​All names used just for fun, and Jim, we love you, but you do fall in the NE quadrant of crazy.
(Vintage Cantori YouTube)
That’s a hurricane joke, folks, deal with it, as this thing isn’t likely to improve.
 
 
From: Mike Pickwick
April 1, 2023

The Weather Channel
Marietta, GA
  
Bulletin: WCPEPS Announcement
  
Our focus groups have indicated that traditional network coverage has failed to provide the intimate, personal, weather specific informational immersion that consumers have long demanded, and today, we will be proudly announcing a tiered offering of solutions to that problem. 

The importance of naming dangerous weather events to increase public awareness and safety has long been recognized in the U.S.  Beginning in 1950, the United States Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) named Tropical Storms using the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie, etc.).  The most powerful storm in that year was Hurricane “Dog”, which extensively damaged the Leeward Islands.  We here at the Weather Channel began naming winter storms based on their Disruption Index in November of 2011. This expansion of the storm naming program was a ratings bonanza welcomed by our viewers as a major advance in Public Safety Awareness.

The public applauded the unveiling of TWC’s “Severe Drizzle” Named Event Index in 2018—who can forget the unbearably moist Severe Drizzle Event dubbed “Clara Bernhardt”. This was followed by 2021’s award winning “Patchy Fog” Citizen Alert Program.  Few who were trapped by the infamous Patchy Fog “Leghorn” at milepost 27 on I-81 near the Virginia-Tennessee border are likely to forget their relief upon hearing our exclusive Bluetooth “Just in Time” Pinpoint Warning System Alert that day).  It is with great pride that the Weather Channel is announcing an expansion of its weather event naming program to include ever more personally significant events.

Beginning today, Air Movement Events (see chart below) will be named using TWC’s new Weather Channel Personal Event Prediction System (WCPEPS). This comprehensive App, (available for only a minimal $9.95 monthly subscription fee) will provide vital new functionality, and roll up all prior weather event warning, alert, and forecast services into one comprehensive tool, exclusively for Weather Channel subscribers (we’ve got to make up for that 2019 Direct TV nightmare somehow).
 
      WCPEPS Air Movement Event Categories
      TYPE                                    MEASURABILITY CHRACTERISTICS

1. Puffs                                  Intermittent fpm
2. Wafts                                 Semi-Intermittent fpm
3. Zephyrs                             Oddly whimsical fpm
4. Stiff Breezes                      Please request preference for measurement in fpm or mph
5. Micro Bursts                      Information Classified                        

Tapping the power and precision of NOAA’s new Ultimate Definition 400k Doppler Radar Mapping System, the Weather Channel will now be your source for vital information about potentially annoying Air Movement Events and Meta-Micro Events.  Information regarding these individualized named events will be sent instantly to your cellphone, tablet or oculosphere shardette, providing you with the information you need to react to Micro-Front Events impacting your daily activities.  As an example (this is not a real event, repeat, not a real event), WCPEPS is designed to track the development of Zephyr “Igor”, warning you of its approach, ETA, and future path (so you can warn that good looking girl ahead).  Our precision personal event forecast protects you from hazardous conditions such as reduced visibility from hair/grit in eyes, skirt uplifting, toupee removal, as well as speed and path tracking for dropped papers.

But the most exciting offering of any weather service in history comes in the Second Tier of our offering, exclusively available at The Weather Channel.

Announcing CantoriVision, named to honor our daring former associate Jim Cantori, who was lost (along with five staffers) during a Weather Channel exclusive tornado chaser event.  Although nothing was recovered at the site of the tragedy after a horrified nation watched (without commercial interruption) as the SUV carrying Jim and his entire crew was swept up into 2019’s “Chubby Checker” F-5 over NE Kansas, a fascinating post script to this story is that for several weeks, faint strains of the Weather Channel’s exclusive On Location Severe Storm Theme Music (OLSSTM) was heard at exactly 3:37 PM each day on TVs and radios in the area. 

Quite simply, Cantori-Vision is the greatest advance in the history of global climatic prediction and reporting.
 
