Feeding the Hysteria

The first reports I heard last week about the looming winter storm said my home town of Nashville was facing a snow accumulation of thirty (30!) inches. The shelves of grocery stores and similar provisioners in  our area were immediately laid bare by scared Southerners who took it as the gospel that a weather catastrophe was about to strike us. By midweek, the forecast had settled down to a more manageable amount of eleven to thirteen inches. That would be no bargain, but people have survived worse. The WSMV weather team last night had reduced projections to a mere three to four inches, that is a relatively normal event in typically sunny Tennessee. So why I ask was the initial prediction so dire? Were certain folks stoking a panic for their own reasons?