This can't be good

It hasn't even started snowing yet and already…

…the electric company is sweating.

A little later: That, above, was from an email. And now a robocall. Same message: We will rescue you as fast as we can.

I just heard the nearest grocery store is full of people stocking up like they expect to spend the rest of the winter snowbound. But really, aside from the possibility of high winds, the storm being forecast looks no worse than a half dozen other storms just in the years since I’ve been here. And in fact the worse storms from a power failure point of view have been much milder than what’s expected now. (The most destructive storms are in the late autumn, when the snow is wet and heavy and there are still leaves on the trees. It’s falling tree limbs that do most of the damage.)

So the good forecasting—in itself, a very useful thing—tends to get sensationalized, and panic results.