Disrupt With Karen

Not this Karen.

This Karen.

Tropical Storm Karen is the eleventh named storm of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season and the first tropical storm of the season to affect the U.S. mainland since Andrea in June.  It's expected to hit the Gulf Coast rather nastily, and then its remnants are expected to chug on right up the I-95 corridor, affecting the New York City area by Monday night.   

Thanks to a few meteorological services (*cough cough*, AccuWeather, *cough cough*), panic has already started to spread in New Jersey and New York about the impact of Karen - or what's left of it - due to suggestions of four inches of heavy rain and gusty winds.  Jersey Shore Hurricane News, a Facebook weather page, and a couple of other sites have had to stress repeatedly that this will not - not - be another Sandy, or another Irene, or another bad nor'easter.  Just a lot of rain.  It will be disruptive, but more as a nuisance than as the kind of rainstorm that's so bad, even bowling gets rained out.  But this is the effect of so many bad summer and autumn storms in recent years, the fact that so many people in the greater New York area are psychologically on edge when it comes to the weather and can't take another historic storm so soon.  Everyone is scared by even the most benign storms that bear down on this great metropolis.

I myself am worn out and worn down by October snowstorms, historic hurricanes, ferocious nor'easters, and the falling trees that accompany them.  If we're going to get more severe or extreme weather that ruins my week, okay.  No, not okay - I won't like it.  But if a storm is no big deal,  I hope news outlets will stop hyping it just to attract more eyeballs.  

In the meantime, I hope people in the Gulf of Mexico region get through this . . . and I hope the people out West dealing with a huge snowstorm get through that as well.