Enjoy The Semi-Heatwave: Vermont/Eastern U.S. Still In For Brutal Weekend Arctic Blast

Satellite photo from early this afternoon shows a little 
open water on Lake Champlain still. It might freeze
over tonight with calm winds and lows near 0. If not
the next, far more brutal cold wave over the weekend
and Monday should do it. 

Editor's Note: I'm recovering from yesterday's' eye surgery, which went well, so I might be posting at odd times or not as frequently as usual for awhile yet. We apologize for the inconvenience. 

Wow, we almost got up to normal in Vermont temperatures in Burlington yesterday. The average temperature was 20 degrees, which was just half a degree below normal. We haven't had a warmer than average day since January 23. 

As of today, we've had 15 consecutive days in Burlington that never got above freezing. That's nowhere near our longest stretch on record, which was 51 days from December 22, 1976 to February 11 1977,

We're not even that close to getting into the top 10 list for consecutive subfreezing days which is 29 days, set on four different occasions must recently from January 5 to February 3, 2004.

Even so, we've got quite a few days to go without any thawing, and there will be a brutal Arctic blast thrown in for good measure. 

Today, as you have been able to tell, is nice. It's been in the 20s this afternoon, the sun is out, who can complain? 

Satellite photos this afternoon still show a fairly large area of open water right in the middle of Lake Champlain but it still could freeze overnight. Ice forms best on the lake when it's at least near or a little below zero and there's calm winds. Wind would push the ice around and break it up. We're expecting exactly those conditions tonight. 

We'll find out tomorrow whether the lake actually freezes or not. Friday will be another nice day with a fair amount of sun and temperatures getting back into the low and mid 20s. Still vaguely cooler than average for this time of year, but not bad. 

BUT THEN........

Our long-advertised brutal Arctic cold front will bring one to three inches of light, fluffy snow, with a bit more in the mountains and maybe the far northern Champlain Valley late Friday night and Saturday morning. But that's not what we're worried about.

The air we're getting is coming is a straight shot from Siberia. It went up and over the North Pole and is blasting its way toward us in New England. Aren't we lucky?   

The big temperature crash is coming a few hours later than we saw in earlier forecasts. Instead of hitting on Friday evening, the real plunge in temperatures won't come until a little before dawn on Saturday. High for the day will be in the teens in the hours just after midnight, so we won't have a rare day in which the high is below zero.

But don't you worry if you want an unbearably cold Saturday, we got ya! By mid to late morning Saturday and continuing through the afternoon, the temperature will head toward subzero readings.  

Winds will gust past 30 mph. On top of the dangerously cold air out there, the fluffy snow that is on the ground now and is coming will blow around a lot. 

Yuck! This might well be the cruelest cold we've had our winter.

Already, an extreme cold watch is in effect for wind chills as low as 35 below zero from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon.  Extreme cold watches, along with winter weather and high wind alerts cover most of the northeastern United States as we all gear up for a rough weekend. 

Parts of North Carolina had a little more snow last night, so they are once again dealing with icy patches there.

It's still unseasonably cold in Florida, and a freeze warning is up again for the northern part of the state tonight. However, most fortunately for them, the intense cold wave that's hitting the Northeast this weekend will not hit Florida much. No hard freezes are likely in Florida after tonight. 

Back here in Vermont, the wind will die down slightly Saturday night to 10 to 20 mph hour, but the temperature will keep going down as well. By dawn, it will be in the upper single numbers to mid-teens below zero.

Sunday  I supposed will be better, but that's not saying much. The wind should gradually get lighter. The sun will probably drive afternoon temperatures into the single digits above zero for a few hours.   But it will be right back down well below zero Sunday night and Monday morning 

The AWESOME news is this might be the last horrible Arctic spell for awhile. The weather pattern is changing just enough so that new blasts of Arctic air won't be nearly as intense next week and beyond. 

That's not to say that this will be the last subzero cold of the winter. It can get below zero well into mid-March. But we are probably in for at least a semi-break.

It'll still be cold Monday and to a lesser extent Tuesday, with subzero mornings both days. But the second half of the week will at least be closer to normal. 

We don't have a lot of details on the second half of next week because the computer models are all over the place on that one.  Which means we also don't know when the next snow will come after whatever falls Friday night and Saturday. We'll probably have nothing until at least next Wednesday.  

