Seriously. My coworker comes to me today and says "Did you see his forcast last night?! Such a drama queen!!!" Then she goes on to imitate him..."This IS GOING TO BE the largest snowstorm of the year!! Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah". And I was just laughing & agreeing because I did see it and it was ridiculous.

Slowly and progressively the other channels have come around to saying there is a slight chance and I'm talking about the kinda slight chance where you have two invisible pennies between your thumb and pointer finger! And maybe Mike isn't that crazy because Sarah Libby on KOCO's weather blog is forcasting 2-4" here & 4-6" just northwest of the OKC metro area. But at least she states "Keep in mind…this will be tweaked in the days ahead".

I still think it's funny and I do realize they're forecasting for the whole state, but considering the largest concentration of your audience is in the metro area, maybe you should first address that this is hardly going to be a 'SUPER CRAZY DAISEY WEEKEND'. Oh & Loretta will be able to get out of the house because Friday Night In the Big Town will be A-OK (yes, I know that's Gary)!

Don't get me wrong. I think Mike is an awesome individual and he has a common hobby with myself, but sometimes--I take that back, all the time--his weather coverage perturbs me.

lol....funny you should bring this up. I watch Mike Morgan just for those reasons. We gave him the nickname of "chicken little" along time ago. But again thats why I watch him. He does tend to be over dramatic from time to time, but mostly I think he is just excited about weather. Which tends to make him always give the most dramatic and worst-case scenario forecasts. Almost like a kid doing a wishcast. Which again...thats why I watch him....hopeing he's right. That said he's not alone in his thinking for this weekend. Most models tend to paint a very heavy snowfall over NW Oklahoma, coupled with strong winds of 20-40 mph could make for a memorable event. Remember we do get our biggest snows in March. We should be glad its not a severe weather outbreak forecast for Friday, it'd kill my b-ball watching.

One of the snowfall forecast models I've found online predicts 16-20 inches in NW Oklahoma, and 4-6 inches in OKC. Im sure that will change by Friday but I'm to hopeing thier right. Regardless, if we do get snow the roads shouldn't become snowcovered with the soil temp now in the 50's

http://204.2.104.196/gfs/CONUS_GFS0P5_SFC_ACCUM-SNOW_99HR.gif

I do realize it's not at all impossible to receive a major snow storm this late in the year. I do remember March 1994 we had 13" of snow here in Oklahoma City. It was so heavy that it didn't make a difference that it was 70 degrees the day before & it only took a few days to melt off as our temps rebounded drastically!

For some parts of the state this could be exactly the same scenario, but I don't see that happening in the OKC area.

And you're right, for some reason I just keep crawling back again, and again, and again, AND AGAIN...lol.

I find Gary England to be just as overly dramatic and discounting as Mike Morgan. England's famous line of "I just don't see how you're going to survive if you aren't underground" during the May 3rd tornados was enough to make me never watch him again. That's a big F You Gary. They have become such drama queens in order to make ratings, they leave behind the science of weather to instead be a tv personality. And Gary seems to have some "new evidence" each week about why he alone has the proof that there isn't global warming. Yeah, 9000 year old Gary England is right and the rest of the world is wrong huh?

If you pay attention to Mike, he will be the most agressive, and dramatic just before he is to be off work, meaning if he is scheduled off for a couple days, the night of his last night to work, he will really put out the worst case scenario, and when it misses, he says boy did we dodge a bullet.

I can't resist: YouTube - KWTV and Gary England Respond to Stewart Spoof (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf3rcT-gu-Y) I laugh my ass of every time I see this.

soil temp now in the 50's

Just curious, where do you go to look up the soil temp?

bombermwc, that is a really stupid statement to make! Just bout most people will agree to the "I just don't see how you're going to survive if you aren't underground" and miracously there was few deaths. Again, you need to take a closer look on that day, and yes, there is plenty of videos out there.

I like Mike. He does good with his job and knows just how to push that button to get people on alert and pay attention. Without him, I'm sure there will be more storm-related deaths!

Here is the forecast graphic. Keep in mind, this will be changed several times a day.

http://services.trb.com/kfor/7day.jpg

Just curious, where do you go to look up the soil temp?

Oklahoma Mesonet (http://www.mesonet.org/)

I like Mike. He does good with his job and knows just how to push that button to get people on alert and pay attention. Without him, I'm sure there will be more storm-related deaths!


