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Or will James Spann simply be taken out back and shot.

And is Spann the only weather guy in town? Why aren't the others getting the blame.

Because we don't watch them.

Every weather forecaster missed this one. Spann is the only one I've seen that has apologized for the miss. Predicting the future is a lot like being a Blazer fan. Sometimes, it's just really hard to do.

Spann called the Blizzard of '93 a week in advance. He is, as a result, the Weather God of Birmingham.

And no, nobody should be shot. Excrement Occurs.

I kept my kids home on Tuesday, thinking it was going to get messy. My kids are bus riders. Their school dismissed at 10:00 am but busses could not take bus riders home. I called the school office and asked if my kids would be counted as unexcused absences for Tuesday. They said yes. Duh! So stupid! The cautious parents, like me, kept their kids home at the cost of "unexcused absences". Oh well.

F 'em. You made a smart call.

(01-29-2014 12:20 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Or will James Spann simply be taken out back and shot.

And is Spann the only weather guy in town? Why aren't the others getting the blame.

James Spann is not the only weather person in town, but don't tell him that!

(01-29-2014 12:33 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  Spann called the Blizzard of '93 a week in advance. He is, as a result, the Weather God of Birmingham.

A week in advance! That gave me a good laugh. You sure it wasn't a month in advance of the superstorm of 1993?

(01-29-2014 12:40 PM)TheGORILLA Wrote:  I kept my kids home on Tuesday, thinking it was going to get messy. My kids are bus riders. Their school dismissed at 10:00 am but busses could not take bus riders home. I called the school office and asked if my kids would be counted as unexcused absences for Tuesday. They said yes. Duh! So stupid! The cautious parents, like me, kept their kids home at the cost of "unexcused absences". Oh well.

Who cares? I'm sure they missed a ton of work in those couple of hours. And couldn't you just tell them your kids were sick?

Actually, my memory is that it was more like ten days to two weeks ahead. I laughed aloud at the idea he could call snow in the 'ham that far out, especially a heavy snow.

I was wrong.

(01-29-2014 12:20 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  Or will James Spann simply be taken out back and shot.

And is Spann the only weather guy in town? Why aren't the others getting the blame.

Somehow I can't help but think this was all your fault MB.

(01-29-2014 01:19 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  Actually, my memory is that it was more like ten days to two weeks ahead. I laughed aloud at the idea he could call snow in the 'ham that far out, especially a heavy snow.

I was wrong.

I believe our definitions of "calling the superstorm of 1993, or the storm of the century" differ. It's all good.

The difference is that James Spann offers quite the personal air of Demi-God style authority in his weather predictions, making it quite surprising to many people when he is wrong.

(01-29-2014 02:21 PM)TPBlaze84 Wrote:  The difference is that James Spann offers quite the personal air of Demi-God style authority in his weather predictions, making it quite surprising to many people when he is wrong.

This.

He can't complain about getting the lion's share of the derision and blame, although of course he doesn't control the weather. However, if he's going to make his money on being the Jesus Christ of Weather and build his personal brand on his weather forecasting, he has to be prepared for this.

(01-29-2014 03:19 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 02:21 PM)TPBlaze84 Wrote:  The difference is that James Spann offers quite the personal air of Demi-God style authority in his weather predictions, making it quite surprising to many people when he is wrong.

This.

He can't complain about getting the lion's share of the derision and blame, although of course he doesn't control the weather. However, if he's going to make his money on being the Jesus Christ of Weather and build his personal brand on his weather forecasting, he has to be prepared for this.

Agreed. I mean, read his first paragraph in his "apology":

Quote:In terms of human impact, yesterday’s forecast “bust” was the most significant for me since Janaury 1982, when we had a timing error of about six hours on the arrival of freezing rain and snow. Instead of starting at 5:00 p.m… it started around 11:00 a.m. People were caught off guard, schools and businesses closed, and the result was traffic gridlock, abandoned cars, separated families, and human suffering. Very much like yesterday, so I have been down this road before. The main difference is that I was a young man of 26 years old in 1982. With the experience and maturity that should come with a long tenure in my position, you would think that kind of error would not happen again, But, it did.

Essentially, he says it's his first mistake since 1982, and he was just 26 years old then, so even that mistake was forgivable. It's like he's saying he's practically infallible, so everyone should forgive him this one slip-up.

Maybe Louisville will take him off Birmingham's hands, and they can hire a fresh youn meteorologist out of Jacsonville, Alabama.

(01-29-2014 01:19 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  Actually, my memory is that it was more like ten days to two weeks ahead. I laughed aloud at the idea he could call snow in the 'ham that far out, especially a heavy snow.

I was wrong.

Weather folks are like soothsayers... Say something enough times, they'll get it right once in a blue moon.

TV weather forecasting these days is basically doing two things: repeating what the NWS says, and picking the average of two dozen computer models that tell you what's going to happen (which is in turn what the NWS does, but they are running some of those models). Most models said it would stay south, and a few said it would hit Birmingham. Those were ignored by everyone as an outlier (including the National Weather Service, a guy I went to high school with is a forecaster at the Birmingham NWS and is taking this pretty hard) but should have obviously been considered.