Greenhouse Gas Emissions In The United States Increased In 2025, Dropped In China,

It looks like this guy will ensure coal and oil use 
continue to spew more and more greenhouse gas
emissions into the atmosphere, but at least it looks
like China and India are trying 
to reign in fossil fuel use. 

 Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States went up by 2.4% in 2025, reversing two previous years of decreases, according to a BBC report.  

Part of the reason for the increase was just bad weather luck. January, 2025 was colder than most other recent winters. Homes burned more gas for heating than usual, while coal use rose by 13% to meet rising electricity demands. 

Data centers driven by soaring use of AI, and a raging cryptocurrency fad or industry (depending upon how how you look at it) were a big driver of the greenhouse gas emissions. 

We rightly blame Donald Trump for a bunch of new or looming environmental ills because of his militantly pro oil and coal stance. 

However the damage from Trump was probably minimal in 2025.  It'll almost surely increase starting this year. 

At least China and India seem to be counteracting the U.S. and preventing an enormous boom in emissions. Electricity generated by coal declined in India by 3%. China's coal generation was down 1.6 percent from the previous year. It's the first time since 1973 that coal-based electricity generation fell simultaneously in both countries.

 "The fall in 2025 is a sign of things to come, as both countries added a record amount of new clean-power generation last year, which was more than sufficient to meet rising demand," according to Carbon Brief, which did the analysis on India and China's greenhouse gas emissions. 

It's possible both countries are reaching a historic peak in coal use. Climatologists and other scientists are hoping from now, coal use in China and India continue to decline. 

China managed to reduce coal consumption despite electricity demand growing by 5 percent over the year. India's reduction in coal use might have been partly weather related. The extreme heat waves India has experienced in recent years were not quite as severe in 2025. 

Bottom line: We have a mixed future in further diminishing the global dependence on coal and oil. But the United States, once in a leader in the battle against climate change, has turned into the world's worst enemy. 

That seems to be a trend lately.  

A Couple Reasonable Vermont Days, Then Gusty Icebox

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm having emergency eye surgery today. I will be fine, but you'll notice I'm posting infrequently over the next few days. I apologize in advance for being MIA

Another view of frozen Lake Champlain on Monday 
Photo taken at St. Albans Bay. Although parts of the
lake are solidly frozen, other parts still have weak
and thin ice. Be careful out there! 

We in Vermont have a couple more days of reasonable weather before the bottom drops out again and we freeze our tushes off. 

It was nice and toasty Tuesday with highs again mostly in the 20s. Burlington reached a high temperature of 30, so it was the warmest day since January 22. 

By the way, if you're venturing out onto lakes, be careful.  The ice out there  can still be dicey, despite the recent cold weather. That's especially true on Lake Champlain, which still has some open water out in the middle. 

Vermont State Police said five skaters got stranded on Lake Champlain Tuesday near Charlotte when a section of ice they were on broke free and started to float away. 

The skaters were about 675 feet offshore of Charlotte, Vermont. Rescuers used an inflatable boat to cross 200 feet of open water to take the skaters one at a time back to stable ice. From there, the skaters were able to walk to shore. They're fine. 

But, it's a sign we shouldn't go too far out onto Lake Champlain. Let's just say don't walk from Burlington to Plattsburgh or anything stupid like that. 

FORECAST:

We've got just a minor cool down today and tomorrow, but nothing extreme. At least not yet. 

You'll want to be a bit careful driving to work or school this morning, especially in northern Vermont, as some snow showers are passing through.  

So far, the snow didn't look too heavy or particularly widespread on radar before dawn today.  I expect there might be a few slick spots on the roads, though. 

But it will pretty much clear out this afternoon. It'll be cooler than yesterday with highs near 20, which is still not bad for February. A tiny piece of Arctic air will sneak in Thursday night, dropping temperatures to near 0 again before we recover to the low 20s again Friday.

Then we get blasted by a strong cold front Friday night with a burst of snow, maybe amounting to an inch or two. By Saturday morning, temperatures will be in the single numbers and still falling.  Some of the colder places could fall below zero by late morning. 

It's going to be a frigid weekend, with lows below zero through Monday morning at least. Next Tuesday morning could be below zero as well. Those temperatures in single numbers during the day Saturday will repeat themselves Sunday 

Howling north winds will send wind chills far, far below zero, especially on Saturday. Sunday will have some north breezes, too,so the chill will be an issue then. But it probably won't be quite as bad as Saturday.  

The wind might finally die off Sunday night, which would drop our temperatures into the teens below zero in many areas.

