Weather charts between different news stations

[Chefdavies]

Was it me or does it seem that the news stations "doppler," "Moar", "some fancy new name," just look like the old atari game graffics? I kept switching between channels 5 and 9, and it just seemed as if i was playing some atari game back in the 80's. "You see this red square is where the tornado is, or wait is it the green square." Then you turn to channel 9 and there are so many spinning circles it looks like olympic symbol. I was just finding some humor in the "death from above," last night

[metro]

good one!

[bombermwc]

They all want to sensationalize the weather just like the news writers want each story to be bigger than it really is. Go back 10 years and we don't stop the whole planet for hail and then tell people they're gonna die....they do that now.

Mr. England should have been slapped numerouse times for saying, "I don't see how you're goingto survive if you aren't underground". Yes he said that on My 3rd.

Ever since then, and especially in the last 3 years, it seems that the weather guys have stopped being meteorologists and are tv personalities with more interest in catching ratings than doing their job well. All this crap with one radar and another, my toy, his toy, who gives a rat's ass.

I say, cut the crap and go back to being real scientists and stop being media. The NWS is the one with the real data anyway, and they're who tells the news about watches/warnings. Media is just a middle man with a camera.

Which brings me to another point. Does anyone remember a time when a Tornado Warning meant there was actually a tornado on the ground and not just the possibility of one? These days they drop the warning bomb like it's an old-school watch. If there's a cloud in the sky, we get a tornado watch, and then if ANYTHING happens, BAM tornado warning whether there's even a funnel cloud or not.

[venture]

One thing NWS Norman does is not put out BS tornado warnings. We have such a spotter/chaser rich state, that there are plenty of eyes on it all. Yes was a case of 2-3 supercells that had amazing structure and very strong rotation. No it never did drop a tornado, but this is the game we are in.

You say remember when a warning actually meant it was on the ground, so where is the lead time? There is none. Your method therefore puts people in danger of a tornado dropping on them with little to no advanced warning. The NWS puts out a warning on a cell once it crosses the threshold to where it just needs something to push the circulation from the mid levels or the lower level of the storm. Sometimes we are lucky and it doesn't happen - like yesterday.

So we are in a position to where we have well advanced warnings, most of the time, before anything happens. There are times when I've seen a tornado drop down for about a minute and lift back up. It destroyed a structure or two and stopped. No warning on it. Since more tornadoes are short lived, so we continue with a situation like that - going by your logic? Or do we create thresholds and once a storm goes past them, we sound the alarm and get people ready for the strong possiblity that the storm can produce one any minute.

The new refined warning areas should also allow people to be better alerted. NWS no longer issues (svr or tor) warnings based only on county lines - or for the whole county regardless. They simple outline an area where the severe weather will occure and warn on that. Unfortunately a lot of the TV stations haven't adopted to this new method yet and light the entire counties still.

To Chef...
The color tables are pretty bad on some of those radars. The application that I use, GRLevel2AE, blows a lot of those away. Plus you can customize the color tables to make them look better and also incorporate a method of "smoothing" that calculates what the actual cells look like...versus just the pixels you see or do a blatent smoothing of colors with no scientific reasoning. Plus the 3D rendering of the storms aren't half bad either. NWS is increasing resolution on the radars across the county this year, so we'll see if any of the stations pick up that data feed.

[kevinpate]

Saw an Edmond area home this am on the news. If they were home last night, and i hope they were not, I suspect advanced warning was not seen as overkill. the nature of the beast ... ahouse either way, no serious looking damage, the helio shot though was the house with a large chunk of roof either down in the house or gone elsewhere

[venture]

Yeah...looks like a few homes got some decent tornado damage. Probably around an EF1 from the looks of it...maybe some EF2 damage in there.

[MartzMimic]

I thought News 9's radar, Moar or whatever this year's newest thing is was a lot better than the attack of the killer pixels on Channels 4 and 5.

It also kills me that they've turned tornado into a verb. Mike Morgan started that back in the early 90s.

[Karried]

kevinpate, that was my Dentist's house! We did a renovation on his new office and became patients.. I recognized his wife's name and turns out, it was his house. What a small world!