The real problem was that the non-forecast was so definitive. There was a lot of error possible, they knew it, but they did not say so. "We don't know, but be prepared" would've been better than Spann saying at 9AM that he doesn't see any travel problems and at 10AM he's walking down Riverchase Parkway because his car is stuck.

(01-29-2014 04:08 PM)Grammar-Nazi Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:19 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 02:21 PM)TPBlaze84 Wrote:  The difference is that James Spann offers quite the personal air of Demi-God style authority in his weather predictions, making it quite surprising to many people when he is wrong.

This.

He can't complain about getting the lion's share of the derision and blame, although of course he doesn't control the weather. However, if he's going to make his money on being the Jesus Christ of Weather and build his personal brand on his weather forecasting, he has to be prepared for this.

Agreed. I mean, read his first paragraph in his "apology":

Quote:In terms of human impact, yesterday’s forecast “bust” was the most significant for me since Janaury 1982, when we had a timing error of about six hours on the arrival of freezing rain and snow. Instead of starting at 5:00 p.m… it started around 11:00 a.m. People were caught off guard, schools and businesses closed, and the result was traffic gridlock, abandoned cars, separated families, and human suffering. Very much like yesterday, so I have been down this road before. The main difference is that I was a young man of 26 years old in 1982. With the experience and maturity that should come with a long tenure in my position, you would think that kind of error would not happen again, But, it did.

Essentially, he says it's his first mistake since 1982, and he was just 26 years old then, so even that mistake was forgivable. It's like he's saying he's practically infallible, so everyone should forgive him this one slip-up.

I really have nothing for James Spann. He thinks Global Warming is caused by Jesus and if you hear some of the stuff after tornadoes, I think there may be something wrong with him. He feels as if it is his personal job to speak to everyone in the Birmingham-Anniston-Tuscaloosa TV market when a tornado is happening and if someone dies he takes it personally. He's done nothing but use the gullibility and his personality to build up a personal brand, and that's great, but he's no weather wizard like everyone makes him out to be. You can get every ounce of information that he disseminates from the National Weather Service.

(01-29-2014 05:21 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 04:08 PM)Grammar-Nazi Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 03:19 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  

(01-29-2014 02:21 PM)TPBlaze84 Wrote:  The difference is that James Spann offers quite the personal air of Demi-God style authority in his weather predictions, making it quite surprising to many people when he is wrong.

This.

He can't complain about getting the lion's share of the derision and blame, although of course he doesn't control the weather. However, if he's going to make his money on being the Jesus Christ of Weather and build his personal brand on his weather forecasting, he has to be prepared for this.

Agreed. I mean, read his first paragraph in his "apology":

Quote:In terms of human impact, yesterday’s forecast “bust” was the most significant for me since Janaury 1982, when we had a timing error of about six hours on the arrival of freezing rain and snow. Instead of starting at 5:00 p.m… it started around 11:00 a.m. People were caught off guard, schools and businesses closed, and the result was traffic gridlock, abandoned cars, separated families, and human suffering. Very much like yesterday, so I have been down this road before. The main difference is that I was a young man of 26 years old in 1982. With the experience and maturity that should come with a long tenure in my position, you would think that kind of error would not happen again, But, it did.

Essentially, he says it's his first mistake since 1982, and he was just 26 years old then, so even that mistake was forgivable. It's like he's saying he's practically infallible, so everyone should forgive him this one slip-up.

I really have nothing for James Spann. He thinks Global Warming is caused by Jesus and if you hear some of the stuff after tornadoes, I think there may be something wrong with him. He feels as if it is his personal job to speak to everyone in the Birmingham-Anniston-Tuscaloosa TV market when a tornado is happening and if someone dies he takes it personally. He's done nothing but use the gullibility and his personality to build up a personal brand, and that's great, but he's no weather wizard like everyone makes him out to be. You can get every ounce of information that he disseminates from the National Weather Service.

You really are clueless.

How many times have you met Spann? I'm going to go out on a limb and say zero. I'm very very close to him, and everything you just said is WRONG.

For starters, the man wakes up at 4:30 AM every day, goes to bed at 11PM, if he's lucky, and his weekends are cram packed with what little family time he has, and he spends Sundays teaching Children's worship at his church.

Since you brought up global warming, you really went there, let's open up that can of worms. He said many years ago that he doesn't know of a single TV meteorologist that buys into the man-made global warming hype. He refuses to listen to anyone generating revenue on the issue of man-made global warming. Man-made global warming is just a cash grab for most. His position is echoed by most TV meteorologists as well as NOAA themselves. There is no such thing as man-made global warming.

How about you ride along with him to the numerous speeches he gives every single day, or listen to one of his sermons at church, or ride along with him as he personally buys an iPad, xbox, and clothes for a family in Walker County who lost everything after an EF4 tornado.

You honestly believe all he does is echo and spew exactly what the NWS says? Do you have the slightest clue about MOS/FOUS data, and the hours it takes to assimilate a public forecast? Doubt it.

What about the AP Broadcaster of the year award, and the NWS broadcaster of the year award in 2012? Did he get that just by "Reading a NWS forecast off a website"?

You know what, I'm just gonna stop there. I don't have to defend him - his record of integrity, helping others, and decades of tireless work forecasting difficult Alabama weather speaks for itself. He knows more than most what it's like dealing with the general public and their hatred and ignorance.