Hot as a Firecracker for the Fourth of July

Meteorology and communication are directly related since even a perfectly accurate forecast has no value if it’s not communicated properly, which might help to explain why I’m a language blogger (http://languageandgrammar.com/) and author in addition to being a meteorologist.

From the unsolicited advice category, I’d like to suggest that if you ever want to sound trite, predictable, and worn out, then you should use trite,  predictable, and worn out language when speaking and speak or writing, which (finally) brings me to the point of today’s post–Independence Day cliches in weather forecasts.

A quick search on google for “hot as a firecracker, weather” turned up 10 pages of results, including references to large national companies (AccuWeather) to large cities (Denver) to smaller newspapers (Roanoke) to personal blogs. The surprising thing is that everyone who made the “hot as a firecracker for the Fourth of July” reference thought they were being clever.

A predictable statement being used in a predictable way is not anyone’s definition of being clever–I hope. The only thing worse would be adding “mother nature’s fireworks” to the forecast when talking about thunderstorms. 

–Paul Yeager