One saving grace is that the Arctic cold this weekend won't be quite as intense as some earlier forecasts I saw. Also, the wind might also not be as strong or long-lasting as those earlier forecasts. Even so, it'll be a brutal weekend out there. 

We're hoping temperatures get close to normal again by midweek. And we're still banking on a weather pattern change that would put us up for at least several days after midweek in which temperatures will be near or even a tad above normal. It won't be springtime, but at least it might be tolerable! 

Two Memphis City Councilors, And A Scary Number Of Other People Say Storm Dropped "Man-Made" Snow

The black stuff left on snow then
trying to melt it with a lighter is
just partly combusted material from the
lighter, not some nefarious plot
in the snow. Despite this fact, 
conspiracy theorists falsely
insist there is something "wrong"
with innocent snow and sleet. 

We've just gotten two big snow and ice storms in the southern United States in a little over a week. 

Which you'd think is bad enough. 

Now we have a bunch of people coming out of the woodwork, including two Memphis City Councilors, telling us all that snow and sleet and ice was fake. Man made for some damn reason none of these nutcases are clear about. 

Our city councilors from Memphis are Pearl Walker and Yolanda Cooper Sutton who took to social media to explain to us the storms weren't meteorology. They were apparently.... oh, who knows what.  

 As memphisflyer.com tells us :

"Cooper Sutton posted a video showing who she says is her husband attempting to melt a chunk of ice with a light. 'It's not melting  (it stinks) the you set fire to it OMG, Jesus Christ what is happening!!!"

The video is a slo-mo showing flame licking snow blue no water drips. Cooper Sutton says "This is not melting" she said. "What is falling from the sky hitting the ground?"

Her colleague on the City Council, Walker, responded to Cooper Sutton's post with the words "Man Made"

OK, I'll take off their tin hats and put on my Captain Obvious hat and explain it.. 

I wasn't there for their little science experiment, but I imagine the smell came from the butane lighter they were using.   There's not much water in a handful of snow, so not much water would drip from it. What little was there probably soaked into the tiny air spaces within the piece of snow. There's a lot of air in there, even if it's hard packed snow.  

Anyway, our friendly Memphis councilors got blow back immediately. 

A local activist named Hunter Demster decided to wade into the social media thread with this reasonable comment: "(Disheartening) to see several sitting Memphis City Council members literally pushing conspiracy theories about 'man made' sow," Demster wrote on Facebook. "Sigh......We are screwed as a species."

That just encouraged more people to double down on the conspiracy, and other to deride it. 

Cooper-Sutton later told WREG she meant her social media statements as light-hearted posts shared with family and friends. She went on to say how much she's done for the community and that she was getting death threats for questioning whether the snow was fake.

I'm sure Cooper-Sutton does a lot for Memphis, and anyone who sends out death threats to someone just because they have a very odd false, unscientific is way over the top. Don't do that! Death threats over this are much dumber than thinking the snow was manmade. 

Still, I have a lot of questions for our esteemed city council members.

If that was a manufactured material that resembles snow, who made it? And how did they make so much? Why? If somebody is sending a message by making that stuff, what is the message? Are there any whistleblowers who could help? Documents? Any other kind of proof? If this stuff didn't melt when you brought it in, why is it slowly melting outdoors when the temperature rises above freezing?  

Many people around Memphis said the stuff that fell on the city in late January  felt different to the touch than in most past winter storms. These many people are right. When Memphis does get winter storms, more often than not it's either the powdery snow that blows around, or wet, heavy cement. 

This stuff felt like small, heavy granules. Because they were. Almost everything that came out of the sky during that storm over Memphis was sleet. 

It wasn't just our city councilors. A now-apparently deleted post on the social media site Threads asked "So what chemicals are in that white stuff on the ground that's called SNOW? I have never seen ice or snow that doesn't break or melt in my life. Now if I'm asking a crazy question just let me know."

Well, I wouldn't call the question crazy, but again, it's not chemicals, either. Where this person was probably got a little snow a lot of sleet and a little freezing rain to turn the mess into something I'd call snowcrete.  

Concrete consists of gravel aggregate and a cement-like water slurry that binds it all together. In the case f that big storm, a bunch of sleet became the aggregate and the freezing rain the cement slurry to form the "snowcrete," 

In other words, millions of people experienced was just a big, strange, oddly widespread mixed precipitation storm 

There's also a TON of videos on line of people, like the Memphis City Councilors, putting the flame of a lighter to the snow. It leaves a black mark every time. That wasn't caused by a weird plastic substance in the snow, which the tin hat crowd would have you believe.   It was soot from incomplete combustion of the butane in the lighter. 