Cantori-Vision (CaVi), developed by the Weather Channel in collaboration with the biggest players in today’s mobile device hardware and software marketplace, joins the growing list of Super-Apps made possible by the unprecedented speed, stability, and bandwidth  of 21G LTE WE technology (21st Generation Long Term Evolution – Warp Enabled).   Thanks to the Weather Channel’s unique application of the latest in holographic technologies, you will no longer be watching your favorite meteorologist on a flat screen—he or she can be right there in your living room with you!

Our development teams have also expressed a high level of confidence that the core capabilities behind this Weather Channel exclusive application will become a major revenue driver for the WTC family of companies.  Mission specific applications are now in various stages of development, in collaboration with a select group of partners serving both the private and public sectors.  One yet to be named project, described by industry insiders as “game changing”, is believed to be a revolutionary new data mining tool for sales professionals, delivering vital, up to the second customer data, using the power of NPC technology.  Network Penetration Connectivity, previously available only to the NSA, has been made available for certain FCC approved projects.

As part of this development effort, TWC has partnered with Google’s Mobile Holography Projects Team, reviving their former flagship product, HoloNow.  Some of you may remember Google’s earlier version of this technology, Holo-Vision for Chrome, that amazing technology which made it possible for users to experience holographic viewing of their Gmail, Twitters, Instagram, and Skype.  (As has been all too well documented, the next step, to personal holographic gaming, was halted by the filing of thousands of personal injury lawsuits during beta testing of holographic gaming.)  The Supreme Court verdict in Stefan V. Arkham Asylum, after being tied up in the courts for years, has finally freed up the industry to once again take gaming to the next level.

With CaVi Pro (available Fall 2023 for an additional 49.95 monthly fee) the choice of user selectable personalities is unlimited.  Users can choose which meteorologist delivers your forecast for each type of reportable weather event.  Do you want Al Roker to talk tornado?  No problem.  Do you want your local flood alerts to come from George Elliot?  Done.  Do you want to curl up with Stephanie Abrams for your snow storm reportage.   Oh yeah.  Do you favor Sam Champion on a sunny day?  We understand.  Do you long for the days of Cantori on hurricane coverage?  Thanks to the awesome power of Cavi Pro, and a bit of Pixar magic, Jim is back from the dead and back on the beat—the legend returns.  With our personalized holographic meteorologist, your customized weather report is delivered on your terms.

CaVi’s Pro’s parental rating function will even allow our subscribers to create their own “meteorologists”, ranging far beyond the list of traditional Weather Channel celebrities.  Whether it’s your children’s favorite cartoon characters, or your favorite adult film star, CaVi Pro can make them come to life in all their holographic glory.*
* User selectable personalities with ratings of NC-17 or above are restricted to use in CaVi’s privacy mode.

At the beginning of this announcement, we promised to make available to you, the Weather Channel viewer, the most cutting edge technology available at the consumer level, and here it is:  Drumroll, please.

   POSEIDEN’S HAARPOON!  
   
Named after the Greek god of the Ocean, Poseiden, “HAARPOON” (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program Orchestrated Onsite Nano-events.), this technology truly does give you the power of a god.  But you don’t need to worry yourself with all that fancy terminology.   It boils down to this:  You control your weather.  Have you dreamed of controlling the rain and thunder, of changing the weather from blinding snowstorm to light flurries, or creating sunshine on demand?   Then you need to take the plunge and purchase the new, cutting edge, POSEIDEN’S HAARPOON!

This kit includes our most expansive software package ever, a radio transmitter, a fluxgate magnetometer, an induction magnetometer, a digisonde, a fleet of small drones, and--wait for it--a NASA grade 3D printer.   These are all available in a variety of packages, and thanks to a licensing agreement with powerhouses such as Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Marvel Comics, HAARPOON is even available in themed packages such Dora the Explorer, Elsa the Snow Queen, Spiderman, and the ever popular “Minions”, should you want to give this package as a special gift to your child, so that she or he can learn to control the weather.

Weather Channel fans, the opportunity is here, and you don’t want to be left out of the excitement!
So whether it’s making sure you have the perfect weather for your little princess’s backyard birthday, or making it rain on that pesky neighbor’s annual barbecue bash, to which you are pointedly never invited …TODAY, for just a nominal price of $999.95 a month, YOU can finally be a meteorologist with the powers of a mighty wizard!  Make that call now.  Payment plans are available.  Control your own weather in your own personal domain!
​
Because if you don’t, we will.

