-
Abandoned vehicles litter Mclean, Virginia - Source: Reuters
Death Storm! How Amping Up the Weather Helps, and Hinders.
As I write, much of the Mid-West of the US is being buried beneath a vast travelling airborne snow-drift . Forecasters started predicting it yesterday. The dimensions are enormous. As many as one hundred million people are likely to be effected. Chicago may get 51 centimetres of snow in two days. They're already hunkered down on Oklahoma City. Etc, etc.
In New York, where I live, the piles of snow from last week's storm still line 106th Street, and other thoroughfares. Puddles on the corners are widening. Ice and rain are forecast. Somehow it feels like we're missing out.
But we're trying. Just hours ago, a cable channel based here labelled the approaching blizzard, a 'Death Storm'. Why, I don't know. I'm not aware of any deaths as yet. In fact Agriculture Online says that even cattle aren't perishing in significant numbers during the winter blast. Apparently if our bovine and ovine friends stay dry, the cold doesn't affect them so much.
How can you have a 'Death Storm' without corpses? One could argue it's likely that at least one death may occur. Note the conditional 'may'. It's a weasel word to beware of when scrutinising weather predictions.
But the phrase is in keeping with - may I call it a peculiarly American urge - the desire to inject drama into bad weather. Consider 'Snowmageddon' - my favourite description of the brutal snow-strewn winter that the US is currently enduring.
Snowmageddon sounds stupendous, but crumples on examination. Armageddon is supposed to be the site of an epic end-times battle between the forces of good and evil, as predicted by the Abrahamic faiths. That suggests two groups in conflict, rather than snow vs. humans.
And given that it's an End-Of-The-World-As We-Know-It-type battle, there can be only one Snowmageddon. In fact the word Snowmageddon has been attributed to President Obama after heavy snow fell in Washington in 2010. That's right, last year. And he probably pinched it from someone.
Equally florid, dated descriptions include 'Snowzilla" and 'Snowpocalypse'.
Some in newsrooms (generally older practitioners) dismiss such phrases out of hand. 'Weather Bomb' in particular throws them into a pedantic paddy. They're right. Can weather really be a bomb? Bombs are man-made with the intent of detonating and wounding humans. Weather is simply a collection of climatic conditions that may or may not affect us, depending on what precautions we take.
Yet as bad as it is for the language, over-dramatising weather can have a salutary effect on people. It can scare them. They turn the heating up. They keep off the roads. They eat large quantities of fatty foods. They survive.
Trouble brews when Snowmageddon fails to have the desire effect. With repeated use, novelty-value diminishes. Then it disappears.
The real Snowmageddon will have the same outcome as a boy crying 'Wolf' once too often. And it will produce an actual Death Storm.
Read more Tim Wilson opinion .
World News Video
-
Dangerous rush to Everest summit (1:59)
-
Dozens killed in Syrian massacre (2:09)
-
'King of Romance' competes in Eurovision (1:46)
