Aaron,

I'm a bit of a latecomer to this thread, but please let me add my $0.02 to the throng and tell you how refreshing it is to here someone on the "other" side of the fence talk frankly about how the rest of us have perceived weather coverage in this area for years.

As a child, I grew up fearing weather because of certain hysterical meterological loons in this market, whom I shan't name, but it did compel me to learn more about the weather as I got older. It was that minor and minimal education about the weather dynamics in Oklahoma that taught me basically to turn off local weather unless truly serious events were unfolding.

I am by no means any kind of meteorologist, just one who has learned a few "layman's" elements about interpreting and understanding the weather. I miss those days when we could get good "technical" weather information, and think about those times before local news was turned over to the consultants who were paid by each instance of "giggling anchor interplay." If local news folks want to believe it's just Internet and cable that have killed local news, that's fine, but they're delusional. People would have been looking there in the first place had the powers that be not flushed local news into the toilet and continued to provide the kind of information people wanted. Sigh.

The other thing that infuriates me is that it seems all the public consumption meteorologists are falling hook line and sinker for this Global Warming garbage, and that perhaps is the most sickening scam I've ever come across. Did you get pressured to push that crap on the public in the form of "weather fact?" I admire folks like William Gray (long-time hurricane forecaster/expert) for calling out those in the meterological world for pushing that junk...

Power to ya, Aaron.

-SoonerDave