[rwood8]

Weather Skeptics....

Just wait till hail busts out your car windshield, rain floods your home, or a tornado rips off your roof....

Then we'll see what you have to say about "sensationalized" weather coverage...

[mecarr]

Speaking of how news stations sensationalize the weather in order to scare us into watching, check out this clip from The Daily Show. It points out the absurdity in this ad for Gary England. I found it to be hilarious.
YouTube - KWTV and Gary England Respond to Stewart Spoof

[Karried]

lol... that is so funny!

[venture]

Old news about the KWTV ad...and we all agree it was over the top. However, people are bitching about warnings going out to much and that has NOTHING to do with the TV folks.

[mecarr]

However, people are bitching about warnings going out to much and that has NOTHING to do with the TV folks.

Eh? Constant interruptions to warn us of thunderstorms does have to do with TV folks because they are the ones doing the interruptions.

[Ginkasa]

Eh? Constant interruptions to warn us of thunderstorms does have to do with TV folks because they are the ones doing the interruptions.

He was talking about the tornado warnings given out by the NWS.

[okctvnewsguy]

I thought News 9's radar, Moar or whatever this year's newest thing is was a lot better than the attack of the killer pixels on Channels 4 and 5.

It also kills me that they've turned tornado into a verb. Mike Morgan started that back in the early 90s.

Our radar at Channel 5 is the upgrade the national weather service will be going to when they update their radar in a few more years. (by the way the NWS' radar is called WSR-88d... that 88 stands for 1988, yeah 1988 technology) Ask them, theyll tell you the same. And on the warning thing... I don't want be the guy to start this war, but Im tired of hearing about this, We have a RESPONSIBILITY to the public to alert them to storms, the FCC gave us the airwaves for free, in response, we are expected to deliver timely accurate information, you all can believe whatever you want to, believe we do it for ratings or whatever, it is NOT the case, We do it to save lives, we do it because we want to make sure you know the second that a storm produces a tornado, that you will have as much lead time as you possibly can to get to shelter, I am a chaser at one of the TV stations here in okc, and we dont go out and say "OH Lets see if we can stay on the air and cover up desperate whore wives" We are out there to relate information, and make sure we give you the information you need to protect your families. I work in a TV newsroom, i know this is our philosophy, believe what you will but this is our SOP! I wasn't at work until 6am because I like to stay on the air, and get ratings, I was at work because we knew there was a threat, and we didn't want another Greensburgh KS. We wanted to make sure that people knew what was going on and If the storm did produce another tornado we could give them the warning they needed. And the whole "the NWS is better than TV" Guess what, I am in constant contact with the NWS during all of the events, giving them the exact same information I give the TV station. We really are just trying to save lives, its not about the ratings, its not about show boating, its about protecting your family and mine.

[mmonroe]

There is an entire collaboration of effort that happens when storms come rolling in. The whole point of advancement in radar and other such technologies if to give a lead time for families and individuals to be aware of approaching danger, mainly tornados. Imagine having ten minutes to scramble for cover rather than just two minutes. TV weather-casters [as if that's a word] are simple a medium to information given to them by several different sources. They don't just guess and throw stuff together from what they interpret from radar, they are being given real time readings from monitors across the city/state, the National Weather Service [the people who actually issue the tornado warnings/watch], storm chasers, area wide cameras/ reporters, and of course, their own instruments in house.

Put yourself in the Meteorologists shoes, you're in a studio, talking into a camera, trying to warn people about approaching danger, if any, and hoping people are aware of what's happening, as well as worrying about your own families safety.

Oklahoma weather... you can't make this sh!t up.

[bombermwc]

I don't have a problem with warnings, I have a problem with them not being as defined as they once were. Perhaps it's time to create a middle warning level that better fits the situation.

Watch - conditions where a tornado MIGHT develop
??? - something that tells us that there is a chance a tornado may come down some time soon, but there isn't one...ie conditions are ripe.
Warning - one is confirmed in existence, by radar or eyes or whatever...not just a rotating cloud (ie channel 9's olympic rings of amazing spinningness...ever noticed how more often than not those rings don't mean crap).

