Bolaris: Beware the TV weather tease

As I said, this morning was going to be nothing more than a coating to an inch. Ninety percent of the Delaware Valley came in under an inch. The biggest snow that was reported was 1.5 inches in Coatesville, Chester County, and an inch in Bucks County.

When the local news stations tell you they are going on early at 4 a.m. to get you through the snow, it blows my mind. This does nothing but confuse the viewer into thinking that we actually have a storm coming when we don't.

The constant teases, as I was watching "The Voice," I can't tell you how many times I heard the weather person say, stay tuned, we are updating the snow amounts. Really?? Lemme see, you're figuring out between a trace and an inch. And I don't blame this on the weather people. Trust me, I know the powers in charge understand weather is a ratings-getter and do everything besides outright lying to get you to watch.

Hype: To publicize or promote, especially by extravagant, inflated, or misleading claims.

This is the mantra of most local news stations across the country. They feel enormous pressure to get ratings numbers as this is the driving force for advertising dollars and how a station makes money.

Heads roll when stations underperform, so it's simply part of the local news fabric and, unfortunately, you the viewers get the wrong end of the stick.

This will never change as local television news has morphed into a machine gun of teases, short on content, delivered by a smoke machine (visually-appealing women) and the real news grunts are left out in the field doing real work for half the pay.

You might be thinking that I'm a little bitter, Hell yeah, I loved living the dream and being your weatherman. It was the time of my life.

But I also know as the industry changes, I needed to change both professionally and personally and I'm truly excited about 2014. I will be back in the weather saddle, but in a whole new way.

And everyone of you can be part of it.

John Bolaris