Weather -- or not

Everyone always talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it, goes the old complaint.
Problem: the statement isn’t true. We have done something about it.
I am not referring to global warming; we’ve done something there and we’re still figuring out what.
I refer to our constant hyping of weather and our dreadful refinement of its quirks and wiles. In the winter, for instance, it is hardly possible to turn on a TV without the dubious pleasure of watching a bundled up news person standing outside somewhere under a streetlight with a few snowflakes sifting down. The burden of the reporter’s message generally involves catastrophic estimates of possible snowfall accompanied by magma-chilling blasts of cold air pushing wind-chill levels well below zero.
Then there’s the hurricane alert: warnings of category four and five storms which might develop and which might strike coastal regions sometime soon.
This hyperventilation even afflicts the National Weather Service (weather.gov). This week, when it has become excessively hot and sticky in New England, the NWS has used a tiny drawing featuring a malevolent yellow sun in a coppery-orange sky. Keeping company with the familiar wind-chill scale is a dire and diabolical heat index. You’d think Hell was breaking out in the forecast!
Warnings are being posted about keeping hydrated, about engines overheating, about staying out of the sun.
The result of reading all these dire warnings is that we feel a whole lot hotter than we felt when we merely experienced hot weather. Knowing that the heat index is 104 is a burden: if we don’t suffer heat prostration perhaps there is something physiologically amiss, or worse. We may be suffering that direful prostration and don’t know it, a real signal of trouble!
But that’s not the worst result of hype. Whether it’s heat or cold or wet or dry, predictions of extreme conditions frequently don’t come true. How many times can we evacuate coastlines in advance of a storm that doesn’t show up, before we just blow off the next warnings?
Yes, yes, I know: given today’s serious concern with liability and safety there’s never any choice but to activate the emergency plans, just in case. A cover-our-asses policy is necessary, particularly after the fact. This I know, after all, as an editorial writer (job description: to analyze the scene of a disaster and begin punishing survivors).
Today is hot. I can perceive this without assistance from forecasters, however much I appreciate the science of meteorology. I’d like to be able to enjoy this weather – or not, depending on my inclination – and be able to wish you a nice day. I would definitely not do so, were I not concerned that today might turn out less than nice, in which case you as a consumer might bring a legal action against me for violation of an express warranty of the suitability of the day.