Fishel: Commitment is scary, even for snowfall amounts

Please accept my apologies for going AWOL online. I guess I'm still old school in that I am used to using every bit of time I have to look at data, and then sharing that on television.

I'm getting old, and it's harder to teach the old dog new tricks :).

As I reflect on the storm that is currently winding down, and the days that led up to it, I'm wrestling with something. I completely understand that at some point, you have to make a call on what you feel is the most likely scenario. I may very well have been late doing that this time around.

My excuse and/or justification for doing this was, and is, that I try very hard to be honest with everybody about how confident I am in the forecast. We have better tools than ever now to assess that degree of uncertainty. And frankly, I can't remember a situation where there was any more uncertainty than the one last night, even up to the point where the precipitation had started falling!

Committing to numbers in that situation to me is like scheduling a wedding before you've met the girl of your dreams. Twenty five years ago, I was lucky enough to meet that girl, and then eventually did the wedding thing. (But I digress :)).

In any case, we got a lot of questions the past few days about so-and-so calling for this, that and the other. I think this winter alone has proven that the folks that always go with the worst-case scenario are doing so with one thing in mind.

Every once in a blue moon, that approach works. I can promise you that I will never embrace that tactic. I remember my early days of insecurity, and they weren't about public service, but rather about me. Live and learn I guess ...