WAURIKA — It’s tornado season out here on the Plains, but it won’t be long before the folks on the southern and eastern seaboards start gearing up for hurricane season.

Whether you’re on the front side, the back side or in the eye of the storm, there’s really nothing funny about a hurricane. Hurricanes are deadly, destructive, often devastating weather events, that can take a terrible toll in human lives and property.

It’s nigh impossible to find much humor when a hurricane strikes. I think we’re all on the same page about that, aren’t we?

Of course, I did say it’s nigh impossible to get any laughs from a hurricane. See, there is one modern media trend that tickles my somewhat cryptic funny bone. Some of y’all may feel the same.

I’m talking about hurricane coverage by TV news.

To wit: When did it become a rite of passage for a news reporter to boldly stand in the middle of a raging hurricane and give a blow-by-blow account of what’s occurring?

What machismo-driven news director decided embedding some goober with a microphone in the eye of a category 4 hurricane could enhance the story, making it more dramatic?

Is it really necessary for CNN’s Anderson Cooper to prove his manhood by jukin’ and jivin’ across somebody’s yard, breathlessly spewing play-by-play, as a two-ton motel sign skips along in the background like a tumbling tumbleweed?

“Ohmygawd! That was close!” Anderson squeals, as pieces of mangled metal swoosh through the air like Margaret Hamilton peddling her bike past Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz.

No duh, Anderson. You’re in the middle of a hurricane! HELLLLOOOO!

Give Cooper a little slack, though, because when it comes to hurricane coverage, no reporter is more of a macho schmo than Geraldo Rivera of Fox News. When a hurricane blows in, so does Geraldo, looking like a matchstick in a wind tunnel doing up-close-and-personal reports that are almost intelligible, because — get this — the wind is blowing so hard!

Try to imagine Walter Cronkite, dressed like the Ancient Mariner in a rain cap and slicker, dodging falling telephone poles as he runs down a boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, screaming into a microphone, “And that’s the way it is, from the middle of Hurricane Camille.”

Picture David Brinkley decked out in hip boots, uttering, “Good night, Chet,” as he wades through 5 feet of backwater filling Jackson Square in New Orleans after Hurricane Betsy.

It would have never happened, because past generations of TV news reporters had a different attitude about contrived dramatics in their broadcasts.

From here, it appears the more “on-the-scene” hurricane coverage evolves, the more it becomes a “nyah-nyah” competition between the individual reporters. It’s as though these TV news types go mano-a-mano with 145 mph winds just so they can get together later in a bar and show off their scars.

Imagine the discussion ...

Von Jonbovi, NBC News: “Yeah, I was on the Outer Banks when Hurricane Floyd blew through the Carolinas in ’99. Had to get a steel plate in my head after the roof of a beach house came out of nowhere and bonked me! I’m still cleaning sand out of my ears from that one!”

Lou Joopanewpin, ABC News: “Von, that’s nothin’. When Andrew ravaged south Florida in ’92, I spent eight hours in a dingy in the middle of Tampa harbor, broadcasting with a Mr. Microphone that I had to run off a hand-cranked transmitter — and I had eight broken fingers!”

Kitty Boxx, MSNBC: “Kid’s stuff, guys. See my right leg? I was doing a remote when Hugo slammed into Guadeloupe in ’89, and the anchor of an oil tanker caught hold of my leg. I got dragged 32 miles out to sea.

“Had to have 274 stitches, but I still got my story filed. And while I was swimming around, fighting off sharks, I also discovered the Lost City of Atlantis.”

The more I experience hurricane coverage in the 21st century, the more I chuckle at TV news folks — and the more I’d like to reach out and give ’em a dope slap.

Look, TV is a visual medium — sometimes pictures are enough to give a story a powerful impact.

If I can see rain blowing horizontally, rows of palm trees going down like dominoes, sea walls dissolving beneath hammering waves and 100-foot yachts washed up into people’s front yards, I don’t really need some doofus in a rain suit scampering around, telling me a hurricane can be dangerous and devastating.

But maybe that’s just me.