The following quotations are from memory. Weather reporters names may have been changed to protect their exhaustion-induced silliness and my lack of remembering. But I can definitely assure you that I have captured the essence of last night's continuous severe storm coverage.
- If you are in the path of the circular rotation, you should get away from any windows. Then you'll be in good shape. (pause) Well, better shape.
- We are seeing possible circular rotation. This doesn't mean that a tornado has touched down or will. Although we have had some unconfirmed reports of funnel clouds. But if a tornado does form and touch down, you will have very little time to seek shelter. The best place to seek shelter is in a central room without windows. Closets. Bathrooms are often the best places to go.
- Can we get any reports of what is happening out there? Amateur radio operators? Anyone out there? (Dude, didn't you just tell us to seek cover? Now, you want us chasing the storm and sending you video footage from our cell phones?)
- Bob, are you there? Hello? We'll try to get back to him later... Bob, you are now located in an area under a blue diamond on our radar map. The blue diamond signifies hail. Are you seeing any hail? No? Still no hail?
- (with great admiration) This storm has amazing stamina and power. It's well-organized. It's quite a storm. (Dude, who are you rooting for here? The viewers or the storm? Show a little hope and give some encouragement to us underdogs.)
- Cedar Park, you are now out from under the storm. But don't forget that there are two more severe storms approaching from the west. Please stay with our continuous coverage.
- We want to reassure you that Boston Legal will be rebroadcast in its entirety tomorrow night at 10:00 pm. (I guess Supernanny doesn't rate showing again. I mean, they showed the first 10 minutes. We know how it'll end: happy family, good kids.)
- We will now return you to Nightline, already in progress. But we will interrupt with weather updates as necessary.
- We are interrupting for an update, but I promise this one will only be 60 seconds. Promise.
- If you've been watching our continuous coverage, you have probably earned a degree in Meteorology by now.
If only we had recorded the special report, so we could show screenshots of the blue diamonds (hail), red circles with arrows (possible tornadoes), white dashes (lightning strikes), and colorful storm bands in red, pink, and green. Oh, and the impressive drawings on the map: areas circled and x-ed out and all those fun arrows.
And the cool viewer photos of hail the size of baseballs and golf balls and quarters and other forms of large currency (which Ronak suspected was being created in the back room of the weather room to keep coverage interesting and competitive. "I'm working on the volleyball-sized hail now, Bob.").
Maybe next time.
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