the winter. We started getting sleet downtown around 10 a.m. The forecasted icy stuff wasn’t supposed to come until 4 p.m.

You know how it is. Everyone talks about the weather. By mid-morning, I had five or six people ask me “Do you think it’s going to snow?’ What can I say? Hope so!

I’m sure the local meteorologists get that question 10-fold. The difference is, the stakes are higher for them.

As for today, they nailed it. Despite the challenges of our region and the rapidly changing conditions, they called it. The forecast of 2-4 inches was right on. Some places a little more; in our part of town a little less. But, snow for everyone.

Snow outside and a nice warm family night inside.

JG

(Source: weather.com)

Originally posted 1/17/2013