So are you saying if those annoying sirens would just broadcast Mike Morgan's voice instead of that wailing sound that more people would take cover instead of grabbing their camcorders to go outside & get the best action possible?! lol...

I'm just saying that Mike is always on alert about these things. Rick tend to be more relaxed and Gary is long overdued for his beauty sleep.

I've witnessed Mike's team spotting funnel lowering and eventually touching the ground while Rick is a lil behind to announce it. They all have access to the equipments, so it raises a question on why Rick is more relaxed most of the time while Mike is being serious.

I think all the meteorologist are great when it (the weather) gets serious. They didn't get a career in weather just to get a job. So when it gets rough I know they have their viewers in mind. Obviously they are driven by ratings (most of the time), and their obligation to their station to pull in viewers. Or at least not bore them to death. And I think they all have sighltly different audiences. Mirroring their stations demos. So theres gonna be some drama once in awhile.

I think all the meteorologist are great when it (the weather) gets serious. They didn't get a career in weather just to get a job. So when it gets rough I know they have their viewers in mind. Obviously they are driven by ratings (most of the time), and their obligation to their station to pull in viewers. Or at least not bore them to death. And I think they all have sighltly different audiences. Mirroring their stations demos. So theres gonna be some drama once in awhile.

I don't think we'd have to worry about that if we had this guy:

YouTube - THE ORIGINAL COCKROACH VS. WEATHERMAN (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT4XO3Hjp7M)

I think they're all dramatic. Rick growls in his voice when he gets really excited about the weather. It's all in which drama we prefer. I do have to say though Rick has calmed down a lot over the past few years.

He does tend to be over dramatic from time to time, but mostly I think he is just excited about weather.
Mike's not alone in that. All these guys get excited about severe weather, but some hide it better than others. We used to call it a "weather woody". LOL There are a lot of other tv markets where a meteorologist might make more money, but if severe weather is your thing...this is the big leagues.

Speaking of a weather woody...This is from a couple weeks ago...

gary england is the funniest out of all weather forecasters, i remember he was saying about a year or two ago, when he was at the station on t.v( There has been reports of a small tornado around out by interstate 40 and the turnpike, but the atmosphere is not stable enough to create a tornado, it is probably a gust of high winds or a downdraft, then not one minute later, he gets on and says we have storm tracker that is tracking a rotating storm just east of I-40 and the turnpike reports that it has already touched down, we will have live video of the damage) talk about a major foot in mouth,lol i laughed and laughed about that. Does anybody remember, some of my co-workers still talk about it.

LOL Oops...There's still no substitute for trained observers in the field. That's actually how Gary England got a leg up on everyone else. In the pre-Doppler, pre-microwave live shots, pre-cell phone days, he used to train ham radio operators in how to spot storms because that was about the only instantaneous way to communicate back then, short of stopping and finding a pay phone. It was a tremendous advantage.

I find Gary England to be just as overly dramatic and discounting as Mike Morgan. England's famous line of "I just don't see how you're going to survive if you aren't underground" during the May 3rd tornados was enough to make me never watch him again. That's a big F You Gary. They have become such drama queens in order to make ratings, they leave behind the science of weather to instead be a tv personality. And Gary seems to have some "new evidence" each week about why he alone has the proof that there isn't global warming. Yeah, 9000 year old Gary England is right and the rest of the world is wrong huh?

Amen!!! Gary England was arguably the forerunner of the hysterical "LISTEN TO ME LEST THOU WILL SURELY DIE" shake-rattle-and-terrify meteorologists in OKC. To his credit, I content he all-but invented the genre, if its possible to have a "genre" of hysteria-based meteorologists. Compared to what he was in his early KWTV days, he's practically somnambulent. Most here may not remember that England got his start at radio station KTOK. England's also had his share of, shall we say, "issues" regarding the sourcing of some of the material in his various publications - the most notable of which was just a few years ago when he wrote a blurb for the Oklahoman's weather page, where someone is alleged to have found an unattributed, nearly verbatim excerpt from a different source that had been used in one of England's "mini-columns." He discontinued that column shortly thereafter.

Mike Morgan started in this market at KOCO several years ago, right after (IIRC) Wayne Shattuck departed to return to Florida. Morgan then "disappeared" from KOCO for a few weeks once it had broken that he had been lured away to KFOR..

