Oklahoma Media - Weather Coverage

[venture]

Venture, could there be something about the geography of the area? I mean man, there come a time when the word coincidence is used one too many times.

I think they should ban any development in this area and bud a huge park. Build that tornado tower but make it resistant against tornados and have a huge sign saying it has been x number of days since last tornado here.

Moore just gets headlines...but Cleveland County overall sees a good amount of tornadoes. This is all of them from 1950 through 2013.

[okatty]

I really like Damon Lane on KOCO but after the coverage the other night I will be hard pressed not to stick with KFOR or News9 during severe weather times - or just follow Venture on here!

[roci28]

They all seemed to miss the mark on Wednesday night. Siren's going off with no tornado warning first and a tornado on the ground before sirens and a warning further south in Cleveland County.

[okatty]

They all seemed to miss the mark on Wednesday night. Siren's going off with no tornado warning first and a tornado on the ground before sirens and a warning further south in Cleveland County.

KOCO totally whiffed. Embarrassing when you are emphatically stating there is no tornado and at the same moment the other channels have it up on the screen. Ouch.

[John1744]

David Payne needs to take a cue from Damon Lane on who he has working his weather computer. Damon Lane and his person seem to be able to read each other's minds. As he's saying things the computer is changing scenes, placing weather tracks, zooming etc. David Payne has to ask for each of his weather scenes and products and wait a few seconds to receive what he's looking for. Which leads to him appearing to get frustrated when he feels he's not getting what he wants fast enough.

[John1744]

Just me or is News9's radar colorscale getting a bit more "extreme" all the time? They have the rain showers today as the same color as a severe thunderstorm normally is.

[Dubya61]

National Weather Service in Birmingham soon coming to a channel near you | AL.com

The Alabama NWS office is going to start doing live broadcasts of weather information.

This seems like yet another move into getting out of being the middle man between models and tv networks and more towards giving info directly to people themselves.

Meanwhile Rick Smith is having an interesting Twitter convo right now about how confusing the current warning system is particularly when TV networks get involved. I'm wondering if all this talk is gearing up for a move to responding directly to the people themselves and bypassing TV networks.

Think it's a great idea. They've been on the radio for years. No reason these days not to start broadcasting - heck, could start streaming a channel on the 'net.

I wonder if they'll ever pose a competitive threat to local TV stations for weather (and news -- I mostly watch the local channel newscasts for weather only).

[SoonerDave]

I wonder if they'll ever pose a competitive threat to local TV stations for weather (and news -- I mostly watch the local channel newscasts for weather only).

I think NWS and local news dovetail at a very natural point - NWS does macro level very well, perhaps down to the coarse-grained city level, but they're not inherently equipped to do micro/street level; yet that's where the local TV kicks in. That's not at all suggested to be a perfect delineation, but it seems to me that local media exists for the very purpose of handling live coverage of events in general, weather simply being among them.

I would hope the NWS presence would serve to standardize and orchestrate to a degree the information being disseminated. Right now, we have too many stations with too many home-grown risk colors, risk names, risk cateogories, threat levels, threat colors, threat regions, crosshatch regions, long term risks, short term risks (shall I continue? ) and that fractured, inconsistent methodology is proliferating incomplete (and sometimes inaccurate) information. We've got to figure out a way around that.

[Anonymous.]

I agree that the problem with local mets is the use of their own maps [whilst making them appear official] and categorization of severe weather.

And honestly, I may be in the minority on this, but I preferred when SPC was only SLIGHT - MODERATE - HIGH for severe risks... Is the public actually helped by having new categories? I would bet the majority of the public doesn't even know there are new categories.

[adaniel]

I heard from multiple people that the weather coverage in OKC is starting to go downhill, especially since Gary England left. I'm no longer in OKC so I can't tell either way. But if this is the case, I can see the NWS possibly sensing an opening. Don't know where I saw it but the Norman NWS office is the most engaged (with respect to social media) than any other office. I think B-ham wasn't too far behind as well.

You also have to think that in this time of budget austerity, most federal agencies are constantly in CYA mode and going above and beyond to prove they are worthy of continued funding. Considering that certain lawmakers have (unwisely) proposed eliminating and/or privatizing the NWS, I have to think some higher ups see that as a call to go above and beyond to show their worth to the public.

[SoonerDave]

I heard from multiple people that the weather coverage in OKC is starting to go downhill, especially since Gary England left. I'm no longer in OKC so I can't tell either way. But if this is the case, I can see the NWS possibly sensing an opening. Don't know where I saw it but the Norman NWS office is the most engaged (with respect to social media) than any other office. I think B-ham wasn't too far behind as well.

You also have to think that in this time of budget austerity, most federal agencies are constantly in CYA mode and going above and beyond to prove they are worthy of continued funding. Considering that certain lawmakers have (unwisely) proposed eliminating and/or privatizing the NWS, I have to think some higher ups see that as a call to go above and beyond to show their worth to the public.

I'm going to offer a left-field response to this idea as it pertains to NWS coverage. I think both NWS, general emergency response, and local TV mets had a serious soul-searching event after the Moore tornadoes. I think some "notorious mistakes" (to be polite) by some media members led a well-intentioned charge by NWS to increase their online presence and try, as best they could, to coordinate and redirect emergency severe weather coverage. Unfortunately, they also realized they have (understandably) no means to enforce any standardization or protocols, and the net effect was that if any one outlet thought of a "really good idea" about severe weather coverage, EVERYONE had one, and EVERYONE implemented their own flavor of it. Now we have a Tower Of Meteorological Babel spewing out multicolored, mulitgraphed maps like an epileptic color laser printer and mass-broadcasting them via Tweets, posts, pins, instagrams, vines, you name it. And the result is what we have now.

