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City Council: Bostonians need their weather news

The City Council has stepped into a contract dispute between the Weather Channel and DirectTV, urging the two companies to settle a contract dispute that is frustrating DirectTV subscribers who would rather watch Jim Cantore than Harvey Leonard or Pete Bouchard.

The council yesterday unanimously approved a resolution by at-large Councilor Steve Murphy calling for a prompt end to the dispute.

Murphy called the Weather Channel "an invaluable national and local service" that "enables private citizens to make important decisions regarding their work, travel and recreation plans."

The council normally refers matters to committees for study before voting, but agreed with a request from Murphy to vote on this matter immediately.

Neighborhoods: 
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PDF icon Murphy Weather Channel resolution89.98 KB


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Comments

No one should be deprived of the joy of seeing Jim Cantore knee some yahoo in the groin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UPKE7--5jo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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Jim Cantore vs. Susan Tran

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Wow, I laughed out loud when I saw that clip this week. The best part was that Cantore didn't skip a beat with his reporting.

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On Channel 7, Jeremy "Ponytail" Reiner showed the clip and explained that when he went to weatherman school, it was actually something they taught. I imagine any reporter who does live shots needs some training in how to fend off people who try to disrupt the scene. Still, Jim Cantore is about as pro as you can get; compared to some of the weather conditions he goes out into and reports from, dealing with the guy walking up to him was like swatting a fly!

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If Jim Cantore shows up in your community, you'd better head for the hills.

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The rest of us just use the internet...

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Isn't the best weather info (high content, no entertainment) available from the National Weather Service?

Maybe all NWS needs is a better layout for their web page.

UHubbers, how do you get your weather fix?

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The French Toast Alert is the only thing we really need.

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Borrowed shamelessly from the classic F.T.A.S. (copyrighted):

Guarded: High's in the low 80's. Harvey Leonard gets out beach umbrella. Check ice cube and popsicle supply.
You will need to move lawn chair or equivalent to shady area by 11 AM. Kids will probably want to run through
sprinkler for quite a while. Expect more calls if you have a pool.

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We need this!

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but they've made some good improvements to their web page recently. Athough it does help if you bookmark the page for a particular city.

Also, for those of you who have a scanner, don't forget the NWS VHF broadcasts on the 162.4xx and 162.5xx frequencies. 162.425 and 162.475 cover the Greater Boston area, but you usually can also pick up most of the other frequencies for adjacent areas like southern New Hampshire and the Worcester area.

And yes, I am an admitted NOAA/NWS junkie, especially when there's a big strom predicted

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I love NWS for its hurricane coverage, but for understanding winter storms, I use a combination of a few Facebook pages, NWS, and, yes, the Weather Channel.

How about Direct TV puts them back in the lineup if and ONLY IF, the Weather Channel gives up its stupid gimmick of naming winter storms?

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second that motion. Also, as another poster indicated, they could also stand to completely lose their "knockoff reality" programming.

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I've always been a map junkie, though. In the summer, their radar maps of the local area are indispensable for cycle commuting, as I can figure out if I can find a free window through the marauding thunderstorms to get home safely, or if I should take the T. Now I can even check it out on my phone if I'm holed up in a coffee shop or bar mid-ride, waiting out a storm.

They tend to be pretty good with their predictions,too, and update things regularly during the day if the predictions have changed.

I've been using wunderground.com to check these maps for about 12-13 years - simply a wonderful service.

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There's an Hourly forecast on Weather.com that can also show 15-minute details. The wind speed and direction are also useful for bikers to know. If there's a strong headwind it's going to take longer to get there, but sometimes when there's a really strong tailwind, I can just stand on my bike without pedaling and be swept away to Wonderland!

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Wow, this new CC sure has their priorities in line.

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Is still fighting for speed bumps on all dead end streets in westie!

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LOL, the Weather Channel is nothing but 'reality' television whenever I come across it these days. I don't really need to see some weather docu-drama when all I want is a quick check of the weather.

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Wait until you see our new format!

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Sad that Boston City Council actually LIKES watching the Weather Channel and their inaccurate forecasts over local, well seasoned, weather folks?

Isn't this how Atlanta ended up in a nasty hot mess the past few days? Because politicians were paying attention to national weather service and not to the local TV stations who repeatedly said this was going to be far worse than anticipated. (and then failed again when the NWS changed the forecast and pol's didn't listen!)

It's also nice to know City Council has its priorities straight...not

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The politicians weren't paying attention to the NWS, either. I saw a news blip last night showing a chronology of NWS updates and warnings/watches/etc. for Atlanta and the NWS was predicting exactly what happened from 4am onward.