-sd

Today is a perfect example of why i hate weathermen in oklahoma. They can't predict snow to save their life, and without any basis for their conclusions they blab on TV about how bad things are going to be. They don't consider that some people are stupid enough to believe them....including the governor who has declared an emergency in freaking oklahoma county where it's what, raining.

Those stupid decisions force others in various power aspects to make other decisions, like school districts. My students just had a championship event taken away from them because the district cancelled activities for the weekend. That means we can't compete because we can't even carpool together. So 5 months of work goes down the toilet. And what really pisses me off is that they have improved so much in the last 2 weeks that we were really going to surpised people tomorrow. So when I wake up tomorrow and there isn't a foot of snow, i want to be able to go to these weathermen's houses and punch their faces in for being wrong yet again, just like they are every year.

And what's REALLY stupid is, Gary Dumbass England is saying OKC is supposed to get MORE snow that previously expected? Excuse me, but how many of us have been watching the radars all day today and can plainly see the RAIN moving towards OKC....not snow. The snow is staying west of even El Reno and we're not seeing anything here. It doesn't take a freaking rocket scientist to be able to read radar.

Might as well throw the NWS in Norman in with the over the air meteorologists for screaming about this.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/rtimages/oun/fxc_Snowfall_Totals.jpg?timestamp=1238181310

Um... I don't find fault with Gary for anything he said on May 3rd. Then again, I know some people who died because they wouldn't go in their shelters in time...

Unfortunately, sometimes they do have to "over-hype" weather events- it is the only way they can get some people to listen to them. I blame it as much on the cynical and/or holier than thou attitudes of some people who somehow believe that they're above listening to the forecasts and paying attention- thus endangering themselves and also the first responders who eventually have to try to save them.

I'm not tired of Mike Morgan, but complaints like these get a bit tiresome. Every time there's bad weather, someone complains about the TV weathermen, and not just here in OKC. But we forget (conveniently or otherwise) that they have to talk about the weather for a large swath of land mass, not just this city. I'm sure people who live out in the sticks wish more attention would be paid to their areas. I know I sure thought so when it was me out in the sticks. We get mad when they break in to talk about a tornado that's nowhere near OKC, but I guarantee the folks in whatever small town it hits are grateful for that coverage. And so am I.

But we forget (conveniently or otherwise) that they have to talk about the weather for a large swath of land mass, not just this city. I'm sure people who live out in the sticks wish more attention would be paid to their areas. I know I sure thought so when it was me out in the sticks. We get mad when they break in to talk about a tornado that's nowhere near OKC, but I guarantee the folks in whatever small town it hits are grateful for that coverage. And so am I.

You're right about this. I was in southern Oklahoma visiting my folks a few years back when reports began coming in about a tornado on the ground nearby. The OKC stations were all over it, but the cable company kept switching away because of the FCC rule against duplicate broadcasting. So we were forced to listen to the Wichita Falls stations who didn't seem to be very interested in anything that was happening north of the Red River. It was pretty frustrating.

OKC Central (http://blog.newsok.com/okccentral/)

INTERNET FIGHT!!!

for what its worth, jon slater on fox 25 admitted tonight that he was wrong as the other anchors were giving him a hard time about no snow. i can respect that

I don't think any of them are wrong. Winter weather are very hard to forecast and almost always give us a surprise. I don't think it is possible at this time to accurately forecast dry slots.

Come to think of it, this is my first time of being aware of that term, dry slot.

No snow? Oh we had snow! I have the photos and video to prove it. My two dogs thoroughly enjoyed their romp in it this afternoon. I also had a nice dusting of snow on my car when I woke up this morning. I'd say we had at least 2 inches during the day today, so they weren't far off the mark. I have no idea how much fell overnight since the ground was so warm it didn't stick. As it is, I'm glad we got our romp in when we did. It was all pretty much melted off by 5:00.

I do find it very unfair to blame the weathermen for this one ( and I really think it's unfair to point out one person in particular).

This system did seem to have the ability to be a huge event but never materialized in the metro.

OKC Central (http://blog.newsok.com/okccentral/)

INTERNET FIGHT!!!



