Martin's Musings

Some people live-blog award shows and others live-blog Super Bowl commercials. But how come no one live-blogs the weather, especially on a day like today? I mean, it may not be all that interesting by comparison (9:38 — It’s snowing really hard; 10:22 — Now it’s starting to turn to rain; 3:40 — The wind has really picked up) but wouldn’t it be infinitely more practical and useful? I mean, forget those weatherpeople on TV, stuck inside their comfortable studios with their computers, telling us how much rain has accumulated or what the forecast is. And forget the reporters all across the region telling us that, yup, it’s snowing out here in Worcester (or up in Marblehead, or out in Framingham, or wherever the reporters are stationed). What I want to know when I go out to lunch or home at the end of the day is, what is it really like out there? Are the winds really as bad as they sound? Is the rain coming down hard, or is it just misty? And how have the conditions changed over the course of the day?

I think it’d actually be fun to have a regular Joe (or Jane) post a dispatch from his or her experience of being outside every so often (like, say, every hour) saying what the conditions were like. For example, when I went out to lunch earlier today, it really wasn’t so bad walking down Summer Street toward Downtown Crossing. But as soon as I turned the corner on Chauncy St. onto Franklin, that’s when the wind and rain became a bit of a problem. That’s valuable information. If I had documented that here, in a running commentary that I updated often, maybe I could have provided a service. Not that such a thing would have to be so exact so you knew exactly where the person went. But at least you’d know what the weather was like downtown.

I know Mike Wankum, from channel 5, has a blog and I’m sure there are other weatherpeople who do, too, but I want someone down on the ground, one of the “real” people out there, to give me an actual weather report, not a forecast. I think that’d be a good read.