The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / The One Weather Cliché That All Forecasters Should Stop Using

**Posted by RadioActive** **Online!** March 24, 2025 7:16 pm

Weather presenters often fall into a pattern of using some pretty ridiculous clichés on the air, but there's one that especially drives me crazy - and I heard it yet again on Monday.

Jessica Smith on CFTO's 6 PM news needlessly warned viewers that despite the fact it's early spring they "shouldn't put that winter coat away just yet."

Would anyone that's lived in Toronto or this area for even a single year ever think it was time to pack away the winter coat on March 24th? Why does this stupid phrase always seem to get repeated year after year, season after season? Who in their right mind puts their parka away this early? (And even if they did, you stick it in a closet and you can pull it out instantly whenever you need it. It's not like you need an expeditionary force to find it. So what's the big deal with "putting it away?")

I hear weathercasters of all kinds on both radio and TV constantly use this idiotic phrase. The calendar may officially say spring but Mother Nature says it's still winter cold outside. Can you put this stupid cliché away, at least until maybe the end of April?

**Posted by RadioActive** **Online!** March 24, 2025 7:23 pm

And speaking of CFTO weather people, who always seem to irk me, where in the world is Lindsay Morrison? She just got back from a year's maternity leave in January and has been doing the weather on the noon and 6, with a taped package at 11.

Except two or three days a week in the last month or so, she's not there. She was absent again on Monday, with Jessica Smith taking her place.

I don't begrudge her the time off, but didn't she just have 365 days to do whatever needed being done? I hope there are no problems with her new baby, but it does seem if you're going to come back to work for a five-day-a-week job, you should, you know, come back to work five days in a row on a consistent basis.

Whatever is going on, I wish her and her family well. And don't put those days off too far back in the closet...

**Posted by RadioAaron** March 24, 2025 7:35 pm

**Posted by turkeytop** March 24, 2025 8:15 pm

With my late father, winter was never over until he put his longjohns away. (usually about mid-May)

**Posted by dieter** March 24, 2025 11:59 pm

Jessica Smith is horrible. She still talks far too fast.

**Posted by mace** March 25, 2025 1:14 am

dieter wrote:
Jessica Smith is horrible. She still talks far too fast.

Possible, but far superior to when there is no weather presenter and the anchors must stumble and bumble through the forecast. For the supposed #1 newscast in Canada's #1 market it is an absolute disgrace that a weather presenter is unavailable seven days a week. WGRZ, WIVB and WKBW seem to be able to scrape enough money to have a weather person for each newscast. Bell has the dough. They just don't want to spend it. I wonder if their cheapness has cost them supper hour viewers. Numeris numbers are guarded like gold at Fort Knox. Not terribly scientific, but on the Rogers Trending site CTV News @6 is always ranked higher than CITY, Global, CHCH and CBC.