:dizzy::dizzy::dizzy:Nah. I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Mike Morgan sent an email to Steve Lackmeyer at OKC Central (OKC Central (http://blog.newsok.com/okccentral/)) that goes beyond the pale for anyone, much less someone in journalism: Thin-skinned, emotional, typo-ridden, and comparing his recent forecasts to Gary England's in an attempt to show superiority. He even challenged Steve to "show some balls and lift this email and prominently post it on your twitter site." (Do they not have handlers over there at KFOR?) Shortly before midnight Saturday evening, Channel 4 is running school closings on their SNL broadcast that turned out not to be necessary, and their Web site is still running a headline, "Preparing for old man winter's return." They're managing their news cycles with the same frequency as a daily print newspaper.

Local TV weather guys gave themselves a black eye this weekend, but Mike Morgan is still swinging. Based upon the instability evidenced in his email, it makes me wonder if he'll still be at KFOR at the end of tornado season.

Here is my feeling. Did OKC's weather guys over sensationalize the ordeal? Yes. That is what they do. Any potential event we have, it is about one thing - RATINGS. You want to blame anyone - place the blame squarely on Griffin Communications, Local TV LLC, and Hearst-Argyle Television Inc. These are the guys that set the rules for what their departments do and how it impacts programming. They restrict how often you can break in, what you can break in for, and I am fairly certain - push to set the tone of how that information is delivered. If they didn't, you wouldn't have helicopters chasing tornadoes, a dozen chasers out with streaming video, and some of the most cutting edge television delivery systems for weather information.

Now, where I am basing my opinions from. I have chase (field) experience covering over 13 seasons. While attending OU, my first few years were studying meteorology as my major until I chose to enter the tech sector. I spent the majority of my life living in the wacky weather that is the Lower Great Lakes region where you have plenty of "end of the world" winter storms that drop an inch. I've spent over 10 years here in the Southern Plains where you get the same thing, but with a different twist. I've seen how small market media handles weather events, and I've seen how the top weather market handles it - night and day.

The stations here make a TON of cash off the weather. So yes, that means we are going to get a lot of sensationalism and a lot of pretty flashy graphics. You want an amazing radar presentation? There is a product that will cost these stations less than a thousand bucks, and consumers less than $300 (no difference between the two). Local stations throw junk at you such as Early Storm Protection (ESP), Vipir, and other applications that provide LOW resolution radar images with a bunch of spinning wheels. Ooo neat cool...worthless. The radar program I use, has icons to point out points of interest, but it has also been finely tuned by hundreds of users feedback - users such as college students, federal weather employees, private meteorologies, programmers, etc. So instead of getting your world of spinning whirly circles, if a marker symbol pops up - it gets your attention. Users of the program also have the ability to fine tune the settings to increase sensitivity or lower it depending on conditions and the day.

Yes I'm long winded on this, because this is probably going to blow up a bit more and just before severe weather season. The snowfall blunder, was just that. Local weather guys are not use to predicting major winter storms. We get our 2-3 a year and that is it. Up north, you have them every week or two. Yes there is a lot of upper air junk that went wrong in association with the dryslot, but what you didn't see if ANYONE pointing out that models 24 hours out were showing the dry slot developing very well and the effect that would have on snow totals. So instead of backing down, they went with the headline generators because that is what makes money and we are dealing with this bash fest. I also feel that there wasn't enough respect given to the amount of rainfall we had the day of the change over and the effect that would have on accumulations. So what should they have done? Little ol' me is looking at the model data that is available to ANYONE who has access to the internet. They have access to more, and most local weather stations run a version of their own weather model for the "Futurecast" type products you see.

The locals stations did not pull back at the first sign of something was not going to line up for a heavy snow fall in the Metro. KOCO seemed to be the first one (to be fair to KOKH, I didn't catch your forecasts so I'm leaving you out of this) to pull accumulations back. KFOR apparently was next in line from Mike Morgan's email. KWTV and the shop Gary England is in charge of was the last. I lay full blame on this to Gary giving up his integrity to Mr. Griffin and that nice fat paycheck he will get until the day he decides to retire (which in my opinion is starting to show to be long overdue). When I first saw Gary live and in action in 1997, I was blown away. May 1999 he was on top of it. It has been a down hill slide ever since. I've continued to see them try to make news of nothing. Storm chasers reporting back items that just don't make sense with a storm. Their helicopter showing video of "wall clouds" that are unorganized and not even attached to the parent storm. This typically leads to longer break in times on air and higher ratings due to the "what if" factor that comes with it.

