Monday Night Storm Coverage
Strong winds and dangerous lightning were part of a series of strong thunderstorms that rumbled through the Omaha metropolitan area Monday night.
Thousands were left without power. And some TV stations pulled out all the stops. Every station featured viewer-submitted photos (WOWT meteorologist Jeff Jensen took the one at right). One radio broadcaster pronounced Plattsmouth as "Platts-MOUTH" and one TV station encouraged people without power to e-mail news of the outage to OPPD.com. (OK, so Blackberry and iPhone users can, but what about the rest of us?)
What did you think of the media's storm coverage?
50 comments:
I especially thought it humorous when Malorie Madddox asked those without power to phone WOWT and let them know the viewer was without power. Now that was funny. Settle down a bit Malorie and choose your words carefully.
All in all, though, I would say that all stations did a great job. This had all the ingredients of a serious situation and I think they did a commendable job. Thanks guys for keeping us informed of the situation.
I heard the PLATTSMOUTH pronounciation too and laughed.
Channel 3 was smart not to have the guys from OPPD on the phone. Just tell us how many people are without power and where and that the company is going out to fix the lines. Those guys kept droning on and on and on.
Also, did anyone see the cop on channel Six yelling at the person who drive over downed power lines. LOL
Did the NRG stations even COVER the storm? I was flipping around and heard Q-98 and Lite 101 sticking with their regular programming. Big ball-drop if they missed out on this.
NRG went wall to wall last night on three of their stations. Can't remember which ones, but on KKAR, they had weather on all night.
Anyone see Channel Six's hilarious tornado graphics on the radar? Nice clip art!
Clear Chaannels statios went wall to wall with KFAB coverage. KFAB had the weather channel and reporters on the street.Eyewitness weather.
I liked the live web streaming coverage that WOWT and KMTV provided. I wished KETV had it or if they do have made it easier to find it. Its nice for people outside of the area to check up and see how the local boys are covering the weather.
Sit and nitpick if you want but all in all, I think every station did what they had to do---warn and inform. As for the comments about phoning or emailing with power out--Malorie isn't out of touch..you are. People do have Blackberry's and I-Pods --- alot of people have email capability on their cellphones---get with it Sean and whoever.
PS The one really out of touch was the OWH...put the storm story on the last page of the Midlands. That's why your readership continues to shrink.
@ 12:57 PM - on KETV's web site, I believe the "Weather Now" streaming video converts to the live broadcast you see on TV in situations like on Monday night.
While I didn't watch it last night, I remember it being the case during one of the storms we had this this past winter.
12:15 I agree about the clip art lol.
What I don't understand is when the meterologist will say " a report of a funnel cloud at whatever & whatever", when the people who called it(the funnel cloud) in are obviously not trained spotters and think that any storm cloud is a frickin' funnel cloud.
Anyway, the coverage was ok, and some of the pics are great.
1:28 PM:
And how are they watching Channel 6 to know what's going on if their power is out? Duh! Methinks you need to get with the program on that one.
While I don't much care for Channel Sux, Maddox phone comment was not out of touch. Phone lines contain their own power source from the Telco switch. If you have a corded phone, it does not require power. Seems like someone else needs to choose their words carefully.
And you can listen to Channel Sux on a battery powered radio--so that must be the people Maddox was speaking too.....lol.
87.7 FM had WOWT live coverage for those who lost power. Gotta love those battery operated radios they just invented!!!!!
That cell phone thing seemed to work just fine without power as well. You can even send pictures with them too!
Sounds like the tech-challenged on this board like to crow about their ignorance in a roundabout way.
On omaha.com they ran an old tornado picture with the headline about the approaching storm, leaving anyone who visited with the impression that funnel clouds were bearing down on the metro. The are bad at just about everything. Omaha deserves better than this bunch of amateurs. Improve or die.
WHILE DOWN THE ROAD IN lINCOLN...Channel 8 was wall to wall...Channel 10/11 ran streamers while the storm roared through Lincoln town. I guess WOF is more important, good job 8
is omaha.com in the WH newsroom? looks like they hired high school yearbook kids to shoot there shaky video and weird party pictures
Wow Roy G; we ar full of ourselves aren't we? How many people do you think were listening to 87.7 when the regular radio stations were broadcasting infinitely better coverage than 87.7? C'mon! I was one of those that lost power and I can tell you that I was listening to the true radio stations rather than WOWT.
