Jul 10
28
#YEGWX
I don’t know what it is about this city, but we’ve got some weather fanatics on-board.
Since Twitter began, Edmontonians have been on the bandwagon, and as Mack Male has noted many times though in not-so-many-words, we’re a pretty tight, connected, and vocal bunch.
Our storms have made the news on Twitter several times, and a quick scan for #yegweather at search.twitter.com will usually highlight the system currently beating us down, or roasting us alive. Come winter, you’ll see first hand how much snow is coming down, or what road conditions will be like first thing tomorrow.
Why are we so hot for weather? Because Edmontonians don’t chase storms, they chase us. We are in a great spot for severe storms, and we can see them coming for hours. We’re like – Kansas North. Add to that our city’s history with the July 31, 1987 storm that killed 27 and injured hundreds – we’re now keen to our skies. The ‘Black Friday’ storm was one of the worst in Canadian history (2nd overall in persons killed) and in just 2 years will qualify as the worst of the century. The Pine Lake storm, 13 years and just a few hundred kilometers away cemented our sick fascination with the sky.
Personal note – I was in the city for that storm, in the southeast. We were trapped on Sherwood Park Freeway less than 10 minutes after the storm rolled through the offices of a neighbor. The intensity and devastation that followed that F3/F4 tornado will be indelibly etched into my mind. Beautiful horror.
And now – back to Twitter. #yegweather has followed us for quite some time – but I’d like to change that. Particularly since #yegweather has been used in combination with ‘bot’ weather forecast reporting, we can no longer search back for more than 5 days to get historical entries. They are gone to time.
I’d like to see #yegwx take precedence. Used for weather observations, it will be real time, searchable, and shorter on the keys! We’ll get 5 extra letters back out of the restrictive 140 offered by Twitter.
Those 5 characters can say a lot.
HAIL!
RAIN!
WIND!
SHIT!
OHNOE
YIKES
UH-OH
TRN8O
I kid – I kid – but not really. In cases where there is real activity an extra 5 can have a palpable impact on language and reporting. #justsayin
So… what say you? Include #yegwx to chat…