Now look. Everyone makes mistakes, we all make ours. I've blown many forecasts for myself and chase teams I've participated with before. We brush it off, learn what we did wrong, and move on from it. If we want to complain about what happened yesterday, than we also have to analyze what caused it. Lack of experience of winter storms, catching various signs in forecasts models that are pointing to something that won't drive ratings, letting the guy that signs the pay check tell you how to deliver the weather, and just flat out being ignorant that its not going to happen. In that letter on Steve's blog that is supposedly from Mike Morgan, the writer is absolutely correct to call KWTV out for their travel issues in the Metro this morning. That was complete garbage and sensationalist journalism for the sake of headlines. I would be interested to see how much Mr. Griffen and the News Department at KWTV influence the weather department at KWTV. My guess they are the main reasons you see certain things that pull headlines. A few years back they change the low end weather advisories into just "Travelers Advisory" at the excuse that they are simply meant to inform travelers of road conditions. That is crap. It is part of the reason why they are issued, but it also explains what is going on. KWTV (and KFOR now) lump Winter Weather, Snow, Freezing Drizzle, Freezing Rain, Blowing Snow, and probably a few more all into one advisory. Sure the elements impact travel...but they also effect trees, powerlines, what we need to prepare for at our homes, etc.

Okay I need to wrap this up. I have a lot of gripes with local media but I also am thankful for when they pull out all the stops in actual severe events. Unfortunately, these stations need to get their owners and news departments out of the weather center and focus on the weather. If it looks like whatever is going to fall apart, throw it out there. Nothing should be keeping these guys from saying "hey, we may see a half foot of snow, but there is a chance this dry slot could move in and we'll get nothing. So with that, we are going to this, but this may happen." Same thing if they low ball it. You can't predict exactly where a heavy snow band or thundersnow will setup all the time. A few miles away they could get 2-3 times as much snow as you, all thanks to the "downpour" of the white stuff. It happens. Unfortunately, they continue to run with the headline generating "forecast" to get ratings and money.

Where is this letter that Mike typed?

Unfortunately, these stations need to get their owners and news departments out of the weather center and focus on the weather. Sorry...you're just totally wrong here. During severe weather, the news dept. takes a back seat to the weather dept.


Unfortunately, they continue to run with the headline generating "forecast" to get ratings and money.
Sure, severe weather gets ratings, but it loses money because the stations are often covering the commercials. No commercial = no money.

Meteorologist here. I was following the situation very closely the last half of the week. I won't comment on any particular TV personalities but instead hopefully give a little insight into how these things go down behind the scenes.

Wednesday, Thursday, and into Friday morning the computer models we use were pretty clear a big winter storm would hit Oklahoma (and it sure did), but the devil is always in the very small details. Once all the possible small details were considered, amounts for the OKC between a dusting and 10" could not be ruled out. But the preponderance of the evidence was in the middle around 3-6". Since that was the most likely outcome and the event was only 24 hours out, it was appropriate to start warning folks Friday morning for a high-impact event. It's still a debate in meteorology how to best convey this sort of uncertainty to the general public. What is clear is that an unwarned high-impact event is considered far worse than a false alarm.

There were some indications as the day wore on Friday that the odds of reaching the higher totals above 4" was decreasing, so around noon I personally bumped my OKC prediction down to 1 or 2". It was about this time a lot of public institutions and private businesses started closing or losing business, so it was really frustrating to watch my confidence for a big event in OKC decreasing at the same time the city was shutting down.

As for what happened meteorologically, if you look at the snow totals, there were 4-6" reports in the Cordell/Elk City/Clinton area, as well as the Stillwater/Cushing/South Tulsa corridor. The OKC metro area is directly in between. But during the critical few hours of the storm when the heaviest snow was likely in OKC (3-9 am Saturday), an undetected patch of dry air aloft got wrapped up into the cyclone and there was a lull in the heavy precipitation. So the heavy snow decreased before moving into OKC from the west and increased again when it reached northeast Oklahoma. That little patch of dry air made all the difference for OKC and ended up being the most important of all those possible little details. There's no way using current technology of knowing that ahead of time.