Sounds like anyone that even remotely thinks that most people were tuned into Channel Sux on the radio needs to get a grip on reality. C'mon people; the majority of the people that lost power weren't even tuned into that station. Maddox's comment was ridiculous at best. Let's call a spade a spade.
It's ridiculous to assume that most people were listening to 87.7 when their power went out. Generally most people in my neighborhood listened to the local radio stations rather than channel 6 on 87.7, as most assume that they will only receive standard television fare on 87.7. That said, it was more patently silly that she would ask us to call WOWT when most should have been called OPPD. Let's face it, the woman wasn't thinking when she said what she said one way or the other.
It was a regular end of summer storm with straight line winds and no confirmed tornado in or around Omaha. Jeez, you people get so worked up over the most minor things. You ought to move to Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas for a reality check on what severe weather is. Holy Cow, the sky is falling on Omaha, Nebraska. Rubes.
Hey 8/22 @ 8:31, Thank You for that post! Being starved for anything productive to do, I scrolled down this thread and read each post w/f/w, and could actually feel my IQ take a hit after some of the things I saw! It was like a bad Jeff Foxworthy joke about how many times you've been on TV talking about "what the tornado sounded like..."!! You're 100% correct. Just a season-changing, garden variety t-storm. This should make the Top 10 List for "You Know It's a Slow Newsday in Nebraska When..."
Now I'll do something important; lunch!
Hey, this is the same area that proudly claims Larry the Cable Guy as an esteemed product.......
To the previous three posters....
Ummmm....blow me....how's that taste!
I hate it when people post crap like that anonymously....
I had winds at my house 50-75 mph for the better part of an hour. I watched a neighbor's fence get shredded and a couple of panels sail through the air about 20ft high...so forgive me for caring about this storm just a bit.
Did anyone see the Todd Andrews story last night about the 4 people who nearly lost their lives in separate cases? Maybe you are just watching the wrong station if you think these storms only break a few tree limbs.
http://www.ketv.com/weather/13947922/detail.html
It's kind of a double edged sword for the media isn't it. If they cover it, they get yelled at. If they don't, they get yelled at. So isn't it better to just cover what's happening in town. There was nothing else going on at the time.
To anonymous in Lincoln ... I, too, appreciated Ch 8's coverage, but the fact it took a good 10-15 minutes for them to figure out that their radar suffered from rain fade and wasn't refreshing was pretty useless. By the time they figured it out, the storm was through town. Do all stations rely on satellite feeds for weather radar? How can that be of any help when it doesn't function during heavy rain?
There's a great new invention called a battery operated television. I think they were invented around 20-25 years ago. Rumor is that they'll be introduced in the Nebraska market sometime before 2015, but if you're really savvy, you can mail order one from one of the coasts.
when looking for good coverage on the radio, i was looking for a voice i knew... not some KKAR somebody i didn't know on NRG, or a weather channel personality i didn't know on clear channel stations, so yes I did go to 87.7 to listen to Jim Flowers...
I have to admit I would prefer to listen to 87.7 rather than one of the other radio stations as well.
11:18 AM:
Talk about the pot calling the kettle iron..."I hate anonymous posters..." Yeah, I love it when people criticize anonymous posters and then do the same thing. LOL.
Nebraskans need to get a life. By the way, I also heard Mallory say the same thing and thought it was hillarious. Most people don't even know that 87.7 exists. I wonder if people would be up in arms so much about this if she wasn't blonde and blue eyed and easy on the eyes. I really doubt it.
What the heck is it about anything to do with weather that gets all these bloggers stirred up? I've never seen such a bunch of people with nothing better to do in all my life. It's pathetic. Oh wait; I'm on here too. Oh no. I've been brainwashed or maybe I don't have a brain...yeah...could be...
Yes this is earth-shattering stuff. We should all be up in arms because an anchor said something that wasn't quite Pulitzer Prize material. Try filling an hour on the fly sometimes and not saying something you wish you could take back.
August 22, 2007 12:13 PM asks:
"Do all stations rely on satellite feeds for weather radar?"
I'd guess that most do. There's a thing called NOAAPORT that our Federal government provides through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (aka NOAA).
Get yourself a C-band satellite dish and the equipment needed to decode the signal, and you're ready to go.
