When we were told back in 2014 that the National Weather Service would stop using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in its various forecast discussions and statements, we thought that would be the greatest thing since E-Z Pass, if not the ATM.
Since then we've been waiting and waiting AND WAITING. Finally, this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.
"LISTEN UP! BEGINNING ON MAY 11, NOAA'S NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECASTS WILL STOP YELLING AT YOU,"
This ALL CAPS thing has been a bane of our existence since our days at a wire service when we had to retype the weather forecasts for the benefit of our subscribers because the weather service spit them out in ALL CAPS.
These days, it's an even bigger pain. By the time we get done downsizing and right-sizing the lettering on those ominous weather warnings to post online, IT MIGHT ALREADY BE TOO LATE TO ESCAPE THE MAYHEM AND DESTRUCTION.
But those aren't the only issues with ALL CAPS. Unfiltered, evidently THEY CAN SCARE THE DAYLIGHTS OUT OF PEOPLE, as Gary Szatkowski, the boss of the local weather service office, found out back in January.
On Jan. 19, a few days before that mammoth snowstorm, he tweeted out: "HIGH CONFIDENCE IN MAJOR WINTER WINTER STORM INCLUDING HEAVY SNOWS FOR THE URBAN CORRIDOR EXTENDING FROM WASHINGTON DC TO NEW YORK AND BOSTON."
He was quoting from a routine discussion put out by headquarters, but the ALL CAPS sounded alarm bells.
In subsequent tweets, he wrote, "Have received a number of questions." … "Don't draw too much inference from the ALL CAPS style. That's the way the product is written."
And, finally, "Getting that info out was standing between me and my first cup of coffee, so I just cut and paste. And you got ALL CAPS." (Our thanks to our graphics genius John Duchneskie for passing this along.)
So what took so long to convert to civilized, mixed-case, human-scaled lettering?
Historically, weather reports were sent via teletypes tied to telephone lines, and the printers could accommodate only UPPER CASE letters.
Technology has made the teletype obsolete, and the weather service has been trying for 20 years to get over it, according to NOAA.
At long last, the equipment that recognizes only teletype has become extinct, the weather service has upgraded its software, so an annoying era is about to end.
The NOAA statement quoted weather service meteorologist Art Thomas as saying that people might find normality abnormal. "Seeing mixed-case use might seem strange at first," he said.
"It seemed strange to me until I got used to it over the course of testing the new system, but now it seems so normal," he said.
All we can say is, ALL CAPS NEVER SEEMED NORMAL!