Channel 7 meteorologist Dale Furbisher was placed on medical leave Tuesday after doctors determined he was suffering from what they’re calling Severe Weather Fatigue Syndrome, a condition triggered by having to describe every rain shower as ‘unprecedented’ since early March.
According to station management, Furbisher’s breaking point came during Monday night’s broadcast when he referred to a light drizzle as ‘a generational weather event unlike anything this region has ever witnessed’ before quietly setting down his marker and staring at the green screen for eleven full seconds. Colleagues say he has been increasingly unable to distinguish between an actual emergency and ‘partly cloudy with a chance of content for the 11 o’clock news.’
‘We just kept needing bigger words,’ said station director Marlene Ketch. ‘First it was a storm. Then a mega-storm. By February we were calling a light frost a Polar Vortex Event, and Dale just couldn’t keep up with the escalation. He started calling sunny days ‘ominously pleasant’ and warning viewers to ‘brace for stability.”
Furbisher, reached by phone from what he described as an ‘undisclosed sunny location with zero percent chance of anything,’ said he plans to return once he can look at a cumulus cloud without his eye twitching. ‘I just need to see weather that isn’t the worst weather in recorded history,’ he said. ‘Even for like, a Tuesday.’ The station has brought in a substitute meteorologist, though sources say he already referred to Wednesday’s forecast as ‘a five-alarm breeze situation.’