From the http://www.nws.noaa.gov/noaaport/html/channels.shtml web page:
"NCEP/NWSTG Channel From the NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG), a data stream consisting of model output from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP); the observations, forecasts, watches and warnings produced by NWS Forecast Offices; WSR-88D radar products; and most observational data over North America. (Bolding mine)
The following web page has a nice graphic of the NOAAPORT data flow: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/noaaport/html/overview.shtml
All this is funded by you, the American taxpayer.
How can this be of any help when it doesn't function during heavy rain?
Well, it's not. Stations like KETV and WOWT operate their own weather radars that they can use when this happens.
Next time you see a radar map on TV, take a look at where the center of the ground clutter circle is. That's where the radar dish is located. So when the ground clutter circle is centered over Valley, NE, you know the station is using radar data from the radar site located at the National Weather Service (NWS) office. (The NWS is a division of NOAA.)
If when watching WOWT the ground clutter circle is centered over 72nd and Crown Pointe, you know WOWT is displaying data from its own radar.
KETV's radar has been at its downtown station for years, but they're building a new one at 72nd and Crown Pointe. However, I rarely see them use either of their own sites on air.
It bugs me to no end that KETV lies and calls the National Weather Service's radar data "Live Super Doppler 7", when in reality they're displaying radar data that's generated by the taxpayer-funded National Weather Service radar.
KETV would probably say that they purchased the satellite dish and computer to display the NWS radar data, so they can call it their own. But that's about as silly as saying that KETV's programming is a product of Toshiba because that's the brand of TV I'm watching KETV on. You don't see KETV putting "Super Satellite 7" graphics all over the taxpayer funded satellite images from the NWS satellites, so why do they do it with radar data?
Say what you will about their forecasting , but at least WOWT has the respect to put "Hi Resolution Radar" on its graphics when using NWS radar data rather than trying to pass it off as "Super Doppler 6000". (WOWT's graphics do state "Super Doppler 6000 when they're showing radar maps from their own radar.)
To tell if a radar feed is "live", watch the "spinner". If the radar data refreshes as the spinner goes by, chances are it is live. If it doesn't, the spinner is probably fake. Another way to tell if a spinner is fake is if the radar graphic shows radar data beyond the range of the spinner, such as when KETV has a spinner over Valley, and they zoom in on a storm in eastern Colorado.
Oh, one other reason for stations to have their own radars is because of the "cone of silence". Radars sweep in a circle, but when doing so can't look directly upward. That means when a storm is directly over a radar site (for example 72nd and Crown Pointe), it "disappears" from view. By switching to a radar based at a different site (for example Valley), you'll be able to see what's going on over the first (72nd and Crown Pointe) location. You can play around at the following web site to see how the NWS radar sites overlap to provide continuous coverage of the country: http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=oax&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no
Play around with the "Adjacent Radars" tool in the upper left-hand corner of the page to jump from one radar site to another.
And, no, I don't work for WOWT.
It's just that I really don't watch KMTV's weather much and don't want to rip on KPTM too much because, like channel 8 in Lincoln, they appear to be totally dependent on the NWS radar source.
Hey Omaha:
It's raining today...Oh my god! The sky is falling!
Chicken Little
Hey 7:34 AM:
How about idiots that can't spell?
-Click- (Television off)
So for the sake of argument since everyone is taking this way to seriously... if the stations did not report on any of the weather, and a tornado did hit the area would that be okay? I doubt it! There was nothing else news worthy going on Monday night, shows were in reruns and it's the media's job to inform the public. If they did nothing they people would complain that the media didn't warn them. So you can't win and you can't lose.
Dear Baby Jesus,
Can Jim please post something new for us to bitch about ?
Amen.
K, thanks, bye.
I'm with Jess. Sean...Jim...please, please, please add something else! I think this has about run its course.
I thought this blog was about weather coverage..Not PMS
Isn't it the same thing?
Midol Anyone?
I think we need 45...no better make that 46 of them.
Anything to alleviate the bloated unsettled feeling...PMS not the weather.
Isn't there an Omaha TV blog where we can write in a topic?
...cause the Media Watch SUCKS!
There's a meeting with Todd n' Tyler in the morning so something else will be posted tomorrow afternoon in this blog.
Would all you people whining about Media Watch just chill out?
Why would Jim, Sean, or anyone else want to run a blog when all the thanks they get is your pissing and moaning?
Grow up already!!!
If they worked a little harder at it no one would be complaining. Either that or rename it Media Kissy-Face, "All the news that won't offend or that everyone already knew."
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