Poor Media Use of Weather Terminology

[Jonathan Scrogham]

Weatherman Robert De Vries hunts hurricanes in America (commentaryboxsports.com) Um... what? I think you mean tornadoes? Or supercells? I don't see any actual hurricanes mentioned in this article... at least correctly.

Some nice quotes from the article: "They drove about 800 kilometers every day, looking for a hurricane." " ‘Tornado at the Ground’, which rang out enthusiastically among storm chasers from around the world." " Because a hurricane is an experience, de Vries concludes. ‘It growls and roars. You see the earth reacting as warm air is drawn into that hurricane and cold air is expelled."

 

[rdale]

A website called "CommentaryBoxSports" with a gmail.com contact address may not count for much

 

[Jonathan Scrogham]

A website called "CommentaryBoxSports" with a gmail.com contact address may not count for much

Entertaining to see regardless. You’d think people would research these things a bit more before they publish an article.

 

[Mikayla Norris]

Weatherman Robert De Vries hunts hurricanes in America (commentaryboxsports.com) Um... what? I think you mean tornadoes? Or supercells? I don't see any actual hurricanes mentioned in this article... at least correctly.

Looks like the article originated in the Netherlands. When I was studying Russian, the word for tornado, hurricane and cyclone was the same word. They did have a specific word for tornado, but it was rarely used. Sometimes the same word would be used just to refer to a generic wind storm. As a result, it made translating to English complicated, especially for my native Russian instructors. I bet it was a similar problem for the writers of the article you posted.

 

[Jonathan Scrogham]

Looks like the article originated in the Netherlands. When I was studying Russian, the word for tornado, hurricane and cyclone was the same word. They did have a specific word for tornado, but it was rarely used. Sometimes the same word would be used just to refer to a generic wind storm. As a result, it made translating to English complicated, especially for my native Russian instructors. I bet it was a similar problem for the writers of the article you posted.

I had no idea! Thanks for sharing that!

 

[Mikayla Norris]

I had no idea! Thanks for sharing that!

Of course! It's still funny though. We used to pick on our instructors all the time for translation errors. Lord knows we provided them with plenty of laughs while learning. haha

 

[Alvaro ivan]

AP deleted their tweet but i found two more

https://twitter.com/x/status/1673375658976870400

https://twitter.com/x/status/1673377963914543113

Greenwood tornado is one of the few June tornadoes of this year that got classified as "possible tornado" or "funnel cloud"

 

[rdale]

It had a visible funnel cloud.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Some nice quotes from the article: "They drove about 800 kilometers every day, looking for a hurricane." " ‘Tornado at the Ground’, which rang out enthusiastically among storm chasers from around the world." " Because a hurricane is an experience, de Vries concludes. ‘It growls and roars. You see the earth reacting as warm air is drawn into that hurricane and cold air is expelled."

Kind of like an article that’s supposed to be about baseball and talks about touchdowns and field goals

 

[Alvaro ivan]

I like how they called this as "possible tornado" even though the video shows an obvious tornado on the ground

 

[Jeff Duda]

I like how they called this as "possible tornado" even though the video shows an obvious tornado on the ground

While I suspect this is the manifestation of a journalistic ethos to call everything "supposed", "alleged", "possible" until/unless 100% dead-on-balls certainty can be provided, it gets absurd when you're staring something definitive in the face and they still stick to that lexicon.

 

[Alvaro ivan]

Another news outlet classifying the Elgin tornado as "possible tornado"

 

[Mike Smith]

While I suspect this is the manifestation of a journalistic ethos to call everything "supposed", "alleged", "possible" until/unless 100% dead-on-balls certainty can be provided, it gets absurd when you're staring something definitive in the face and they still stick to that lexicon.

Which would be great except that, in my 70 years, I don't remember a time when journalists got so many basic things wrong.

 

[Sean Mullen]

In all fairness, it does say 20 seconds.

20 minutes can also be all too brief...depending on what you're doing.

Sean

 

[gdlewen]

In defense of the station, although the YouTube title says, “Possible”, the on-air presenter never said, “possible.” She always talked about the tornadoes as definite. I blame the IT staff for posting that qualification.