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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Actually, the twin cyclones are at Venus’ north pole. They are counter rotating and are apparently permanent features like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Last I heard the investigators had no theories as to how they formed or why they are long lasting.
Here’s a video about the Venus Express mission. They show the twin cyclones at about 9:50.
http://spaceinvideos.esa.int/Videos/2012/05/ESA_Euronews_Unveiling_Venus
Gail Combs says:
January 3, 2013 at 3:55 pm
Anthony, you just made me glad I do not watch TV. Every decade or so I give it a shot. It is about time to try it again but I think I’ll pass for another ten years.
*
Right with you there! I gave up watching television about twenty years ago. First I gave up the daily dose of human misery (the news) and when my mood, attitude and health all swung towards positive, the rest went very quickly. When I do catch a glimpse of it now, the only highlights are some of the adverts, simply because I haven’t seen them before. Overall, TV is too annoying to stay with generally, never mind with this kind of ‘Oh-let’s-all-be-scared-together’ type of “science”.
Now I’m a DVD person. I watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it, and I get news about imprtant things from certain blogs. 🙂
As for this latest craziness of the week… I was about to say, “How many would take it seriously?” Unfortunately, probably quite a few in certain circles.
John Coleman says:
January 3, 2013 at 4:19 pm
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.
===================================================================
This may be small consolation but, what you built was good. You knew what you wanted to do and you did it. You may be saddened by what others have done with it but that doesn’t change what you did when you called the shots. What others have done with what you did with TWC doesn’t have to change you unless you let it.
Those of us who are old enough to remember using it for up-to-date info to help us are grateful.
PS When my son was born and would wake up in the middle of the night there were times when the only thing that would stop him from crying was turning on TWC. If I changed the channel, he’d start crying again. I’d switch back to TWC and he’d calm down. Believe me, I was GRATEFUL! 😎
DSW says:
January 3, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Auto says:
January 3, 2013 at 2:27 pm
Arts majors.
And no sub-editor at all.
I worry about the magma – thousands of degrees –
Al Gore said it is millions of degrees dude – you are way off,… /sarc
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Apologies if I have not assiduously followed the latest prognostications of the Planet’s greatest ever scientist – per Wikipedia (the MOST authoritative Source in the Known Universe – and beyond [Sarc off] -“Although he was an avid reader who fell in love with scientific and mathematical theories,[23] he did not do well in science classes in college, and avoided taking math.)”
Plainly fully qualified to judge statistics, mathmatics, physics, chemistry and so on.
DSW – sorry if I missed this stellar intellect – a brain the size of a planet – and so on . . . . .
John K. Sutherland says:
January 3, 2013 at 3:17 pm
And then there was our Canadian craziness, where one weathercaster earlier this week, told us that Alberta had “23 thousand” hours of sunshine a year. Wow! A simple misreading error I suppose, as there are just over 8,000 hours in a year.<<
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I got a good laugh out of this. I suppose someone thought they could get an arbitrarily large number of hours simply by counting the hour between 12PM and 1PM as 1 hour, and then the hour between 12:01 and 1:01 as another, and 12:02 to 1:02…
How much sunshine do you want?
The Rothschild family is involved in weather modification, which means that they also need to control weather forecasts. In order to accomplish this, they have recently acquired a 70% interest in Weather Central, LP. With the necessary modeling and lovely graphics they will provides for the constant visual conditioning that makes the population more likely to accept the spraying and manipulation of our weather as “normal”. In other words, there is no point relying on “The Weather Channel” anymore. By the way, Congress has approved obscene amounts of our tax dollars for these aerosol programs. For more info check http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/
How insulting. Tends to make me desire to scream and move into the mountains in which my kid can wander on real logs.