No, really, they must have been on crack when they came up with this one. I have no other explanation that works.
First a primer. What is “Space Weather”? Wikipedia (agreed not the best source but humor me, at least they understand the basics) says that it is:
Space weather is the concept of changing environmental conditions in near-Earth space or the space from the Sun’s atmosphere to the Earth’s atmosphere. It is distinct from the concept of weather within the Earth’s planetary atmosphere (troposphere and stratosphere).
You can see what that’s all about at NASA’s spaceweather.com
Note the “distinct from the concept of weather”.
Now, try to wrap your mind around that and this image below and figure out how they managed to get space weather to burn down the Empire State Building.
Yes that’s right, Space Weather. They ask the question “Ever thought about what would happen if Earth’s temperature reached 900 degrees like on Venus? Chances are it won’t be a good day! Buildings are reduced to dust in moments! Watch Deadliest Space Weather only on The Weather Channel, Thursdays at 9”
When I first saw this, I thought to myself “this has to be some sort of spoof“. Sadly, no. Here it is on TWC’s website:
But wait, there’s more! Space Weather causes acid rain and two-eyed cyclones too!
The descriptions:
– A bad day on Earth is nothing compared to a day on Venus! Winds create a massive cyclone with two eyes and rain that turns life forms into a pillar of carbon! Find out more on Deadliest Space Weather, only on The Weather Channel, Thursdays at 9pm!
– Imagine acid rain that can eat through solid steel! This isn’t the plot of a Hollywood disaster movie, it’s weather happening now in our solar system! See more extreme weather on Deadliest Space Weather, Thursdays at 9 on The Weather Channel!
Do they even hire science or meteorology majors at TWC anymore?
I’m just stunned. This has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.
UPDATE:
John Coleman says in comments:
As founder of The Weather Channel I am deeply saddened by what has become of my life’s work. I poured everything I had at the prime of my life into creating a basic channel that was focused on a mission to provide accurate and complete weather information for their location and the rest of our nation within a few minutes to everyone who tuned in. As televsion whiz kids have replaced adults and dedicated meteorologists the channel has been reduced to a hodge podge of silliness. Nothing against the many fine people who work there. But, a curse upon their leaders.
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A “Cracked” pot won’t hold water. But on the Weather Channel, who knows????
Y’all realize that when you have weather anywhere its gonna establish a climate and, wherever you have a climate you’re gonna have ‘climate change’ and, when you have ‘climate change’ you’re going to need a federal program to combat it. Hey, so how about few $billion to combat galactic climate change? We’re already $trillions in debt so who’s gonna care?
I seem to remember hansen saying Earth was going to turn into Venus at some point.. and when our sun goes giant, I suppose it will. Of course we could just fry, but as far as we know that has never happened before, what we do know is that we are prone to ice age.. maybe we should stick to what we do know instead of wild flights of imagination. Correct me if Im wrong but wasn’t space weather originally started to monitor the satellite environment?
The Weather Channel, like the rest of the Malthusian MSM, has a death-wish agenda for everyone but the Weather Channel, MSM elite. But there’s too many people who refuse to believe their scare tactics. I think they should name their next American “winter fear-mongering for weather progressives” storm El Stupido, in honor of our leftist fear-mongerers in American academia. Any excuse to keep in fear those un-normal people smart enough to realize the sun rises and sets, the seasons come and go, and that mankind will never be powerful enough to set aside the normal order of God’s creation. Oh, by the way–did you hear that Algore just made $100 mil by selling Current to the bad guys who didn’t even have a chance to invest in the Chicago Climate Exchange with him, Soros, and Barack Hussein? Just askin’
It’s all aimed at playing with people’s subconscious and extreme weather speculation.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/extreme-weather-page/
The Weather Channel should be moved to the Syfy Channel.
Um— wouldn’t this be “Weather On Other Planets”…. or, WOOP! There’s their catchy title… much more hip and edgy than “Space weather”…. yawn… see? Even typing it here is boring.
It will drive a lot of traffic for ratings and thats the bottom line in t.v.
Wait I’ll try.
The remarkable thing about the “hotter than hot” SpaceWeather is that you get it just from mixing air, a tiny bit of CO2 and a little water vapor. As soon as ordinary sunlight hits this devious concoction, a weird thing happens, called positive water vapor feedback or thermal runaway. It can melt steel in seconds and doesn’t go away for 1,000 years! And all of this has been discovered by a weird Swede in 1906, called Svante Arrhenius!
how was that? If Pachauri wants my details, tell him I’ll be back later.
Funny, looks like the weather channel is suffering its own form of Sci Fi Tech Escalation. This is when you get to series 7 of anything and it makes the tech in Series 1 look like pea shooters & sharp sticks in comparison…
Next, what the weather will be like if the Earth gets sucked up by a Black Hole!