Trouble is, I don't know if you can fix it. Local news organizations are under tremendous pressure to remain relevant and cost-effective, and to that end that end they have to differentiate themselves from all the other orgs in the same area. And hence comes different colored maps, regions, terms, all because Super News Crew 26 has the Certified Bestest and Most SuperDuperest Weather Team Ever. The proliferation of ever more granular, overlapping, and confusing information gets ever worse, not better.

Like I said, I don't know how you fix it. Or even if it can be fixed. Perhaps the mantra of "educate, educate, and educate" some more will, someday, help naturally separate the wheat from the chaff.

[ou48A]

I’m not sure if this is the best place for this but some of you might enjoy this tonight.

Scheduled for Apr 29, 2015
Gary England joins us to talk all about his career as a meteorologist in tornado alley. Gary is a legend in the meteorology community and we get to spend an hour with him just talking weather and listening to stories of some of the strongest tornadoes in history. Join us live April 29 at 8pm eastern as we sit down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpYoLcbqk8

[okatty]

Kevin Josefy on KFOR has provided some "interesting" commentary tonight.

[John1744]

I heard a few mentions of his erratic behavior but haven't heard any details. Anyone know what all he said?

[okatty]

I heard a few mentions of his erratic behavior but haven't heard any details. Anyone know what all he said?

Strange voice inflections, high stress level, unusual use of words or not being able to articulate what he was seeing. That type thing. Hey, it was sorta entertaining I guess.

Mark Dillard being in the Norman twister is getting lots of play on KFOR.

[okatty]

BREAKING NEWS - Tyga, the hip hop artist is on the loose!!!! We are officially in a state of Jumanji!

[ou48A]

I’m very pleased to hear that meteorologist Michael Armstrong will be back on air. I believe he does a very good job. KOCO TV 5 OKC has hired him.

It’s now IMHO the strongest WX team CH 5 has ever had.

[Mel]

Strange voice inflections, high stress level, unusual use of words or not being able to articulate what he was seeing. That type thing. Hey, it was sorta entertaining I guess.

Mark Dillard being in the Norman twister is getting lots of play on KFOR.

Wx version of Smoking Gun's World's Funniest.

[tfvc.org]

I’m very pleased to hear that meteorologist Michael Armstrong will be back on air. I believe he does a very good job. KOCO TV 5 OKC has hired him.

It’s now IMHO the strongest WX team CH 5 has ever had.

It looks like I am switching from channel 9 to 5. I have said it before and I will say it again, I like Mike. He is a good guy and I worked with him when he was still at OU and waiting tables at Belinis.

[okatty]

Dumb question here but does KOCO use a helicopter like KFOR and KWTV or do they use the chasers on the ground only?

[LakeEffect]

Dumb question here but does KOCO use a helicopter like KFOR and KWTV or do they use the chasers on the ground only?

Yep, Sky 5. Although KOCO is my favorite weather team to watch, I tend to stick with KWTV for any helicopter shots. Can't beat Jim.

[okatty]

Yep, Sky 5. Although KOCO is my favorite weather team to watch, I tend to stick with KWTV for any helicopter shots. Can't beat Jim.

OK, seems like i rarely see them focus on that and KWTV and KFOR seem to really use that but I may have just missed it. I was sure they did but couldnt recall it. Thanks.

[OkiePoke]

I like the KOCO meteorologists but the technology that 9 has is superior (my opinion).

[SoonerDave]

I'm guessing more policy issues/discussions are to come up after tornado sirens in OK county apparently blew in response to the Purcell tornado warning at about 4pm today.

Kids in some Moore schools were actually sheltering in place as a result of the sirens going off - for a storm that was 30-plus miles away and moving away. Someone on Twitter asked CityofOKC to explain their rationale, and their reply was that policy dictated they blow sirens in ALL of OK County for a TW in Cleveland County.

I'm sorry, but I have to think that some reasonable, intelligent people could come with a better rule of thumb than this. If you keep blowing the sirens on a chronically needless basis, people will stop listening to them. And there's no point in terrifying elementary school kids in a city already devastated by tornadoes for a storm that poses *absolutely no threat* to them. We can't keep hiding behind "that's our policy" to excuse....ahem...suboptimal....performance.

[ljbab728]

I'm guessing more policy issues/discussions are to come up after tornado sirens in OK county apparently blew in response to the Purcell tornado warning at about 4pm today.

Kids in some Moore schools were actually sheltering in place as a result of the sirens going off - for a storm that was 30-plus miles away and moving away. Someone on Twitter asked CityofOKC to explain their rationale, and their reply was that policy dictated they blow sirens in ALL of OK County for a TW in Cleveland County.

I'm sorry, but I have to think that some reasonable, intelligent people could come with a better rule of thumb than this. If you keep blowing the sirens on a chronically needless basis, people will stop listening to them. And there's no point in terrifying elementary school kids in a city already devastated by tornadoes for a storm that poses *absolutely no threat* to them. We can't keep hiding behind "that's our policy" to excuse....ahem...suboptimal....performance.

I'm in Oklahoma County and in Oklahoma City and sirens did not blow in my area at any time today. I'm not sure I understand what you said. Are you saying that the city of Oklahoma City can dictate that the sirens go off in all of Oklahoma County, even in areas not in Oklahoma City?