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A Day of Shame for Rochester TV Weather

D

dampier

A tornado warning was issued this afternoon for Monroe County for the indication of a tornado by Doppler Radar serious enough to prompt the National Weather Service to issue an urgent warning for residents of greater Rochester.

And every local TV station completely dropped the ball.

Despite all the BS about ultimate weather, mega weather, super duper weather, not one local broadcaster could be bothered to break into local programming with even a crawl until more than 15 minutes after the warning was issued urging residents to take immediate cover.

In fact, besides The Weather Channel and NOAA Weather Radio which had the warning out within five minutes of it being issued, the first news outlet to break into programming and report on this potentially life-threatening situation was R News. Major kudos to Time Warner for demonstrating responsible news programming when every local TV station sat on their butts for another 10 minutes after R News broke the story.

Channel 13 was the first station to break in around 20 minutes after the warning was issued. Channel 10 was next at 23 minutes after, and Channel 8 might as well not have bothered, taking 26 minutes to finally put something on the air.

That lengthy delay, coming just minutes after the 6pm news ended, is TOTALLY unacceptable. Although at the time of writing, it doesn't appear any major damage has occured yet, if you were in the towns of Irondequoit or Webster, you'd be dead or seriously injured before one TV station would have informed you to take cover, because the cell in question had already moved beyond those areas by the time they bothered to break into programming.

In a tornado, seconds and even minutes can make all the difference. But that apparently didn't matter too much to local stations.

Not their finest hour, and I'm sure glad I have a weather radio that can outperform these people any day. Shameful.
 
I've never posted on this site but after reading this I must! That Tornado Warning came down at 6:42 and we broke into CBS evening news at 6:55. Get your facts straight before bashing my weather department!

Scott Hetsko
 
Someone Dropped The Ball On This One Big Time!

> I've never posted on this site but after reading this I
> must! That Tornado Warning came down at 6:42 and we broke
> into CBS evening news at 6:55. Get your facts straight
> before bashing my weather department!
>
> Scott Hetsko
>

Scott,

By your own admission it took Channel 8 thirteen minutes before going on the air with the Tornado Warning Alert. You, most of all, with your extensive background in the field of meteorology, know what damage a tornado can do in 13 minutes if one had touched down. So why didn't Channel 8 break into regular programming the minute the alert was issued by the National Weather Service?

Even if the on-air anchors were out to dinner after the 6:00 p.m. local news, someone in your news department should have had the initiative to put up a crawl screen alerting the viewing public watching the CBS Evening News to the pending weather threat to our community.

How many times in the past has Channel 8 interrupted regular programming by running crawl screens for lesser weather warnings?

I respect your abilities as a meteorologist Scott, but the honest truth is that 8, and the other TV stations in Rochester, dropped the ball on this one. Thank God no tornado touched down. The next time we may not be so lucky.


Mark Giardina

<P ID="signature">______________
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted and I won't be laid a hand on.
I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them".</P>
 
Re: Someone Dropped The Ball On This One Big Time!

It's good to know that people from the Rochester media actually read this site.
 
Re: Someone Dropped The Ball On This One Big Time!

> It's good to know that people from the Rochester media
> actually read this site.
>
I beg to differ with the originator as well. I am the ND at 10 and we were on the air 9 minutes after the warning was issued. I had to round up a crew and KW had to get the facts and some radar images to indicate the latest. No shame here.
 
Re: Someone Dropped The Ball On This One Big Time!

I wasn't on the air this evening but we quickly assembled our crew and Jonathon got on the air as soon as possible. Now I understand the arquement about the threat of a tornado however I also understand what a "Doppler indicated tornado" means.

Doppler radar has the ability to "see" potential wind rotation is a thunderstorm. As a precaution, the NWS will issue Tornado Warnings even though 99.999999999999(I doing this for effect)99999999% of the time, none occur...especially here. It is better to err on the side of caution but you're over reacting to this warning.

No one respects mother nature more than me but we DID NOT drop the ball.
 
Re: Someone Dropped The Ball On This One Big Time!

I work and live in southern New England, and my station had no problem with getting information about passing thunderstorms on the air today (my station often leads the newscasts with weather if it's necessary!) I think we were getting hit with the same storm system that hit Rochester. I'm not in Rochester and only know information on what happened there by reading this thread, but there is NO reason in hell that a station should take almost 25 minutes to get a tornado warning on the air. Period. If that happened at my station, our news director would have peoples' heads on a platter! However, I do understand that the station has to get the studio and control room crews together and prepare to get on the air...but it shouldn't take almost 30 mintues to get their sh*t together.

Speaking of WROC, how long has John Stehlin been there? I remember watching him on KYW years ago.
 
