SNOW! Panic! Snow! Panic! SNOW!

This is the, possibly understated, weather forecast from Boston.com.

Tonight, Thursday February 7th. Cloudy. A chance of snow showers after midnight. Lows around 20. Chance of snow 40 percent.

Friday...Snow showers. Snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches. Highs in the lower 30s.  Chance of snow near 100 percent.

Friday Night...Snow. Snow may be heavy at times. Windy with lows around 18.  Chance of snow near 100 percent.

 Saturday...Snow. Snow may be heavy at times. Windy and colder with highs in the lower 20s. Chance of snow near 100 percent.

This is apparently not what most people are hearing though. Maybe because they’re getting their info from Weather.com? The tone there is perhaps a smidge histrionic.

ALERT: Historic, Crippling Blizzard Ahead
Winter Storm Nemo: Potential Historic Blizzard Looms

You know that when a storm is named things are way serious.

Winter Storm Nemo is now poised to become the latest example of a powerful, potentially historic, February storm.
The heaviest snow totals by early Sunday morning are expected in New England from coastal Maine to Connecticut, as well as the Adirondacks of Upstate New York, where over one foot of snow is expected!  Some locations, particularly in coastal New England, may top two feet of storm total snow!  

This has the potential to be a top 10 snowstorm all-time in Boston!  

The bold facing and punctuation are weather.com's. Seriously, they're using bold face and exclamation points. This is New England for christ's sake. We do snow here. Well, not so much in the last couple of years but still -- blizzards are hardly unusual for us, unlike DC. A foot of the fluffy stuff, hell TWO feet of it in one storm is no reason to break out the melodramatic punctuation.

Yes, yes, yezzzz -- we should all be prepared. Definitely. The power may go out, travel about town will be difficult, shops will shut early. There may be some flooding here along the coast.

Is it possible to rouse the populace to sufficient prep levels without going all Ride of the Valkyries on our asses?

Maybe, maybe not. The bombastic tone just strikes me as manipulative ratings pandering. Annoying, insulting and possibly counter productive. There’s been so many STORM OF THE CENTURY warnings, where the 'weather event' ends up being a big nothing burger, that a lot of folks just stop paying attention. Well, apart from having Storm Parties that is.

The Amazing Bob and I were running errands this morning and stopped by our local Stop & Shop. Ten in the morning on a weekday, a time when the store is usually blissfully underpopulated, the joint was jumpin’. It was difficult to get down any of the aisles for all the carts and carriages. Everyone was moving slower than a manatee through refrigerated honey.

Mega panic shopping or maybe just stocking up for all the Winter Storm Nemo parties?

TAB and I are prepared but then we always keep extra batteries, candles and tinned soups around, just in case. OK, I may need to run out for extra wasabi peas and Chianti -- I may have plowed through our stock during the last STORM OF THE CENTURY.