WBZ's Bill Shields was standing at Plymouth Rock around 12:30 p.m., after he had been forced to put on goggles because of the high winds. He began shuffling to show us something. "Jesus!" he exclaimed, as the wind almost knocked him over.

Meanwhile, down in Sandwich, WBZ's Beth Germano and NBC Boston's Susan Tran both struggled not to be swept out into the angry sea. Tran brought a large yellow scarf with her to hold aloft to prove that it was, in fact, windy. Dan Hausle, also on a beach in Sandwich, picked up some flotsam, or possibly jetsam.

WCVB's David Bienick was standing by at the Charlton rest stop on the turnpike, where he scooped out some snow with his hand before running after some guy getting in his car to ask him, in so many words, what kind of idiot he was. WCVB later showed us a viewer photo of a ruler stuck in the snow, followed by another viewer photo of a patio table covered by snow.

The Herald reports WHDH is saying enough with this NBC nonsense and will start airing 87 hours of news a week in January - when it loses its NBC affiliation.

News-weary Channel 7 viewers will get a break between 8 and 9 p.m., when the station will air "Family Feud."

New England One reports WHDH is joining WCVB in adding a 7 p.m. newscast, so you can catch up on all the news you missed at 4:30 , 5, 5:30 and 6.

Steve Safran analyzes the NBC decision to smack WHDH upside the head and create its own station in Boston, using an antenna in Manchester, NH (a city that has so little going for it it has to keep pretending it's near Boston):

What we have in NBC Boston now is a cable and web-first product, a true 21st century operation that is no longer concerned primarily with what the antenna-only crowd is doing. It’s not longer about the WXXX or KXXX branding. It’s the network and the city. Smart. The changeover won’t happen until 2017, and Ansin is vowing to sue. But this kind of structuring will happen more as networks start to operate more like cable channels.

Channels 7 and 25 began exclusive reporting from a MassDOT salt pile in Weston yesterday evening, more than 30 hours before the anticipated arrival of what Channel 25 tells us "won't be a winter wallop."

Exhausted evening reporters who reassured us the state had plenty of salt were replaced this morning by fresh reporters, who reassured us the salt pile had not disappeared overnight and was ready to be put to use in the first winter storm of the season. Read more.

New England One reports that WHDH's Janet Wu has left the station, leaving WCVB's Janet Wu our only on-air Janet Wu. Channel 7's Wu will continue teaching at Emerson, but has started doing some reporting for a New York station.

UPDATE: Judge bars one specific WHDH photographer from courthouse and jury.

WCVB reports the judge in the Aaron Hernandez case is considering banning Channel 7 from the courthouse after jurors reported one of its vans followed them yesterday and somebody inside took a picture of their license plate.

Our favorite weapons-grade reporter was at it again yesterday, waving a large knife around on camera to introduce a report on a Haverhill convenience store held up by a man waving a large knife around.

In the past, the plucky reporter has used a pickaxe to hack through a wall and a hatchet to chop a sandwich in half.

Susan Tran at WHDH has a pickaxe - and she's not afraid to use it.

UPDATE: Tran herself alerts us this isn't the first time she's wielded a deadly weapon in Quincy: Three years ago, she used a hatchet to chop a sub in half.