An Ode To Our Local Weathermen

Local news stations are the first place we go to find out the weather for our area — after weather apps, weather sites, Facebook, and Twitter, that is. With all this competition, your friendly neighborhood meteorologists have come up with "cutting-edge" ways to keep us entertained. From cute, animated graphics, to overdramatized stories, local news anchors pull out all the stops when reporting on the winter weather. Even their best efforts can seem closer to a ridiculous parody than a legitimate weather report. Below are the most common, and most hilarious, ways that local news stations cover the cold weather.

1. They Brave the Elements

The oldest trick in the book for covering any sort of weather is to put the reporter right in the action. This technique is sensible when it's sunny and 60 outside, but not when the Polar Vortex blows through town and brings a blizzard with it. Stay inside, guys!

2. They Use Advanced Graphics

The purpose of graphics is to portray important information to the audience that they may miss if they stop listening for a second. In this case, I think the penguin on a block of ice and extremely descriptive explanation of the temperature ("Much Below Normal") is doing more harm than good to this weather report.

3. They Overreact

The video of leaves blowing in the wind, the ambush of local business owners, the man-on-the-street interviews that yield riveting answers like "It's cold" — local weather stations love to overdramatize the weather, especially in climates that view sub-40 degree weather as a sign of the impending apocalypse. Local weather stations employ phrases like "bitter blast" when even the warmest of cold chills blow in. My personal favorite report was the last weatherman in the video who stated that it "could have snowed" if it had been colder...Isn't that true every time it rains?

4. They Make Something Out of Nothing

This is the kind of hard-hitting news that only exists on local news. I don't know exactly how you would even report on this problem while keeping a serious tone. I bet they would have really awesome B-roll footage of dogs peeing on the snow, at least.

5. They Rant Against Viewers' Responses

Many local news stations ask viewers to submit photos of the elements outside their windows to be used in weather coverage. It can be hard to keep things creative with these pictures, but one Denver, Colorado news anchor was so unimpressed with the submissions that he begged his viewers to spice things up.

6. They Do the Unexplainable

This... I don't even know what this is.

Image: Rich Marriott/Twitter