​By Mickey McClain
 
A whole new look, a whole new logo, a whole new catchphrase:   “Weather …. Or NOT!”

Firstly, The Whether Channel fully admits that this roll out of our new look is predicated upon the great humiliation  that descended upon us when it was discovered, nay “exposed”, that the Doppler image of the recent great storm which swept through the Eastern Seaboard in late February of 2016, was in fact NOT a radar image of Winter Storm Theon, but was, in truth, an ultrasound of our lovely female co-anchor’s in vitro triplets that we chose to play for 72 hours straight, hoping that none of you would notice the difference.  We cannot apologize deeply enough; there had been a union walkout from our technical team that crashed our Doppler, (some dispute over their religious right to sport mullets), and we were, in a phrase, trying to fake it the best that we could.

But all that is behind us.  As the Planet Earth’s weather becomes crazier and kookier, we here at The Whether Channel have realized that we have no choice but to begin naming Spring Weather Events.  We are proud of our long history of naming Hurricanes, Tsunamis, and Winter Storms, but our need to keep the people informed (and somehow pull up our ratings, since the Direct TV debacle) has launched a new phase in Whether Channel history—24 hour coverage of Spring Weather Events.
These events will be divided into four categories:  Spring Breeze Events, Rainshower Events, Dust Devils, and of course, dangerous and aberrant aquatic behavior observed by our new, specially trained team of Creeks, Rivulets, Inlets, and Brooks experts or, acronymically speaking, “CRIB” authorities.   Be assured, we have gathered international uber-academics on the topics of these smaller but potentially deadly water bodies, and we will expand into an examination of manmade gutter behavior as we move further into 2016.  No later than 2017.
 
1.   The Whether Channel has long believed that the dangers of Spring Breezes have been grossly underestimated.  Incidents of persons being hit by leafs, small twigs, milkweed seeds, thistles, spiders, flying insects, candy wrappers, airborne melodies, pebbles, ash, and all manner of grit has led to tragedy time and time again, as well as those pesky lawsuits.  Here, for example, is a true account of someone who was in a terrifying accident because a rogue breeze caused something to fly into his eye.  It is the story of a particle ejecting from a car’s dashboard fan, but the point is well taken:
A good example is a California driver who crashed their truck because of debris flying from the dashboard.   "Turned the fan on and a tiny piece of plastic flew into my eye causing me to crash into a parked flatbed truck, bouncing off and over embankment downhill into a tree almost taking out a family of 4 that were having a picnic celebrating their 3 yr. old’s birthday."  The driver said the accident caused them to miss work, required stitches to their eye, and caused a $4000 repair bill to their truck.    –The Worst Cars and Car Problems of 2013, carcomplaints.com
 
Always on the cutting edge of technology, The Whether Channel is announcing its new “Toupée App”, in which a variety of meteorologists wearing toupées, (regardless of their actual need for follicle embellishment) will be standing in some of the more lethal Breeze Fronts, and, by gauging the behavior of said hairpiece, The Whether Channel will then use the App to tell you, the toupée wearer, what action to take: maybe good old carpet tape will not work on this blustery day; perhaps a dollop of Super Glue is in order.   For those of you for whom transportation is a consideration, the App will interact with your GPS to tell you alternate routes you may drive, run, or walk, so as to avoid the embarrassing loss of your toupée, or slippage of same.   And yes, yes, the Comb Over App should also be available at consumer level technology soon.  (It is also worth noting that Google is currently developing an exciting new “preventative” technology for dealing with the wind and grit that can blow into one’s eyeball during a Breeze Event.   The device will consist of two squarish or oval shaped pieces of glass that will fit into a frame that you wear in front of your face, over your eyes, slipping the two hooked ends over your ears to keep them snugly in place.)  The Whether Channel would like to take this moment to completely repudiate the Fox News Channel’s methodology of measuring Spring Breeze Events by dressing their roving on-the-scene female meteorologists in short, flowy skirts and then providing their Fox Viewers with a downloadable Panty App that measures the Breeze-Rize of the skirt based on the Marilyn Monroe Seven Year Itch Grid. 
 
