Weather Outlet Screws Up Binghamton's Name

Okay, full disclosure. When I arrived in my beat up Chevy Nova to live and work in Binghamton coming from Corning back in the late 1970s, I misjudged the spelling of Binghamton.

I could swear that there was a 'P' in Binghamton, as Binghampton. You know, like the Hamptons of Long Island. Made sense to me. But of course I was laughed out of my workplace when I wrote it that way while creating a radio commercial. I quickly leaned not to insert a 'P' again, lest I be chastised to no end.

The US Weather Plus Facebook page, which has more than 90,000 followers, just did one 'Binghamton' error worse than I have ever done. Their upcoming winter weather storm map shows snowfall total predictions for the eastern portion of the United States.

It lists the names of several cities, including Binghamton. Well, not exactly Binghamton. On the map where our fair city resides, we are listed on the US Weather Facebook page as 'Birmingham.'

To their credit, someone pointed it the comments and US Weather Plus said they would fix it in their next update, but oh my god... How did we become the same name as a large city in Alabama?

Granted, Birmingham, Alabama is a fine city. I have driven through it once, and thought is was a nice looking metropolis set in a warm climate area. I can only imagine that the citizens of the city of Birmingham, Alabama would not be happy to find that the US Weather Facebook page has predicted up to eight inches of snow for their wonderful city.

Although neither are most of us in the Binghamton area happy about the upcoming snowstorm other than the hope that it will still be with us come Christmas day. But the big question is, can the rest of the country get our city name right? We don't have a 'P' in the name, and we are not from Alabama, thank you very much.

via US Weather Plus Facebook Page