This is just little ole me telling the world to relax, there's no conspiracy to create storms of plastic pellets or chemicals to terrorize the public. The only terror was the amount of sleet and freezing rain, composed purely of frozen or freezing water that came out of the sky. Like it does in every winter storm. 

There are so many conspiracy nuts out there, that my little voice won't make a dent in all this. But I have to try anyway.  

After Vermont 26 Degree Monday Heatwave, Below Zero Again This Morning. If You Want Super Arctic Cold, It's Coming

The sun getting ready to set over Lake Champlain, as
seen from St. Albans Bay Monday after a bright, 
bluebird winter day. 

Another round of subzero cold Monday and this morning has very nearly frozen over, despite an afternoon "heat wave" that brought temperatures into the 20s.  

Lake Champlain might have managed one last lake effect snow of the season a couple days ago, on Sunday. 

There was enough open water, combined with just the right atmospheric set up, for a light stripe of snow extending from about Burton Island down to about Bridport. A dusting to up to inches of snow fell in this band.

Time lapse video on  appeared to show a wide area of open water filling in with ice in calm, cold weather Monday morning; 

But it was all just thin scrim of ice that broke into chunks. There was still a fair amount of open water out there.  We'll see what the predawn chill did today on the lake. 

The temperature in Burlington Monday rose to 26 degrees ending a nine day streak where the temperature never got to 20 degrees. That's the longest such stretch of such cold weather since a 12-day stretch of sub-20 degree weather January,  2005. 

Now that we're into February, the sun is starting to get higher in the sky and
stronger. With light winds, yesterday's bluebird skies and sun  felt strangely comfortable out there for a change. 

Nothing lasts forever, though.  Especially anything that feels remotely mild. So, with clear, moonlit skies last night, we were back below zero this morning. 

It still looks like we will make it up into the 20s today, tomorrow and maybe, maybe Thursday and Friday. We also might get a bit of snow tonight  Wednesday, but it shouldn't amount to much. Maybe a dusting in the valleys, o an inch or two in the northern Greens.

Obviously we can't stay balmy forever.  Highs in the 20s is way, way more than we deserve.  (CHECK)

With that, we will get right back into the deep freeze Friday and the weekend. It'll come in Friday night with maybe an inch or two of snow. You will really notice the chill starting Friday night and over the weekend. 

My early guess on the weekend cold is it might be the roughest in the series yet. Current have forecasts have highs in the single numbers and lows in the single numbers and teens below zero. 

That's similar to the depth of the past couple of cold waves. The difference this time will be the wind. This time, gusts are likely to blast at us from the north over the weekend. These won't just be  light, frigid breezes. It'll be a bonafide wind.

The wind chills will make the upcoming cold wave worse and more dangerous than the weather we've seem recently

A WARMER CHANGE?

We might get a little bit of additional relief after this next cold wave passes next week. 

I wrote a few days ago that there might be a change in the weather pattern after mid-month. I am getting more optimistic that we might at least temporarily turn milder later in February.

If NOAA's eight to 14 day outlook is to be believed, the big high pressure over Greenland that forced cold air southward recently is on the move. It looks like it will shift a bit toward northeast Canada while expanding southward a bit. 

That, and a possible slight dip in the jet stream over the western United States would make the jet stream flow more west to east across the United States. Instead of Arctic air coming right at us from northwest Canada, some milder Pacific air would at least occasionally mix into the air over us. 

That's not guaranteed just yet, but it's the best sign of a warmup I've seen yet in this Arctic siege.  By warmup, I don't mean beach weather. It's February. It'll still be chilly most days later in the month.  Just not way below zero cold. 

The new weather pattern would also probably increase the chances of storms with snow or mixed precipitation. It won't be all rainbows and sunshine and puppy dogs and fairy dust. 

 

No Power, More Deaths Sea Tragedy, Cleanup Woes In Wake Of Two Winter Storms

The remains of four houses the collapsed into the sea in
Buxton, Outer Cape, North Carolina over the weekend and
today from the nor'easter that battered the state. 
Image from The Island Free Press/Facebook

 For once, there are no major winter storms hitting the United States today. 

But the two whoppers that slammed the nation over the past two weeks are still having their effects. Sometimes in deadly and dangerous ways. We have some examples as this is still an ongoing story. 