And again, blow over to our Whether Channel website for updates.  Click on “Google Mirth” and type in your address, and while away the happy hours watching Spring Breeze Events on Doppler as they move from your backyard to your front yard.   It’s more fun than a basket of puppies.
 
2.     A mere spring Rainshower may not, at first blush, appear to be a catastrophic event, but The Whether Channel has long been aware of something that the layperson cavalierly ignores:  the human cost.   What may appear to be a delightful occurrence when it is portrayed in the movies—the sudden shower, the giggling, the scampering for shelter—has a dark and damaging side that few speak of:  schedules are disrupted.   Traffic snarls abound, and then people get into all kinds of trouble for being late to work.  Tires blithely roll through mud puddles and terrorize passing pedestrians.   Dogs are not walked.  Joggers do not jog.   Women’s clothes cling in ways that are wildly inappropriate.   It is a well-known fact that the reason Southern Baptists insist on “full water immersion” during Adult Rebirth Baptisms is that the husband knows full well that this will probably be his first and last chance to see his wife, or future wife’s, nipples.  The point is, people are far more traumatized by Spring Rain Showers than they will admit, and so The Whether Channel will heretofore be NAMING these Moisture Events so that people can be warned, and plan accordingly.   Now, just so you understand the process, it seems that we have, er, sort of used up the names of most Greco-Roman gods and goddesses on the beefier, better known Winter Events, and on Hurricanes and such, so for events that happen during other times of the year, we will name them after people who tend to think of themselves as gods and goddesses—i.e., Congressmen and Celebrities.  With some fun names thrown into the mix, to keep us all laughing through the downpour.  In an attempt to engage an increasingly hostile audience, we reached out to children across this great land and asked them to, ha ha, “brainstorm” some names (pun intended)—starting with the finalists and semi-finalists from this year’s season of “Toddlers and Tiaras” in Los Angeles, then on to the Midwest where the first graders of Moose Scrotum, Minnesota contributed to our growing list, then on to the Pre-Schoolers of the Kundalini Yoga Ivy School Prep Alcove & Self-Sustaining Roof Garden in mid-town Manhattan.   Here are lists of nominated names for Spring Breeze and Rainshower Events.   Names on the same line have no connection to each other whatsoever:

BREEZE EVENTS                                          SHOWER EVENTS
Nathan Lane                                                       Tallulah
Ryan Seacrest                                                     Bambi
Richard Simmons                                              Mr. Bubble Hour                                                     
Barney Fife                                                         Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star
Barney Frank                                                      Rainbow Time
James Traficant                                                  The New Coke           
John Kasich                                                         Pissin’ Contest
Trump Inaugural                                                Li’l Psycho
Kurt from Glee                                                   Special Effect
Ludwig II of Bavaria                                          Restoration Hardware Shower Head
My Pomeranian                                                 The Angels Are Perspiring      
Lâcher un pet                                                     Golden Shower
“Happy Birthday, Mr. President”                     “Into Each Life”
My X-Girlfriend’s Breath                                Wet Dream
Shop Vac                                                              Faucet Washer needs replacing
Broken Leaf Blower                                           That Scene from The Notebook
The Answer, my Friend                                     Shirley Temple
All We Are                                                            Clear Water
AND JUST FOR FUN
Windy                                                                   Gene Kelly
 
