So I emailed the NEWS9 News Desk contact...

[Tom]

What is up with Gary E and David P and the big difference in their weather forcast between 5pm and 6pm (today)? David shows an impressive rain coming (80%) Saturday evening and an hour later Gary shows hardly nothing (40%) and says it will be nothing by the time it hits the metro, conflicting what David says an hour prior. Even NWS is showing 80% for Saturday evening.
I have to say, David Payne is a huge improvement to the weather team with his energy and humor, which News 9 weather team REALLY needs. Gary just pugs along, old stuff. Sorry to say but Gary has lost the luster and needs to retire. The community will lose confidence in such a different forcast between the two. And don't blame David, he's kick butt on his presentation.
But back to the question. Why are both weathermen showing such a huge difference in their forcasts and in only an hours time? It's the same news channel for crying out loud. You guys need to get it together!!!

[OKCisOK4me]

If you keep up with the weather thread on this forum, Venture79 has models that are different all the time. Maybe Payne uses one model while Gary uses the other because for them that's the models that have worked best for them in their experience. Of course, yeah, it would be nice if they could get on the same page.

[Easy180]

Which one was righterer on the OKC blizzard in Feb?

[Tom]

Which one was righterer on the OKC blizzard in Feb?

Does it matter? We all will eventually win in a guess.

It's not that there are different models or who is righter.
It's the same channel. They should be saying the same language.

[Mel]

Maybe they are one-upping each other.

[Anonymous.]

I think all the local channels do this and eventually the forecasts start lining up when the event is almost immediate.

Individual Mets basically always have their own forecast - now whether they present them from a "storm team!" aspect or individual met's '7-days' is the whole media spin on things.

Deep down David thinks X will happen, Gary thinks Y will happen, Damon thinks Z will happen, and Mike thinks Q will happen.


The viewers of these local media outlets need to take it upon themselves to understand how forecasting is not 100% [or even close in some instnaces] and the thing they're watching @ 5, 6, and 10 are all opinionated forecasts based on that time and person presenting it. The bottomline is to be prepared for potential hazardouse weather and be able to recieve notification of watches and warnings at any time.

[Larry OKC]

There could have been new data that cam in between the two forcasts. During the last snowblizzardgeddan, on the weather channel, they had the winer warning ticker and at the same time on their Weather on the 8s, the short range and long range forcast didn't mention it at all.

Anonymous: what you are saying is true for competing stations, BUT David Payne & Gary England are on the SAME station now...

[Anonymous.]

I know this. I wasn't very clear in my explanation. But each meteorologist has their own forecast that they present during his/her time slot.

If you notice it will usually say "Gary's 7 day" or "Emily's 7 day" or "Mike's 7 day" etc. The station as a whole does not forecast, although some try to make it appear that way.

[Larry OKC]

No worries...I havent paid enough attention to the various labeled forecast to notice if they were the same or not...just presumed it was a way to connect with viewers somehow (sort of like a few years ago, local company owned McDonald's allowed store manager's to put up banners saying "Mary's McDonald's"...some sort of marketing thing to make it seem more local rather than a corporate entity).