Sadly, the death toll continues to increase. In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves has confirmed 23 deaths in his state associated with the January 25-26 ice storm. In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday morning said that state's death toll had risen to 16. 

As of this morning, nearly 50,000 Mississippi homes and businesses remained without power as of this morning. More than 25,000 customers still had no power in Tennessee.  As of this weekend, pretty much the entire town of Holly Springs, Mississippi was without power, and most roads were too icy to travel on safely. 

In North Carolina, four homes have now collapsed into the waves of the Outer Banks from the snowy, windy nor'easter that hit over the weekend. 

We mentioned here one of those houses collapsed early Sunday morning. But since then, another house went down Sunday night and two more fell in this morning, the Island Free Press reported. 

The storm has departed North Carolina, but the vulnerable homes were weakened by battering waves over the weekend and large swells are still being generated on the Outer Banks from the storm. 

A total of 20 homes in Buxton and Rodanthe, North Carolina have fallen into the ocean since September.

The rest of the Carolinas are cleaning up from the massive snowfall. It was wild that the whole state of North Carolina was blasted. There was a dry spot in the middle of the state that "only" got three to six inches. But the coastline, the southeast corner, the west and mountains all saw reports of at least a foot of snow.

Fresh snow cover meant clear skies and calm winds in North Carolina meant temperatures fell to incredibly low levels this morning. It got as cold as 5 above in the town of Kinston, not far from New Bern. Most places in eastern North Carolina were in the upper single numbers and teens this morning. 

Aside from a small amount of mixed precipitation expected Wednesday night, thawing is expected to set in across the Southeast, which would hopefully melt the snow and ice off the streets by the end of the week.

Elsewhere, amid rough seas off of New England, a 72-foot fishing boat called the Lily Jean sank offshore off Cape Ann, claiming seven lives. One of those who passed away had Vermont connections. Jada Samitt, a recent graduate of the University of Vermont was on board as a fisheries observer from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This tragedy sounds a lot like the famous account of a ship disaster in "The Perfect Storm.'

The Lily Jean was in a 2012 episode of the History Channel show "Nor'Easter Men."

In the Northeast, the cold has been relenting. Rivers, harbors and bays are frozen. Water mains and pipes have been bursting. And hypothermia is killing people. In Pittsburgh, numerous people have been seen on the city's frozen three main rivers, despite the fact that the ice is on top of flowing water. That makes venturing onto the ice especially dangerous.

In New York City alone, 16 people have died outside in the cold, Mayor Zoran Mamdani said. It appears 13 of the deaths were due to the cold and the other three were overdoses. 

New York got one slight bit of relief today as the temperature rose to slightly above freezing for the first time since January 23.  However, a new, intensely cold Arctic blast is set to invade the Northeast at the end of the week and this upcoming weekend.  

How Shady Social Media Influencers Uses Scary, False Weather Forecasts For Profit

A computer forecast issued on January 23 indicated New
England would be blasted by a historic nor'easter
tonight and tomorrow, February 2/3. Obviously this
will not happen and we will have calm weather instead.
But social media weather "influencers" are using
these scary but false long range forecasts to
scare and mislead the public for fun and profit. 

 That stupid groundhog in Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil, supposedly saw his shadow this morning, and that allegedly means six more weeks of winter. 

The whole thing is silly of course. First of all, up here in Vermont, we're going to have six more weeks of winter no matter what any rodent has to say. And we know a groundhog can't forecast the weather. 

Punxsutawney Phil is a fun little tradition, but that's about it. 

Speaking of long range forecasts, the computer models that forecast two weeks or more in advance have become a problem. 

There's nothing really wrong with the computer models. It's actually how social media weather "influencers" use them to frighten the public to enhance clicks and revenue. 

On social media, I've seen so many dark warnings of storms or cold waves of the century  this year already that if I had a penny for each one, I'd be lounging in my expensive tropical island retreat by now. 

Sadly, if you want to make money online, you scare people. Let's lay the whole scam out:

THE COMPUTER MODELS 

This morning's run of the same model has no storm at 
all in New England. Perhaps the January 23 forecast
was sort of picking up on that storm you see in this 
forecast east of Labrador. On line weather
"influencers" use scary, inaccurate long range
forecasters to scare people for clicks and revenue

If you look at these models, like the American or European that meteorologists refer to, you'll see a string of forecast maps that show storms and fronts and whatnot crisscrossing the U.S., or whatever map location you're looking at. These computer forecasts typically forecast for up to two weeks out. 

