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When Shelby Scott came out of retirement for an April blizzard

WBZ-TV "April Fools Storm" Blizzard 1997 Coverage

Some WBZ coverage of the April Fool's Day Blizzard back in '97. Via Adam Reilly, who says, "toughen up, everybody."

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Some old timers have cozy memories of Shelby Scott, but, truth be known, she was the start of all this fake showbiz stuff that goes on with weather reporting now. Often standing out there saying "here we are in this terrible blizzard" when there was no such blizzard. It was the start of the "we promised them a storm, we'll give them one" wall to wall model, which we constantly see now. In the absence of war, create one.

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6-10" predicted the night before … and no one believed them because it was 65˚!

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.

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I remember hearing that 6-10" on Easter when it was 70F and we had our 1 year old son dressed in a smart short suit. But we knew as of the morning of the 31st that we were going to be walloped, shellacked, smacked hard, etc. - and it didn't even start snowing until after nightfall. It wasn't underpredicted at all. It was maybe more than expected, but we knew we were going to get 4" an hour overnight.

My major memory of that storm was myself and my husband going out every half hour and shoveling because the woman upstairs was in labor. It was piling up 2 to 3" in between. We kept the driveway clear until they left at 2:30 am. The plow guy across the street would wander by and break the tailing, and he let the DPW know so our street was the cleanest in town.

And when we got back out at 10am? Like we never even did anything!

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Snow this year was spectacular but it didn't stick around.

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Was also 89 degrees on the same date 1 year later

I took bus/ train to work that day and had to stay late enough that only options were last train/ sleep on floor- took last/ unannounced Green Line to Cleveland Circle and had to walk back to Oak Square- took me 2 1/2 hours with a heated ATM vestibule warm-up- walking around next day looked like something out of a newsreel

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i remember being woken up by my father on April 1st with him saying "school is cancelled" i retorted with some witty teenager remark about that being a crappy april fool's joke. he simply said "look out the window, dumbass"

3 feet of snow. pretty sure it was all melted by midday on April 2nd.

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Which I know because that storm was the one storm in all our time in Roslindale that the city failed to clear the roads around here quickly and so we were stuck up on our hill for at least three days before a plow finally came up our street. You kids today with your Zooms and insta-connecting to everything, hah, working from home then was a real pain (fortunately, I was working for a publication covering computer networking, so I could, but it was sloooow).

To my everlasting regret, when we ran out of milk and I set out to walk to a convenience store on Washington Street to get some, I went to the one that was NOT uphill both ways from our house.

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I miss them all.

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This is where Mariah Carey got her "how to stay relevant" schtick where she appears out of nowhere in November to sing her Christmas song non stop for a month and a half. And then we put her back in her box and store her with the decorations and fake tree until next year.

But here, Shelby perfected it. She retired years ago, but like Mariah & Christmas, she magically appears out of nowhere at any super major snow or storm event. Bright eyed and ready to report. Once it's done, she goes back into hiding until the next big event (okay not so much since the video above) (and yes, I know long before Shelby retired.. Cher had this perfected too)

Jokes aside.. I miss that style of reporting. Long gone are the days of long format reporting & journalists just having "something unique" in their speech & style. Something that isn't seen often today. local news now seems flashy, fast paced.

In my everquest of boredom.. I stumbled upon a 1982 "CBS News Reports" (tv show) that was called "The Mall" . 47 minutes of one topic.. the Overland Park Mall & its community. A true "long format", in depth news show dissecting a single topic. It was fascinating to watch.

In today's TikTok/"News articles now have read times" world, no one would watch this. But I recall a time where these were a 'several times a year' kinda special. It wouldnt fly today unless it was about some national issue/tragedy.

Our attention span just blows today. Sometimes I think a person like Shelby wouldnt survive in today's flashy, fast paced local news.

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