Re: Reflections

> I've never posted on this site but after reading this I
> must! That Tornado Warning came down at 6:42 and we broke
> into CBS evening news at 6:55. Get your facts straight
> before bashing my weather department!

Scott, after you wrote this, I rolled back my Explorer 8000 box which was on The Weather Channel at the time this story broke (I was waiting on the weather to see whether or not I could manage my walk without being soaked). The first mention of this particular cluster of storms having potentially tornadic indications according to doppler radar came from The Weather Channel just after 6:30pm.

My times were based on that, having assumed that this information originated with the NWS. However, in rolling through the weather warnings on the NOAA Wire, I do see the first statement moving on the wire was, as you indicated, at 6:42pm.

For that reason, my assumption on timing and sourcing of the warning was inaccuate and I apologize for that. TWC actually does their own forecasting in addition to just reporting what NWS has to say. I assumed TWC was just echoing NWS-Buffalo, but they independently saw the cluster at 6:36pm which is what prompted the 6:42pm warning.

Whether or not our own local TV station weather departments were seeing the same thing or simply responded to the weather wire from the NWS is something only you guys know.

However, I do stand by my very strong concern that:

a) TWC in Atlanta GA saw something that apparently every local TV station weather department didn't, and they are in Georgia and you guys are here. At 6:36pm, the NWS office in Buffalo saw it and that was what prompted the warning, but nobody's doppler radar screens in Rochester apparently prompted the same concern?

b) Even if we reset the clock to 6:42pm, why did R-News manage to beat every last one of the local broadcast stations with a live weather warning? Why was WROC DEAD LAST in breaking into programming, and why was there no immediate crawl even if you guys weren't ready for a live shot?

It was somewhat reflective that, outside of R News, the weather story broke live right along with the public's perception of the value of the local newscasts. Channel 13, perennially number one, had the story first, followed by channel 10 and then last place channel 8 ran it.

By the time R News broke the story, TWC was lit up like a Christmas tree with red warning crawls, beep tones, the whole shebang.

You guys spend a ton of money on graphics, promotions, and staff to serve Rochester's #1 story - the weather, and if this was an actual tornado, by the time your station went live about it, it would have already passed Irondequoit and Webster and would have been in Penfield/Fairport/E Rochester.

I think this warrants some serious review and improvement.
 
Re: Someone Dropped The Ball On This One Big Time!

> I work and live in southern New England, and my station had
> no problem with getting information about passing
> thunderstorms on the air today (my station often leads the
> newscasts with weather if it's necessary!) I think we were
> getting hit with the same storm system that hit Rochester.
> I'm not in Rochester and only know information on what
> happened there by reading this thread, but there is NO
> reason in hell that a station should take almost 25 minutes
> to get a tornado warning on the air. Period. If that
> happened at my station, our news director would have
> peoples' heads on a platter! However, I do understand that
> the station has to get the studio and control room crews
> together and prepare to get on the air...but it shouldn't
> take almost 30 mintues to get their sh*t together.
>
> Speaking of WROC, how long has John Stehlin been there? I
> remember watching him on KYW years ago.
>

There is no John Stehlin at WROC....you must mean Mike Vickers
 
Re: Someone Dropped The Ball On This One Big Time!

I am writing this response partially based upon the information given by others who post on this board. I do not have the ability to watch three television stations simultaneously so I couldn't tell you who aired what and when.

Assuming the information posted is accurate, this topic could go either way with me, so I'm going to assume the neutral position. I understand that there is no need to alarm the public when it isn't necessary, but in this case it seems that the delay in timing was a bit too much. Breaking in with live coverage wasn't the issue here, but more so the EAS iniated crawl that failed to air on all three stations at the time the warning was issued. Whenever a warning is issued, my NOAA Weather Radio will sound an alarm and the message will play over the speaker. My question is: why didn't these EAS tones initiate an automatic crawl on all three stations, whether or not someone was available to come on-air and speak about it?

"The EAS digital system architecture allows broadcast stations, cable systems, participating satellite companies, and other services to send and receive emergency information quickly and automatically even if those facilities are unattended. " (http://www.fcc.gov/eb/easfact.html)

Like I said, I do not wish to "choose sides" on this topic, but my brain still is wondering why every station in town handled this situation the way that they did when it clearly could have been handled differently.<P ID="signature">______________
Jack Allen
Rochester, NY News - www.rnyn.com</P>
 
Re: Someone Dropped The Ball On This One Big Time!

John Stehlin is on WROC's website. He's among the two other weather anchors there. WROC's website says that John is the morning and noon weather anchor. I highly doubt WROC would post a bio on their website of someone who doesn't work for them.
 
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