I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over the patch of dry air -- there are little gotchas like that in meteorology all the time. What I do lose sleep over is the interface between forecast uncertainty and societal response. We know from experience if we tell people there is a range of possible outcomes between a dusting and 10 inches that we can't yet discriminate, they tend to do one of two things: write the forecast off (they just don't know what they're doing) or adopt an "optimism bias" (it'll probably just be a dusting, I'll go ahead and take the back roads to grandma's house without packing a cell phone or winter safety gear). Both of these are bad outcomes if the storm actually hits hard.

Another thing that comes into play is if I had actually been in the hot seat issuing public forecasts Friday, I probably would not have backed off even though my confidence was decreasing, because in many cases another piece of data will come in and increase confidence again, and it would be confusing to everyone if the forecast was constantly bouncing around between 1" and 6".

Where is this letter that Mike typed?

See the link provided above in post #31.

Another thing that comes into play is if I had actually been in the hot seat issuing public forecasts Friday, I probably would not have backed off even though my confidence was decreasing, because in many cases another piece of data will come in and increase confidence again, and it would be confusing to everyone if the forecast was constantly bouncing around between 1" and 6".


That is how I feel about it .. better to err on the side of caution and have viewers take precautions and be safe instead of sorry, or dead.

I see it now. I have doubt if that email came from Mike or not. It just doesn't seem to fit Mike. His personality is not there. Still, it doesn't sound like him at all.

It looks like the guy in charge of OKC Central is making trouble.

Oh yeah, reading another post on there.

That guy was saying that Mike was the only one forcasting ice event. Well, good for Mike! We did have scatter areas of ice and power outages!

Steve Lackmeyer, if you're on here, I suggest you seriously retract what you've said and apologize to Mike.

Winter storms are almost unpredictable in Oklahoma. We have to deal with unexpected Dry Nose and Dry Slot. Do you know what they are? Steve, seriously, if this storm wasn't choked to death, OKC would've gone thru a foot of snow easily. And yes, we could've gotten that much, but we would never know, because of the pre-rain affecting the roads/grounds preventing such accumlination to be shown.

As for what happened meteorologically, if you look at the snow totals, there were 4-6" reports in the Cordell/Elk City/Clinton area, as well as the Stillwater/Cushing/South Tulsa corridor. The OKC metro area is directly in between. But during the critical few hours of the storm when the heaviest snow was likely in OKC (3-9 am Saturday), an undetected patch of dry air aloft got wrapped up into the cyclone and there was a lull in the heavy precipitation. So the heavy snow decreased before moving into OKC from the west and increased again when it reached northeast Oklahoma. That little patch of dry air made all the difference for OKC and ended up being the most important of all those possible little details. There's no way using current technology of knowing that ahead of time.

GFS and WRF had a pretty good handle on the dry slot/wrap around areas of the storm. Also, take a look at water vapor imagery - it is amazing how well dry slots show up and this one stuck out like a sore thumb very well. I agree with most of your other points, I'll just side with local meteorologists don't have enough experience in deal with these types of storms so when they bust, they bust hard.

Sorry...you're just totally wrong here. During severe weather, the news dept. takes a back seat to the weather dept.

Sure, severe weather gets ratings, but it loses money because the stations are often covering the commercials. No commercial = no money.

Sure I may be wrong, but you would probably be totally shocked what actually goes on. I would image the truth is somewhere in the middle or at which station specifically. As far as financial impact, only real way of telling is looking at their books - which won't be possible.

Either way, it was my opinion from what I've been told over the years from people that I would trust or are directly related. My information could be garbage now, just like anything in a fast paced industry can be in about 5 minutes. If that is the case, then feel free to just write the whole post off to some crazy loon on the internet.

Thunder, the email writer is Mike Morgan.

I'm not liking the way this is going.

All the weather forecasters called it the same. It's not fair to single out one person.

I think it is fine to discuss 'weathermen' in general.. but I don't want to single one person out in particular.

If you want to specifically critique someone on a public message board, there are plenty of other places to do so.

My reasoning for my post was three-fold:
- Jim Cowan's complaints about how bad forecasts were hurting merchants downtown.
- This thread, which started Wednesday and inspired me to pay close attention to Mike Morgan over the next couple days.
- Mike Morgan's forecast of a "significant icing event" and power outages for Oklahoma City during the 5 p.m. Friday news. I heard no such forecast on the other stations and there was no such warning on the National Weather Service's web site.
I think this has been a great discussion and debate.

Understandable.




