THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996 TAG: 9604120026
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Russell Baker
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Doctor, help me. I am hooked on the Weather Channel. First thing in the morning, still gummy-eyed with sleep, downstairs I race, headed for the TV. Do I tune to Bryant, Charlie, Harry as in days of old?
No more. My need for a morning fix of the Weather Channel is too overpowering. What lucky piece of America has a magnificent dome of high pressure located over it this morning, bringing glorious weather for hundreds of miles around?
What about that surly mass of low pressure that was threatening Iowa with snow when I went to bed last night? Have upper-atmosphere wind currents steered it down to Kentucky? If so, what does it mean for the morning commute in Louisville?
What's the traveler's forecast for Houston, San Francisco, Chicago and other major American cities?
And then, at 42 minutes after the hour - what joy! The international weather picture. Yes, 42 minutes after every hour the Weather Channel brings me up to date on the isobar scene in such weather-rich places as France, Moscow, Azerbaijan.
You can count on it. ``Certain as clockwork,'' I would have said in the old days. Now what I say is ``certain as the fact that wind blows counter-clockwise around a low-pressure area.'' Forty-two minutes after every hour, people planning long over-water trips can get the weather from Morocco, Bulgaria, Israel.
Sure I know the likelihood of my going soon to any of these places is nil. This misses the whole point of the Weather Channel's international weather forecast. The point is, if I do fly to Azerbaijan some day, thanks to the Weather Channel, it'll be a snap finding out whether I'd better take a raincoat.
Let me tell you, Doctor, how the Weather Channel has taken over my life. In the old days, at lunchtime I used to bolt from my workbench and dash to the house to watch ``All My Children.'' I was desperate to know whom Erica would marry next and whether that rat Adam Chandler would ever get the thrashing of his life, which he so richly deserved.
That was then, Doctor. Now is now and you can take Erica and Adam and put them in the path of those great funnel-cloud sightings in Texas for all I care, because my heart belongs to the weather. Channel, that is.
Some days when there's unusually exciting weather somewhere, I stay riveted to the TV. Winter-storm warnings, for instance, were really gripping this year.
During one winter-storm warning the Weather Channel sent one of its men to Albany with orders to stand right there in the path of the oncoming winter storm.
Yes, he said, the winter storm had brought snow to Albany, and I believed him because I could see the snow piling up around his hips, could see that he was the last person still out of doors in all of Albany.
In the old days the Weather Channel didn't provide on-the-scene coverage like that. It was chintzier than the network news industry about having correspondents at the scene of the story.
You can sense that the Weather Channel has ambitious plans for fuller coverage: on-the-scene weathermen melting away to little puddles while covering a Washington August heat wave, standing under the tallest tree in Texas while a dangerous thunderstorm warning is in effect, broadcasting from a washed-away bridge during one of the century's worst floods.
It's not just the most thrilling weather moments that bind me to the TV, though. I am hooked on little details, like the way the jet stream plunges deep into the South, bringing bone-chilling blasts of Arctic air.
That jet stream with its eccentric plunges spewing bone-chilling Arctic air might restore the Ice Age all the way from Saskatoon to Daytona Beach one of these days. If that happens I'll know why, thanks to the education I've received from the Weather Channel.
Excuse me, Doctor, I've just got to check on that low-pressure area pumping moisture-laden ocean air back over New England from the Northeast. Could have a good old Nor'easter-type gale up there. Could cause plenty of beach erosion. MEMO: Mr. Baker's column is distributed by the New York Times Syndicate, 122
E. 42nd St., New York, N.Y. 10168. by CNB