Don't Believe the Weather Channel

A few weeks ago, I heard about an interesting series on the Weather Channel, "It Could Happen Tomorrow". It shows what would happen if certain maximal disasters were to occur and, according to the Weather Channel, airs at 9:30 pm EDT on Sundays. So far, we have been treated to a category 3 hurricane in New York City, an F5 tornado in Dallas, Texas, and an eruption of Mount Rainier in Washington State. Their ads and prevideos say that future episodes will include a catastrophic West Coast tsunami caused by an offshore earthquake, an R8 earthquake in Memphis, an R9 earthquake in San Francisco, and a massive wildfire in the Southwest. But are we going to get to hear these?

I saw the first episode OK, a major hurricane in New York City, on January 15 and the second one on January 22 on the F5 tornado. The next week, however, I missed the showing of the Mt. Rainier eruption that was to be their third episode. So I wondered when it would be rerun. If I was to find this out, I would need a schedule for this program. But I could not find a schedule anywhere. The local newspaper (Richmond Times-Dispatch) TV listings did not show the Weather Channel, there was no onscreen schedule of the Weather Channel, and I could find absolutely nowhere on the Web where the schedule was. I found a schedule there, but I had to go to Google to find it - there was no link there from the main weather page at www.weather.com . This page had only a generic schedule, and did not list any "It Could Happen Tomorrow" show. So I emailed the Weather Channel asking if it would be rerun, and got a reply from Chris Hoitsma saying it would be at Friday, February 3, at 9:30 pm. Sure enough, I saw it then.

Then I missed the program on February 5 (the video ad of the show shows this as being the tsunami). So I listened for it on February 9, hoping to get the tsunami, and instead I got a rerun of the New York City earthquake. On February 12, I listened for their Sunday showing at 9:30 pm. But they did not show any episode of "It Could Happen Tomorrow". Instead, they showed their usual weather forecast. I emailed Chris Hoitsma about this but got no response. On February 17, a Friday, I tried listening for the tsunami but got the Dallas tornado again. Then tonight I listened for it. At 9:15 pm they said that the show tonight would be the Dallas tornado. Not again. How many times were they going to show this? But what happened when 9:30 came around? No, not the F5 tornado. They reran the Mt Rainier episode again!

At this point I don't trust the Weather Channel at all. They play games with the schedule and don't publish anywhere when they are going to show their episodes. This makes me doubt even the weather forecasts that the Channel show. Indeed, I have seen many wrong forecasts on their web site. But all I am asking is that they be consistent. They need to publish a schedule and adhere to it. In the meantime, go ahead and watch the Weather Channel. But be aware that you will encounter continual frustration if you do.