Storms, Warnings, Coverage

Lots of buzz about weather around here lately. Seems like everybody is talking about it, but we all know you can’t do anything about it. The storms have been coming fast and furious in recent days, nothing too unusual for May in Alabama.

Many have e-mailed me about the sports radio guys fussing at us yesterday; that really doesn’t bother me. I have been the object of their rage many times over the years, and I can handle it. It is just part of their routine, and nothing new. Most of those sports talk guys are good friends, and I have no problems with them at all.

Understand, if you don’t have a thick skin, you will never survive in this business. We had to double-box an NBA playoff game Sunday afternoon during tornado coverage, and my friends at Channel 6 had to double box a NASCAR race Saturday night for the same reason. We must look at it from the other side; I would not be happy if I were an NBA or NASCAR fan trying to watch the event in that smaller box while some TV weather goober took up the audio portion and half the screen. And, the general population was not happy because they really couldn’t get a good look at our weather coverage unless they really had a big screen TV.

Understand this problem will go away in coming years. My vision is that we will have real broad bandwidth within 5 to 8 years (100 Mbps or higher), and a set-top box that that will store every program and all media, and handle thousands of live streams. There will be no more local affiliation model, and quite frankly, no “networks” as we know them now. The NBA, NFL, MLB, etc will steam all of their games live, in HD, right to your set without needing ABC, ESPN, etc. All middle men will be cut out. Operations like ABC 33/40 will be exclusively local, and no more interrupting programs for weather coverage. This will be happening sooner than later. Bring it on.

Quite frankly, the main issue I struggle with is the marginal tornado warning. Understand, not all tornado warnings are the same, and interrupting a major TV event for one of these is beginning to become unacceptable. The hate mail was fast and furious after cutting off Wheel of Fortune and the first part of Dancing With The Stars for a tornado warning for a small part of Talladega and Clay county in a National Forest. I honestly side with the hate mail crowd on this one.

In my opinion, there was a decent risk of a small tornado with that storm when it was near Childersburg at 6:15 or so; see the wall cloud shots below from Childersburg and Winterboro:

The warning was issued, however, well east of that spot as the shower was weakening. I am not faulting the NWS; I am sure they had some kind of report that led them to a decision to issue a warning, but we saw no compelling reason from our office, and it was a struggle doing long form coverage from 6:35 until 7:05. I had no voice, saw no reason for a continued tornado warning, and simply didn’t have much to report.

After a series of these in recent years, I have to believe we have to re-evaluate our position on long form severe weather coverage for these marginal situations. I will be thinking through this in coming days, but I assure you the idea of having to go on our main TV signal, interrupting regular programming, for a questionable tornado warning almost makes me ill to even think about it. We have our “WeatherNow” digital channel on cable systems around the state, and our live Internet stream that is always available for long form coverage that doesn’t warrant being on the big blow torch signal.

Understand, I can handle the hate mail, but it is the “cry wolf” syndrome that is the real concern. Too many marginal warnings means nobody will listen to a warning that is a real emergency with potential for a strong/violent tornado and loss of life. I have discussed this at length with my friends at the National Weather Service, and again, I am not faulting them. They are of the opinion that they have to pull the trigger on a tornado warning if they think it is a small, spin-up EF0, or a deadly EF5. But, the false alarm ratio, in my opinion, is too high, and we are lulling people to sleep with hundreds of warnings.

So, in coming days I will be think about pulling the policy of always being on TV during every single tornado warning, but only going on the air when we firmly believe a tornado is there. We can keep the marginal stuff on the digital channel and the live Internet stream. What do you think?

Category: Pre-November 2010 Posts