Years ago, The Learning Channel dumped learning in favor of Honey Boo Boo and a family led by a couple that doesn’t know how to just sit and talk at night. The History Channel slowly went from history to Hitler to the Harrisons, and The Weather Channel—once a force so powerful in America that it was the authority on weather—followed that same misguided path, eschewing the perpetual map briefings that turned them into a powerhouse to begin airing reality programs about pudgy beards, people anxiously ogling at rocks, and the foibles of a buncha rushin’, cussin’ truckers.

Liam Dutton, a man who grew up in Wales, can pronounce a long Welsh word.

Someone managed to pull a classic (but weak) Howard Stern prank during NBC Chicago’s live coverage of a tornado warning southwest of Chicago on Monday night. Even better than the call itself was the reaction of the worried anchors, who were completely oblivious to what happened.

Smooth jazz. Green screens. Jim Cantore’s hair was on his head instead of his face. (The beard works for him, though.) Weather all day, every day, without a hint of hype or those ridiculous storm names. It was a successful experiment that raised a generation of scientists and likely saved countless lives. Even people who don’t care about the weather admit that The Weather Channel of the 1990s was the height of television excellence.

The yearly ritual of the whiny television viewer is in full swing as severe weather season roars with a vengeance. When tornadoes touch down, local news stations have to preempt programming to warn people so they don’t die, but that interferes with Very Important Programs like Days or football. Many viewers argue that their neighbors have no right to receive warnings if it means cutting-in during a crucial episode of The Big Bang Theory. They are wrong.

Verizon FiOS unceremoniously dumped The Weather Channel from its cable lineup this morning, opting to provide subscribers with AccuWeather's new 24/7 weather network in lieu of the Atlanta-based weather behemoth. The move comes a year after the network went through an ugly public brawl with DirecTV.

A man shot and wounded a central Texas television meteorologist in the news station's parking lot as he left the building after this morning's broadcast. The station, KCEN in Waco and Killeen, reports that morning show meteorologist Patrick Crawford was in the parking lot when a man came up to him and "exchanged words" with Crawford shortly before firing several shots with a semi-automatic hand gun.

Avid news watcher and "consultant" Andrew Tyndall called ABC News meteorologist Ginger Zee a "pornographer" on Friday because she spends all her time on television talking about the weather instead of using her weather segment to talk about climate change. What nerve she has for doing her job!

Memphis television station WREG-TV is making waves on Twitter this morning after they accidentally ("accidentally") Tweeted out the link to a PornHub account instead of a link to their weather radar. Hey, who hasn't done that, am I right?

The Weather Channel's winter weather expert Tom Niziol came to The Vane yesterday to respond to criticism of their winter storm naming scheme as a cheap marketing stunt. In the spirit of fairness and discussion, this post is dedicated to Niziol's (and by extention, the network's) rebuttal.

No credible agency in the United States names winter storms. That being said, The Weather Channel sent out a press release this morning announcing this year’s list of winter storm names. The project continues the network’s incredibly clever viewer-run advertising campaign.