I don't understand why people leave their children and animals in hot cars. It's ignorant and dangerous.

This story out of Mineola highlights that people STILL do this. Think about how hot cars are when you get into them on a hot or even a warm day. As the Nassau County police investigator says, "cracking a window on a 90-degree day doesn't do much."

This guy says it was an accident. In this case in 2009, it was deemed an accident, but still inexcusable. 

Here's a video I saw from Weatherbug Meteorologist Jacob Wycoff on the Washington Post earlier this summer. It is compelling and illustrates how dangerous it can be, even, as he points out, on a day that is not particularly hot.

Some reporters hate them, others love them. Often, it's whether you've had to shovel snow or pump out your basement that day that makes the difference.

I personally, as Online Editor Emily Donohue called me Wednesday, am a "weather nerd." That means I'll often be the one to call the meteorologist when the region is expecting torrential downpours, biblical flooding or enough snow to strand you on the highway — or that's at least what they always tell me to expect when I call.

There is something about calling scientists who are in the midst of some technical issue, talking enthusiastically about the inner-workings of their field (and you better pull up a chair if you ask a meteorologist to explain "in layman's terms" how a weather system comes to be) that always makes me wish I'd become a scientist. My wife just called me a nerd, too.

So I called the National Weather Service Wednesday and asked what the weather was supposed to be like Thursday. I don't do it everyday, but I'd heard it might be nasty.

The meteorologist I talked to said "there is potential for some isolated tornadoes."

So what am I to do?

I don't want to hype up "the sky is falling" issue, but at the same time someone whose daily job is the weather just told me we could be looking at a reenactment of the Wizard of Oz.

As a reporter, I didn't want to be the one to not tell my readers Thursday — after a twister had carried away the brand-new Tempered by Memory sculpture — that a scientist told me Wednesday to expect that.

Obviously it's better that everyone prepare for something that never happens rather than be caught off guard.

That's what I've told myself all afternoon, anyway, after reporting Wednesday that tornadoes were possible when Thursday it turned out to be just a rain storm — and not even a bad one at that.