An unambiguous forecast

From a National Weather Service alert for our area:

Between 1 and 2 inches of snow is expected by supper time today.

Do you see what they did there? For some people dinner is a mid-day meal; for others, an evening meal. Supper leaves no ambiguity. Merriam-Webster explains both words.

Now I want to know whether the NWS uses supper regionally or nationally.

Idle question, Michael, let it go.

*

I know myself too well to know that I could leave the question alone. So I e-mailed the Central Illinois office of National Weather Service to ask. Chris Geelhart, lead meteorologist, replied:

The forecaster that issued that statement comes from a farming background in the Midwest, which is probably why he used that wording. My mom also comes from a farming background (in South Dakota) and would use similar wording when I was growing up. Typically we tend to lean toward using actual clock times or more broad terms such as “mid afternoon”, “early evening”, etc. The NWS doesn't have a formal policy on regional terminology, as far as I know.

Chris noted that the use of supper in this morning’s alert was a subject of conversation on social media.

And it’s snowing.

[Thanks to Chris Geelhart for permission to quote him here.]