Just a smaller-scale version of "nobody could have predicted that the levies would fail" in terms of denial overcoming available advance information.

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Paying attention period... now reports say Gov Deal was at a luncheon for a good chunk of the day yesterday... nice.

Makes Deval look like a prize by comparison...

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No, if you look at the information that the Atlanta area was given, the storm pretty much did what predictions said. Atlanta pretty much f-ed up its storm preparations, and then everyone panicked.

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Seriously - unless there were some mitigating circumstances - why should you do anything. If you can't drive in 2 inches of snow (unless there is some mitigating circumstance like black ice which I don't think was the case in Atlanta) - just get off the road.

Read somewhere that one person was on the road going 5 MPH behind someone in a 40 mph or so area and the snow had just started.

This was human error of the driver sort - not government sort. And as my fans know - that's a hard thing for me to say so it must be true. Plus you read it on the internet - further proof.

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There's a cultural difference in a southern response to winter weather and the northern one. That's a given. I think the GA politicians needed to respond to that. People are going to freak out down there when there's a dusting of snow, so behave accordingly. Cancel schools, tell people to stay home, and close the highways preemptively.

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it wasn't just snow.. it was ice.

We as Northerners forget what a little salt and sand do for roads, even if its just a sprinkle. Remember, in ATL...

people went to work
it snowed
schools and businesses were forced close at the same time
people drove on said snow to get home
then it melted oh just so slightly
then froze again
insta-traffic jam
and...

Making all roads pretty much a sheet of ice. Any sort of incline at all would have been impossible without salt or sand. Which is why when you look at the photos from yesterday (after many people had gotten off the road), and look at where all the abandoned cars were. a good portion of them were located on exit ramps or near medians. Why? because most couldn't get OFF the highway because of the ice.

I lived in Atlanta. I know how nutty the drivers are down there and how very well unprepared they are during any sort of winter precip, but I wouldn't even fault the drivers 100%.

Down there, the worst that ever happens is rain, so unlike here were we get snow warnings beaten int our heads days in advance, in Atlanta, yeah it may SAY some snow and ice but almost 99% of the time, it never happens. So people went to work on their merry way.

Yes in my mind all day yesterday, I kept saying "why didn't people just get OFF the highway and stay put until they could move". The problem was that they couldn't get off the highway and literally were stuck.

Friends of mine said that they wanted to just get off and park somewhere and sit until morning (after being in the car for almost 12 hours after going maybe 6-7 miles down GA400), the problem being is that they just COULDNT get off because nothing was moving. Then when they did, at around 1am, most places were closed, already filled up with people, or had no food or gas. My friends ended up just finding a gas station that actually had gas, got some snacks and said "fukkit, might as well TRY to get home and sit on the highway" and they did.... over 24 hours later after leaving their work together. (this is a 33 mile drive which in ATL traffic takes ~45 minutes normally)

I really blame the pol's for the issue. They just weren't doing their job and activating GEMA accordingly. Typical.. and people complain about Patrick sometimes, he's a God send when it comes to Emergency Management compared to Gov Deal and The mayor of Atlanta.

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Screw them and their sensationalistic hyping Nemo-naming BS. Along with my distaste in them already, their victory would only leads to the DirectTV to pass the charge over to us - not that I find the satellite/cable companies true allies.

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Think the city council can move as fast to allow competition in the Cable world - so directTV people unhappy abot their weather would have an affordable alternative?

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I have DirectTV because of Sunday Ticket and never watch the Weather Channel. I would be happy only to pay for a handful of channels.

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If the Boston City Council is so concerned, then it should allow more cable providers to operate within city limits. More competition >> more service at lower prices.

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Whatever happened to the great Todd Gross of WHDH-TV Boston Channel 7 News?... excellent meteorology and astronomy reports!

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I could care less if the Weather Channel is on it, national and local news networks will coverage of storms is fine, as well is the internet.

Also if there is a major storm in my area, chances are my DirecTV will go down anyways.

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2014 Rules. Duties of the Clerk. Boston City Council
http://www.cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/councilrules.asp

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City Council Publications
http://cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/citycouncilpub.asp

Organization of City Government
Contains the City Council’s rules and a listing of all city departments, boards and commissions and their officers and members.

Document #10
Voter registration and election results for city and state elections.

Boston's City Charter
Major provisions of Boston's charter, detailing the responsibilities of the Mayor and City Council.

Muncipal Register
Contains a compilation of sections of the city charter, a history of Boston's origin and growth a description of each city department and notations on how they were established and a listing of past Councilors and Mayors.

Boston Streets
A listing of all streets in the city including a description of the location ward and precinct, City Council District and zip code.

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