I think this has been a great discussion and debate.



But I'm thinking if the title had read, 'Is Anyone Else Tired of Steve Lackameyer' you might not have felt the same way about it.

I'm not into censorship but I just feel this is a mean spirited thread that singles out a specific person when everyone was just as off base as he was.

Feel free to discuss away about how All the Weathermen called it wrong and why, but like I said, singling out one person doesn't seem right.

Understandable.



But I'm thinking if the title had read, 'Is Anyone Else Tired of Steve Lackameyer' you might not have felt the same way about it.

I'm not into censorship but I just feel this is a mean spirited thread that singles out a specific person when everyone was just as off base as he was.

Feel free to discuss away about how All the Weathermen called it wrong and why, but like I said, singling out one person doesn't seem right.

Actually, I've had that happen on this site. I'm quite proud of it - one such thread that started out portraying me as a softball player and tool of Randy Hogan took in 100 comments and more than 3,000 views before it finally died away. I think it's great for people to debate something that is said or written - it shows people care about the topic.

Now on the other hand, over at the Tulsa forum, they responded to a piece I wrote about downtown Tulsa by insulting my looks, my clothes and saying that my eyeglasses were stuck in the 1980s.

That hurt. I think my eyeglasses are pretty cool.

lol, not the eyeglasses! Big jerks.

I get your point. But it appears that Mike might not be as understanding as you ( his emails suggest this quite clearly).

I've thought about this for awhile.

When someone is in the public eye, I'm sure they have to have a thick skin.. but it's not just him I'm thinking of. He is part of this community, has family and children and discussion like this affect them I'm sure.

I think it has gotten a little overblown and it all points back to OKCTalk... Pete may disagree and reinstate the Title, that's up to him.. but for now, out of fairness to Mike's family, we'll leave it changed.

That seems fair. Karried you guys do a great job with this site. Please make sure though that no one at OKC Talk takes issue with my eyeglasses. I'm very attached to them - they've been with me for a very long time.

Please make sure though that no one at OKC Talk takes issue with my eyeglasses.

Ha,ha That will Never happen.

I got your back. :kicking:

Sure I may be wrong, but you would probably be totally shocked what actually goes on. I would image the truth is somewhere in the middle or at which station specifically. As far as financial impact, only real way of telling is looking at their books - which won't be possible.
No, I wouldn't be shocked because I worked at one of the stations for 20 years. You're right about severe weather being a ratings spike for the stations, but it's not a financial bonanza because, like I said, often they cover the commercials which is where the stations get their revenue. It's kind of a Catch 22 situation. If they cover the program instead of the commercials, they run the risk of losing their viewers because the cut-ins are making impossible to follow whatever program is on the air. But on the other hand, if they cover the commercials, then the stations make no money. I promise you that the sales managers don't like it, but they understand the problem.

No, I wouldn't be shocked because I worked at one of the stations for 20 years. You're right about severe weather being a ratings spike for the stations, but it's not a financial bonanza because, like I said, often they cover the commercials which is where the stations get their revenue. It's kind of a Catch 22 situation. If they cover the program instead of the commercials, they run the risk of losing their viewers because the cut-ins are making impossible to follow whatever program is on the air. But on the other hand, if they cover the commercials, then the stations make no money. I promise you that the sales managers don't like it, but they understand the problem.

Fair enough. I've been friends with OCMs are various stations, not specifically in the OKC market, that have had issues the other way around. OKC stations I would imagine get more freedom (in the wx departments), but I just go off what I know from talking to people in that portion of the industry.

- Mike Morgan's forecast of a "significant icing event" and power outages for Oklahoma City during the 5 p.m. Friday news. I heard no such forecast on the other stations and there was no such warning on the National Weather Service's web site.


I would have to defend Mike Morgan on this. By all indications, the precip was still liquid and surface temps were below freezing. Ice and sleet were reported over a good area. Any icing though would have easily been covered by the Winter Storm Warning headlines and there would be no need to alter those. I would also image NWS Norman took care of the situation through their short term forecast discussions, but I don't believe there are records kept of those to go back and check.

Fair enough. I've been friends with OCMs are various stations, not specifically in the OKC market, that have had issues the other way around. OKC stations I would imagine get more freedom (in the wx departments), but I just go off what I know from talking to people in that portion of the industry.
I don't doubt in the least that it's different in other markets. I also think you're probably right about lack of experience with snow storms being a big factor in why our local guys were off on their predictions.