This is where I get pissed. We see warnings fly much more than we used to. I understand our technology has allowed us to see things more acurately, and I'm glad. However, I think we still need to learn how to differentiate between what is a possibility and a reality. Sounding a horn when there isn't one is as dangerous as not sounding it.

Freaking MustanG blew a tornado siren more than 45 minutes before the storm was even near the town! Credit to the channel 5 guys for handling that one well. You could tell he was thinking "why?" but instead he said, ok it's not going to be there for a while but you can go ahead and get prepared now. Kept it calm. This is why i watch channel 5 pretty much exclusively for weather these days. They are calm and don't run around like retards...Mr England.

Tsunami folks deal with the same thing, you cry wolf and there isn't one and people get complacent. I'm not saying that will happen here cause everytime I see a warning near me, I crap my pants. And I'm not trying to say that the other day wasn't warranted...i'm talking longer term coverage in the past.

For some reason we've decided that weather is a way to sell tv. If you don't think it's ratings, then why are you marketing the new radars and selling the face of the meteorologists at chats/appearances, etc? They are TV personalities and the stations want them to be known like the anchors and "reporters".

I don't think they act any different than most media. Everyone over blows the story to make it sound more amazing than it really is....it sells.

[MikeOKC]

Our radar at Channel 5 is the upgrade the national weather service will be going to when they update their radar in a few more years. (by the way the NWS' radar is called WSR-88d... that 88 stands for 1988, yeah 1988 technology) Ask them, theyll tell you the same.

One day of the Iraq war and those NWS radars would be state of the art.

[Nawfside OKC]

I think that the news channels handle winter weather the worst . At least in a thunderstorm that is tornadic things can change in a instant, but the snow ? they stay on all day to tell you that its still snowing

[ultimatesooner]

weather people have become the biggest joke on tv

[mmonroe]

Again, talk to NWS, they control the warnings/watches, but then again, NWS is behind in technology by twenty years, what do they know.

[RoboNerd]

Our radar at Channel 5 is the upgrade the national weather service will be going to when they update their radar in a few more years.

I thought the NWS is going to phased-array radar, a la the AN/SPY-1 AEGIS system. KOCO is just a faster doppler, to my understanding.

[venture]

I thought the NWS is going to phased-array radar, a la the AN/SPY-1 AEGIS system. KOCO is just a faster doppler, to my understanding.

They are. Also there is an upgrade going out now to all WSR-88D sites to upgrade the detail quality of the Level 2 radar data. Norman was a test bed for it, and still is, but the Twin Lakes radar (which is normally viewed by the public) won't be upgraded until late May. Also...all radars will have this upgrade done win in the next few months - not years.

I'll respond to the other items after work.

[Chefdavies]

I saw a bit that Lewis Black did about weathermen-
It was something like "lets just get a monkey to throw darts at a dart board and he can predict the weather." When he is wrong we can all say," you stupid "f*ckin monkey!!!" It was something like that, I laughed so hard i think i cried.

I agree weather reporting here is sensationalized, it has to be. I mean look at how wrong they are when it comes to predicting snow. Tornados are the weathermen/womens last hope.

Also, is there any truth that I could be looking at a tornado, call the tv station, tell them i'm staring right at it, and they can't report there is a tornado unless the NWS says they see one?

[bombermwc]

I think that last comment is more closely related to the idea that news media generally won't create a warning until they are told by the NWS. However, if they know for a fact that something is there, they will often say it. It depends on the person on TV. Some media weather folk will go ahead and say that they are going to put out the "warning" but others say they find that "irresponsible". It's just a matter of opinion...I personally want to know if there's a tornado, but don't really care if there's an "official" warning or not.

That's the world of storm chasers, to say that there's a tornado visually confirmed out there. Radar may not have had a chance to see it develop because takes so freaking long to make a good complete pass at all levels...what like 3 minutes or something...ie the life of some tornados. Hence the appeal of the pulse radars instead of the typical spinners.