I hope everyone enjoyed yesterday’s cold, wet, icy, and very miserable Monday across Oklahoma! If you need more proof as to why January is the worst month, there you go.
I spent most of yesterday doing girl-dad snow day activities like having a spa day with LOL Dolls, watching My Little Pony on YouTube, and reenacting scenes as Lion-O from ThunderCats. Yep, that’s right, Mole Men. I got my daughter hooked on ThunderCats on Hulu! Gen-X dad for the win, snarf, snarf!
After mentally and physically recovering from a weekend of solo parenting, I took a break to get caught up on the latest soap drama gripping the local Facebook weather community – the vicious smear campaign that diabolical Facebook beefcake weatherman Aaron Tuttle launched against his primary social media weather rival, Mike Williams.
I’m sure you’re aware of Aaron Tuttle – the man who looks and acts like a five-year-old trapped in a 55-year-old bodybuilder's body – thanks to our fantastic coverage of him and his lawsuit against us, but you may not have heard about Mike Williams.
The Pepsi to Aaron’s Coke, Mike’s a Channel 25 stormchaser who runs the popular Facebook page Weather Watch Oklahoma.
He’s not as buff, angry, or spray-tanned as Aaron, but he has amassed a large Facebook following by pretty much doing the same thing – offering honest, hype-free weather forecasts that, unlike the TV news guys, “tells it like it is.”
Well, at least that’s the myth they want you to believe.
In all honesty, they’re basically the online equivalents of TV weathermen, but instead of chasing ratings, they pursue attention and clout by sharing sensational, over-explanatory weather forecasts that mix in random bits of data with some hedged bets and meteorological word salads.
These types of forecasts are good at getting likes and shares, and especially appeal to Mustang Moms, Piedmont Pops, and other redneck contrarians who like to think they're independent thinkers, distrust anything mainstream, and yell “Do your own research!” when it comes to global warming and vaccines.
For example, check out this swing and a whiff:
I kind of get what Michael is saying here. Was yesterday’s weather event a catastrophic “ice storm” like what we had in 2020 or other years past? Considering I didn’t lose power for two weeks and have to temporarily move in with my brother, the answer is “Nope.”
But, Oklahoma City did turn into an ice skating rink on Sunday night and Monday morning, and that last line – "I just don’t see a scenario where the main roadways ice over" – sticks out like a patch of yellow snow. It’s as freezing of a cold take as you can get!
I guess Michael’s attempt to downplay the severity of yesterday's icing got the attention of Aaron Tuttle.
He quickly bronzed up, downed some Muscle Milk, and – without mentioning Michael by name – went on the attack, questioning the guy’s credentials and even calling him a con man.
Check this out:
I hate to break this to Aaron, but if you don’t have the courage to name the “Con Man” you’re warning people about, you are technically letting him get away with it.
Also, I’m not a libel and defamation lawyer who specializes in libel and defamation law, but should you really be calling a competitor who literally completed a 53-credit hour course in meteorology from an accredited American university a Con Man?
It’s not like Michael went to KFOR Weather School, bought an old Dominator from Reed Timmer, and then went cruising around town selling everyone tornado timeshares and inland hurricane insurance!
In addition to that post, Aaron went after Michael in some videos. I can’t for some reason embed Facebook posts, but you can watch it here. Michael eventually responded to Aaron’s attack:
That's a fair and professional response from Michael. It’s nice to see a Facebook weatherman take the high road as opposed to attacking and blocking his followers or calling his co-workers pussies:
Once the ice started melting from the storm, Aaron decided to plant his flag in the frozen tundra and brag about breaking his record of 7 days' notice for an ice storm, because you know, being the first to put on a blindfold, throw darts at a weather map, and then irresponsibly hype a weather forecast that’s speculative at best is important.
I always like to give credit where it’s due, so I guess we should give it up to Aaron on this one.
Even though he provided a potential cop-out and hedged his bets by writing things like “It’s hard to say this far out what the exact temperatures will be” and “I’ll have to watch for this setup over the coming days," it was very “courageous” of Aaron Tuttle, according to Aaron Tuttle, to be the first person to irresponsibly and prematurely tease an ice storm a week in advance.
That being said, should someone tell him that he is already the laughingstock of most of his colleagues, including the ones who only received a certificate from Mississippi State, for also sharing stuff like this on the internet?
Call me a rebel, but I’d much rather get contrarian weather forecasts from some dude with a certificate from Mississippi State than an anti-science freak with a meteorology degree from Texas A&M that pushes whack conspiracy theories and other forms of misinformation online.
Anyway, since being first with weather predictions is important, I’m going to go ahead and forecast that we’ll get one more wintery mix of weather in the next two to six weeks due to temperatures and vortexes and stuff. I’m also going to predict some severe weather in late April / May. Sure, things may change before then, but if they don’t, you’ve heard it hear first.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
