Four pages, one amateur forecaster, a Publix supply run and a Gulf Shores wedding hanging in the balance.
By page four of a VolQuest thread titled “Cane coming Sat…,” Matt4RockyTop had become the unofficial director of Gulf Coast emergency management.
Not hurricane. Cane.
Matt is apparently so comfortable around tropical cyclones now that he can’t be bothered with all three syllables. At 5:12 Thursday morning, after the National Hurricane Center had already done the tedious work, Matt checked in:
“We have a cane…. Winds at 80”
Thank God he was awake.
Maps. Forecast tracks. James Spann. NOAA. Trashy Accuweather. Matt gathered enough other people’s weather work to open a regional forecast office in his spare bedroom. The board ate it up.
One poster wanted to know whether Fayetteville might get rain Saturday afternoon. Another started arguing weather apps. TaylorVol complained that The Weather Channel had missed the Tennessee forecast while the iPhone weather app nailed it.
Matt, now apparently tenured in atmospheric sciences, replied:
“Math is hard…. TWC had rain forecast set up until around 1, I gave an update on this board. iOS weather app is widely known to be the worst, accu would be better.”
Read that again.
“I gave an update on this board.”
James Spann has been informed.
Then woolioshee arrived with a question bigger than Saturday’s rain chances:
“Set to attend a wedding in Gulf Shores on Saturday. Should they call off the wedding for safety?”
Instead of asking the couple or checking local authorities, the wedding question had landed in front of Matt4RockyTop on a Tennessee football board.
Should we cancel the wedding, Matt?
You can practically hear woolioshee calling both families: “I’m recommending we postpone. Matt4RockyTop has reviewed the models. And we can wait another month.”
Lives saved.
Elsewhere, another poster said Matt’s explanation had prompted a sustenance supply run:
“So as a result of your explicit explanation, I just returned home with a full tank of gas and some toll house cookies and Milk from Publix.”
The attaboys kept coming. Matt reviewed weather apps like a man issuing federal guidance. When somebody shared an AccuWeather link, he declared, “Accu is straight trash….” He’d just recommended Accu over the iPhone app. Apparently the forecast changes when the expert needs a new opinion.
This is no longer a football thread. This is FEMA with Power T avatars.
For Big Orange Bo, this weather nonsense was an old grudge. Matt scoops up forecasts from CNN, The Weather Channel, the National Hurricane Center and James Spann, then delivers them to VolQuest as though he personally was penetrating the “Cane” eyewall in a “Cane” Hunter WC-130. Bo, who says he knows actual meteorologists, had enough: “I know people who actually analyze weather for a living. He is copying and pasting their data and claiming credit. Not one fucking bit of it is his critical analysis, and you idiots have made him a subject-matter expert.”
After Bo unloaded about the “BULLSHIT” weather posts, Matt answered:
“lol, okie dokie troll.”
TheRealCobra1 told somebody to grow up. Volgarien decided the critics were just jealous:
“Matt and Tater are the weather on here, it’s entertaining and generally as accurate if not more accurate as weather can get.”
Not reporting the weather. They are the weather. James Spann has apparently been reduced to recycling whatever Matt4RockyTop posts on VolQuest. A sad decline for a once-promising meteorologist.
Matt closed the diplomatic summit with:
“Haters and trolls…. All good, cobra.”
Perfect.
Somewhere in Gulf Shores, a bride may have to explain that somebody considered postponing the wedding on the advice of a Tennessee football message board.
Because Matt4RockyTop, volunteer weather LARPer, announced:
“We have a cane.”
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