The forecast maps in these models for the next couple of days are pretty good, but then they get less and less accurate as you get further and further into the future.

The maps for a week or more into the future should be taken with a big grain of salt.  The specifics are always wrong. The long range forecasts can give you a general idea of the trend in the weather,  but the can't handle things like the placement and strength of storms.  

For example, I've been saying lately in this here blog thingy that we'll have generally cold weather until mid-February, then some sort of change might be in the works. I'm being purposefully vague. 

The computer models have been consistently saying the first half of February will be generally chilly. But future nor'easters and cold fronts a week or more beyond the date the forecast is issued appear and disappearlike puffs of snow in a chilly February breeze. 

A classic example:  On January 23, I could have frightened the pants off of you with an American model forecast that showed what practically looked like the worst, biggest nor'easter EVER in New England that would hit tonight and tomorrow (February 2-3)

The next run of the American model a few hours later on January 23 didn't have much of anything in New England. Since then, the computer models have not been forecasting anything particularly scary around here. 

Sure enough, instead of the Storm of the Century tonight, we're going to have basic normal, boring earth February weather.  It'll get down to near 0 degrees tonight with light winds. Tomorrow will be generally sunny and seasonable (highs in the 20s) with light winds. 

So much for most destructive nor'easter in memory. 

 It looks like the computer models on January 23 did manage to sniff out a storm two weeks in advance. But at such a long range, it was way off on location, strength and orientation of the system.  It was probably the nor'easter that hit North Carolina over the weekend. Which is now the nor'easter that tonight will be somewhere east of Labrador, not over New England. 

The long range models sometimes spit out scenarios a week or two down the road that are virtually meteorologically impossible. It's a case of garbage in, garbage out.  They'll predict a storm in the Bahamas that ends up in New York a week later. Or a hurricane that impossibly strengthens over Pennsylvania. The computer models don't have a lot of information to work with in their predictions for something like 10 days from now. So you get off the charts forecasts.

THE HARM

Those boffo, bizarre long range forecasts would just be a source of weird harmless entertainment for strange weather geeks like me. Except now, some of us are putting these horrifying forecasts online for the public to be horrified by. 

Here's an example. North Carolina, and many other areas of the South have had a rough winter so far. North Carolina had a bunch of freezing rain on January 25-26, stopping road travel in parts of the state and cutting power to many. Then, this past weekend, a nor'easter dumped up to 17 inches of snow in eastern parts of the state. That's an area where it's kind of shocking to receive two inches. 

North Carolinians can be forgiven if they desperately want February to turn out to be sunny, warm and pleasant. 

Well, along comes a Facebook account which I won't name that gives us a forecast for insane amounts of snow during the first half of February in North Carolina and elsewhere.  

This forecast has central North Carolina receiving about four and a half feet of snow over the next couple of weeks. Under this scenario, Atlanta, Georgia would receive three feet or so, and snow would once again dust the ground in places like northern Florida and New Orleans. 

The person who posted this wild forecast wrote, "Definitely not my forecast but when fantasy snow keeps showing up there is probably a reason why."

Yeah, the reason was a bad computer run.  This dude needs to just shut up. 

By the way, I've looked up the seven day National Weather Service forecast for Raleigh, North Carolina. Other than a little bit of light rain and perhaps a thin scrim of snow Wednesday and Wednesday night, no stormy weather is in the forecast for at least the next seven days. 

I'm picking on this one particular social media post with the epic North Carolina snow, but there are zillions of them out there. On YouTube, the headline will be "MAJOR STORMS COMING" with AI images of destroyed cities. Then when you click into the video, the narrator finds ways to hype routine weather. 

Not only do these weird, extreme forecasts scare people, it makes the public lose confidence in meteorologists and weather forecasting in general. Maybe this type of scaremongering is feeding the conspiracy theories that somebody is trying to "control the weather" somehow. 

It also encourages the "cry wolf" syndrome. People see so many forecasts of impending doom that turn out to be fabricated. Then, when a bonafide major weather threats finally arrive, people just say, 'Meh, another false alarm. These false alarms can endanger lives.  

My rants on this aren't going to stop the fear forecasts on line. There's too much money, and too few morals involved.  

But the next time you see a forecast that says your community will be destroyed by the Storm Of The Century in two weeks, relax. Take a deep breath. Find a reliable weather source like the National Weather Service or your local television meteorologist, and just take their word for what's going to happen.