'Corn Sweat' Fuels Vicious Ohio Local TV Weather Anchor Fight

An Anchorman-type street brawl has broken out in Toledo, Ohio where the local ABC & CBS affiliates have engaged in a vicious war of words between the two weather departments over "corn sweat." 

For those of you who aren't in the Midwest, the weather guys have been having fun this week informing the locals of the "corn sweat" phenomenon. The premise is that corn is sweating, which is putting moisture in the air and then it's causing abnormally high humidity across the corn belt. 

In Toledo, things boiled over Wednesday when one weather guy, Ross Ellet from ABC-13 WTVG decided he'd had enough. 

His target: Chris Vickers from across town at CBS-affiliate WTOL who went viral across multiple social media channels for his "corn sweat" lesson that he gave out this week. 

Ellet, who is a huge weather nerd, came to the conclusion that he couldn't let this go on any longer. It's time to fight back. Wednesday morning, he announced it's game on. The gloves came off. 

"Have you seen the viral posts and news articles? All of the sudden we are suffering with humidity and everyone is telling us it is the corn's fault," Ellet wrote on Facebook. 

"I like that all of the sudden people are interested in the science of humidity, but only a tiny fraction of the moisture in the air is specifically from corn. 

"Many Meteorologists are taking dewpoint maps for the Midwest and labeling it as ‘Corn Sweat’. That is very misleading to say the least. Humidity in the air is the sum of advection (wind moving moisture toward us) + evapotranspiration (the sum of all moisture going from the land to the air)."

Oh hell yeah, Ellet just fought back by dropping "advection" square on Vickers' forehead. 

This is like Larry Holms vs. Ali. This is like Ali vs. Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila. 

Just punches being thrown back and forth between weather nerds. 

Now that local TV news departments have been butchered by ownership groups and reporters no longer fight for scoops, we're left with fights like this between weather departments. 

In cities the size of Toledo, this is about the only type of local media fight you're going to get. The local NBC affiliate doesn't have a local news department. It's been farmed out. The ABC affiliate doesn't have its own sports department. That has been farmed out to a local cable network. The local Fox affiliate is operated in conjunction with the CBS affiliate. 

The local TV anchors are just trying to put in a week of work and fund their 401ks. They never fight. They barely give effort on social media. 

Weather guys fighting over "corn sweat" is all that's left of the media lanscape. 

WTOL weather department fights back against Ellet's direct attack

As emotions boiled over Wednesday, Vickers' teammate, morning weather guy Ryan Wichman, who is engaged in a battle for morning weather supremacy with Ellet, FIRED BACK. 

"Just read a super long rant hating on the phrase ‘Corn Sweat’. Some people need a hug," Wichman wrote on Facebook while indirectly telling Ellet to shove his science lecture. "Science can be informative and fun all together. Enjoy the ride called life and don’t (dare I say) sweat it."

It might be a corny fight, but it's as close as we're going to get to Anchorman in this city. We'll take it.