It’s ratings driven. Money.
I blame the weather channel, ever since they started calling storms and giving them a name.
It seems like every storm with a name gets overblown, sorta like naming Hurricanes, then the storms don't live up to the 'hype'.
While I realize that a geographical variance can affect weather dynamics, it seems so much more pronounced now with mass communication.
That mass communication is represented in dollars of advertising to the weather community, after all, the science is already settled , ..rite ?