“A bad day on Earth is nothing compared to a day on Venus! Winds create a massive cyclone with two eyes and rain that turns life forms into a pillar of carbon!”
They really have missed this one. Look at the picture and you’ll see Venus’ head with eyes, and right underneath, her shoulders. So then what TWC says are twin cyclones must be Venus’ ….
Evidently you have missed their ground breaking series “It Could Happen Tomorrow”.
Not on crack, just cracked.
TWC has become more interested in ratings than in providing real information. As proof, the show mentioned here, Coast Guard ________, Ice Pilots, etc.
Just watch the Weather Channel the next time a hurricane comes our way. Soap operas should be this dramatic and expert at promising impending doom. Reminds me greatly of the old SCTV spoof “Horror Chiller Theater” which promised scary movies by Count Floyd, which always turned out to be duds. The Weather Channel is all about ratings and no one on the set will EVER offer reassuring words- it’s always doom ahead, so stay tuned. TWC could hardly be more transparent
or unethical.
I’ve almost quit watching The Weather Channel as it has largely turned into sensationalist dreck.
I want weather reports on the weather channel. That’s been reduced to an (automated?) scan of a weather map ‘on the 8s’ or something like that. Oh Great, I get to read my own weather map and puzzle it out… How about “Large storm due in a week” or even “snow up to 2 feet likely over the next two weeks in Iowa”. Something you can use.
Instead they have endless shows ABOUT old weather. Feh. Watching someone chasing tornados a decade ago is just not helping me decide if I need to pack a coat and umbrella. Or if I can have a picnic next week. Or should I plant cool or warm things in the garden…
Now they’ve gone even further off the deep end.
And naming all the winter storms? It’s an endless gab fest of kaleidoscopic name changes. There are so many storms in winter that naming them all is just silly. We’ll have 3 or 4 stacked up out to sea headed in one some occasions. “Name of the week”?
So now I mostly just skip it. Hit the computer for weather information. Hit the History Channel if I want endless fantasy stories about improbable events 😉
IMHO, both are examples of a kind of Marketing strategy taught in my MBA Marketing class. We were taught that you do market surveys and look at sales and cut the lowest 10% and add to what’s moving. Fine for a grocery store. Not so fine for a news or information theme channel.
You see the result of this in drug stores that slowly became small grocery stores and just about ANY kind of store that slowly mutates into a clothing store. (Clothes have a higher markup than rope, nuts, bolts, etc. so the local hardware store is slowly turning into a cloths shop as they add more clothes and sell less hardware…) Substituting an algorithm for a theme may boost profits in the short run, but eventually everyone will end up selling clothes and coffee. Then what happens? (Or they all end up showing soap operas and scary movies at 8th grade level… then what…)
Oh Well. Just means there’s a niche for someone else to start a real weather TV channel again.
I’m sorry but I think the graphic of the “Two Eyed Cyclone” is really a self portrait of the producers, a couple of boobs !
The weatherchannel is disgusting, mawkish PCism. Turn it on & invariably someone interviewed is crying…
I’d like to meet their man on the spot on Venus! He must really have an exciting job.
As several others have pointed out, “Space Weather” is defined as the electromagnetic
interaction between Earth’s magnetosphere and the changing interplanetary magnetic
field and energetic particle environment dominated by the Sun. Their title simply
confuses matters.
What their series SHOULD have been called was “Planetary Weather”. Then they
could have done their nice little sensationalist CGI stuff. “Imagine acid rain that would
eat steel”–and convey to people a scientifically correct picture of how marvelously
GENTLE the weather on Earth actually is, compared to other locations in the Solar
system.
John Coleman, you have my sincere sympathy.
I stopped watching The Weather Channel after Heidi Cullen jumped the shark.
James Burke (“Connections” series); a great resource and a good place to ‘jump start’ the historical thinking process (followed up by looking-up the resources he cites) … he can get a bit preachy towards the end of each series, but overall 9-out-of-10 on the rating scale …
For instance, James Burke’s reference to De re metallica “On the Nature of Metals/Minerals” book published in 1556 was a treat to read, and is available translated here:
http://www.farlang.com/gemstones/agricola-metallica/page_001
and
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38015
.
James Burke has had five different series; “Connections”, “Connections 2”, “Connections3” and “The Day The Universe Changed”, all of which were excellent. The fifth, “After the Warming”, was at the very beginning of the AGW hysteria, alas, and suffered accordingly.
The Weather Channel has hired Chris Eliot to do their reporting, apparently:
Sorry, that video was supposed to start a 7:17
This MBA drive for more money will sink them in the end as they pursue the Sears-Kmart management style to ruin. Look for some sweet golden parachutes and buyout provisions to cushion the blow.