 
3.  DANGEROUS AND ABERRANT SMALL WATER AREA EVENTS:   N.W.S.E.O., we have heard you!   For those of you rogue weatherpersons, this is the National Weather Service Employees Organization, AKA The Union, also known as “the brawn of the outfit”.  Following last year’s infamous walk-out, (as a result of which, of course, there was no weather for a while) where thousands of meteorologists refused to enter assorted rindles and sikes due to their elevated water levels (a result of PSEUDO-TROPICAL THUNDERSTORM VINCE FOSTER), and the grievous harm to life, limb, and dignity caused to said weatherpersons by those raised H20 levels, we will no longer ask our meteorologists to go into these assorted Liquid Events without the proper hip waders.   We have tried a number of “hip wader/power suit” looks, and thus far, our focus groups are extremely disgruntled.  We have called in the best:  Armani.  Hugo Boss.   Joseph Abboud.  They cannot find a way to make the power suit jive with the hip waders.  Nonetheless, we are committed to the hip waders, and to making the whole look, oh, just work!  To think of our fearless meteorologists laboring in those inadequate rubber boots that we bought off Alibaba in bulk some months ago, is simply inhumane, given the wisdom of hindsight.  We all no doubt remember the unfolding drama, as a horrified nation watched, during Thunderstorm Streisand and the rising water levels that ensued, when armies of upward crawling crawdads entered first the Wallies, and then the nether regions, of our roaming meteorologist Sam Champion, right there while he was on air, coast to coast, reporting live from a rivulet …and, well, let us coin the cliché a la mode:  that is something you just can’t unsee.
 
4.   DUST DEVILS.  We apologize for any offense we may have caused by dubbing our first Dust Devil of the season “The Frito Bandito”.  Apparently certain ethnic groups were offended.   We have renamed the ongoing Dust Devil “Don Knotts.”   THIS JUST IN:  We apologize for re-naming our first Dust Devil of the season “Don Knotts.”  Apparently, certain other ethnic groups were offended.

In an attempt to halt any continuing offenses, we have called in an inter-ethnic panel of experts who have long history with Dust Devils.  We have learned that the Navajos, for example, have extensive experience with the pesky, mysterious Dust Devil.  They call the Dust Devil “Chiindii”, and have determined, over many generations, that a Dust Devil circling clockwise suggests “good luck”, while one running counter clockwise represents “bad luck”.   To that end, we have provided a handy new “Dust Devil App” to protect and guide you in times of Chiindii danger.   Once installed on your phone, the App will advise you to go outside, confront the Dust Devil, lick your finger, stick it up in the air, see where the sand lands on your digit, and then it will instruct you to make major decisions in your life based on that sand information.  Kind of like Nancy Reagan having horoscope readings in the Oval Office, and Mary Todd Lincoln holding séances in the White House.  And not that it has anything to do with weather, but we are fascinated to share with you this history tidbit regarding White House lore:  it seems that Zachary Taylor was very sensitive to the growing unpopularity of slavery, and the impact that it would have on his political career, so he did the logical thing with his slaves, once he was elected president—he kept them hidden in the White House attic.
 
That’s about it.  Coming in our next newsletter:
MICROWAFTS—WHAT THEY ARE, AND WHY YOU SHOULD BE TERRIFIED.
BOY SCOUTS IN THE NATIONAL PARKS:  FACT OR FICTION?
THE IMPACT OF FIREFLY COLLECTING IN JARS ON GLOBAL WARMING
 
THIS BREAKING NEWS JUST IN:    And at the risk of saying “We Told You So”, well, we told you so.   A Significant Breeze Event has just occurred at the Southwestern Border of the United States, and it appears that thousands, perhaps millions of tumbleweeds are making their way over the border from Mexico.  It seems some have already surrendered to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, APHIS division, and are requesting asylum.   While some are being detained in plant nurseries in Texas and Arizona, it would appear that the President of the United States is fed up with this kind of thing and has called out CPB to work with the National Horticulture Guard in an attempt to immediately deport the tumbleweeds.

Did we not predict this?  Did we not warn the world that a change in global weather patterns would in turn cause large scale changes in immigration patterns?

We caution you that the footage we will be airing shortly is extremely graphic:  It seems that ICE has armed hundreds of Border Patrol Agents with tennis and badminton rackets—even ping pong paddles in some cases, for the younger tumbleweeds, and already, there are thousands of YouTubes showing these poor tumbleweeds being swatted over the border, out of these great United States, back from whence they came.
​
Oh, the Humanity.   
 
 
And this is the Future. . . . .
 
 
PICKFORD WORD will be offering mullet hat prizes, and other assorted goodies, to anyone sending in visuals of what we have described herein, in the preceding two epistles.  We are serious.   Contact PICKFORD STUDIOS (moviesforyourmind.net)  under the HOME button, hit “CONTACT US”.  Let’s get to Photoshopping those tumbleweeds, free publicity for you!