Two weeks ago, we called out KOCO Chief Meteorologist Damon Lane for hyping on the Channel 5 website that record cold temperatures "may" be making their way to Oklahoma City on January 17th.
In a post titled "January is About to Get Incredibly Cold," Damon wrote:
The image above comes from the GFS model. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, this is a model that goes out 2 weeks, how accurate can it be? And I am with you on this one...
So, what is this image above telling me? This map shows the temperature departure from normal. The purple shading, which is over Oklahoma, means temperatures about 40 degrees below normal on January 17th at 6 a.m. Just for fun, if we did the math, this would mean that Oklahoma City that morning would have a morning low temperature of about 15 degrees below zero. That would almost be a record low for the city as the coldest temperature ever in OKC is -17.
Do I believe this? It’s tough to believe that exact number there although anything is possible.
Well, today is January 17th. Let's put his dire (yet on the fence) prediction to the test and see how cold it's going to be today. Remember, "anything is possible."
From the KOCO website:
Yep, you better leave the faucets dripping and put extra-strength antifreeze in the car, the low this morning is, uhm, 29-degrees. That's 4-degrees above normal for January. Awesome, huh?!
Okay, so Damon Lane was way off on his advanced warning of deadly cold air hitting the metro on the 17th. Big deal. I'm sure that arctic mass of death and despair is barreling down the plains as your reading this. Who cares that his forecast was off for a day or two, what's the five-day forecast look like? I'll use Gary England's because the Channel 5 extended forecast hasn't been updated in a few days.
Highs in the upper 50s?!? That's get the car washed and drive around with the sunroof open and heater on weather! That's also pretty damn nice for a January. I guess you can say the "anything is possible" monster cold front Damon Lane hyped on the Channel 5 website never really materialized. Thank God, huh?
I don't want to pile on Damon too much. Weathermen make a good living by being wrong and Damon's no exception. Hell, just look at Mike Morgan and his deadly Christmas blizzard forecast. He missed that one by 1,000 David Payne foreheads. Of course, so did everyone else. At least Mike made up for it by emailing us a pic of his wife. So come on, Damon. Show some balls and send us pics of your hot wife in a limo!
Actually, there's no need for that. We have plenty of pics of you and your attractive wife doing cheesy young couple things. Instead, just do us a favor, learn your lesson, and never do something like this ever again! Hit for average and get on base. Don't swing for the fences and strike out.
