The news media really are getting weather totally out of proportion these days.
We've just experienced a perfectly normal autumn storm (what we used to call a deep area of low pressure until the weather forecasts were dumbed down to the level of junior school) and you'd think from the forecasts and coverage that we'd just been through something akin to October 1987!!
Add to that the ease at which reasonably high quality video can be shot, sent to the media such as BBC and put on air to fill 24 hour news channels and you get these sort of nonsense non-stories.
Silly really, but we're stuck with it!!