A bit of a disheartening conversation with my mom yesterday.
My parents (mom is 80 years old and my dad 87) live in Southbury, CT...one of the towns that was hit hard during last weeks severe. They lost power as the tornado path seemingly went overhead and touchdown not too far from their house. Lucky for them they were able to head to the Adirondacks for Memorial day a bit earlier, leaving the downed wires, trees, other damage, and frustrations of everyone else behind. Many people were not so lucky as they were forced to hold up in shelters.
We spoke yesterday about the weather, and forecasting in general, although the main gist of the brief conversation was with regard to the same old stuff we read on this forum...She was pretty much disgruntled at the "lack of forecasting", preparing them for the weather that happened that day. She admitted that early on in the day and the night before there were discussions of severe weather, but what got her was that no one mentioned on the news that there would be all of the damage, particularly the extent of the power outages in her area. Basically, she is of that age where there is this expectation of details and specifics that just don't exist. It was bit disheartening to hear as I know all of the mets on this forum hear this kind of frustration all of the time...always 20/20 vision after the fact kind of stuff. She even pulled the go to line out as well..."Why do they even bother when most of the time they are wrong" . She ended with, "What ever happened to the old days where the weather would come in once at night and once in the morning? Instead we have all day forecasting with nothing predicting what happened" By the time it's my turn to chime in she has already worked herself up and want to discuss it anymore.