GFS and WRF had a pretty good handle on the dry slot/wrap around areas of the storm. Also, take a look at water vapor imagery - it is amazing how well dry slots show up and this one stuck out like a sore thumb very well. I agree with most of your other points, I'll just side with local meteorologists don't have enough experience in deal with these types of storms so when they bust, they bust hard.

There were some model runs here and there catching on to the significance of the dry slot, but most that I saw had the dry slot doing the typical thing of ejecting north and northeastward with the nasty comma head sloshing back into the OKC area. I've not witnessed many that actually wrap it around all the way to the west and southwest side of the cyclone, except for some hurricanes. I think most forecasters were using the short range ensemble forecast (SREF) suite which is a good practice when forecasting winter storms, and some SREF members were still giving OKC 8" or so until the very end. It should also be noted that the Tulsa area got 6-8" at the same storm-relative location as OKC.

Also, I should say I neglected to mention that the NWS and local media did a great job nailing the truly life-threatening aspect of the event, with 15" plus totals and crippling blizzard conditions over northwest Oklahoma and the Panhandle. A lot of people who might have been stranded knew to stay home.

I think the best representation of any news station realizing that the snow storm was not going to be anything special was KOCO's weather blog. It all just stopped at 7:17pm! I tried to e-mail them shortly afterward simply asking about the dry slot but to no avail did I receive a reply, or even a simple explanation telling me or fellow viewers on the blog why nothing was happening..regarding snow, of course.

So much for the live blogging, lol.

Yeah, the KOCO's blog is a good indication to know things like that. I, too, noticed the abrupt stop to the blog's additions since that time, all night, until the next day. Then, they didn't post as much, so there was the indication that this storm wasn't going to meet our expectation in the metro. Even tho they still advertised the maps with estimated snowfall amounts, they were following everything like they would, except that I think they used the blog to give us the hint that it's a bust.

Weather Blog (http://kocoweatherblog.wordpress.com/)

That's the direct link to the blog that everyone at KOCO actively take part with. This is a very helpful tool, even all of us can join in on it.

4Warn Storm Team @ KFOR-TV (http://4warnstormteam.wordpress.com/)

This blog specifically belongs to Jonathan Condor. He started this, so it is his own personal project. It's not the same as KOCO's, but he does what he can on his own, considering how busy he is.

I am here to show outrage at channel 4's underestimation of snowfall totals. they had a 10-16 inch blob prediction in NW oklahoma, and it turned out like 20-24 inches! Grrrrr!!!!!

i wish they had used the fancy helis to fly around the blizzard cores and show up to the minute! lol

waiting for the lost ogles to break this down for us....

I think the weather guys are idiots! they scared everybody a week or two ago with threat of tornados, and nothing happened, and then they said the metro was going to get 6-10 inches of snow, and nothing happened....

I mean, i know they cant tell exactly, but why dont the stop the number throwing and if there is going to be a decent chance of severe weather, say just that, dont say to plan for tornados....

Pretty soon they are going to get the population to have cry wolf syndrome...

> Pretty soon they are going to get the population to have
> cry wolf syndrome...

I'd say the general populace is long past the potential of "going to get" such a syndrome.
many, perhaps even most, have a full blown does of it.

Did any of them (besides Fox 25's guy) say anything about blowing it? I mean, a lot of things were cancelled... a lot of business was lost... a lot of kids hearts were broken... but most importantly, the fear and drama with which the weathermen seemed to spread the news of this impending "blizzard" was so intense that it caused a lot of unnecessary problems and worry for a lot of folks.

I understand being safe rather than sorry, but at some point the realization that this storm wasn't going to be anywhere near what was predicted should have been AS LOUDLY proclaimed as soon as it was realized. And as it is I'm not sure if any of the big three have yet to say they screwed it up.

Yes, I realize they were reading data from the NWS or whatever but nevertheless, the drama and hype was certainly unnecessary.

And for what its worth, there did seem to be something "off" about Mike Morgan's email. And finally, he's a big boy and can handle a thread regarding his forecast failure.

You would think they would learn from this, but they won't. Maybe the best part of Mike is he used a sled on the air, telling kids, don't worry about going to soccer games, or tee ball, just get out these and have some fun. LOL