Yet again, so easy to spend other people’s money. To pretend to know staffing considerations. And to get so indignant someone didn’t do it the way a minority of vocal complainers wanted.
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No cable news / Weather Channel coverage during Midwest tornado outbreak
- Thread starter Theater of My Mind
- Start date
From all that I have read, the atmospheric conditions were not expected to be so favorable for tornadoes. At first it was a slight risk, then moderate risk about 48 hours out but the atmosphere primed in a matter of hours to support this severe weather outbreak. Literally any crew wanting to be in the area would have had to be in route the moment the atmosphere primed. The few storm chasers on the storm is an indication of how quickly things developed. One chaser that I saw being interviewed said he left at noon on a gut feeling it might turn really bad in that area. And some seasoned storm chasers simply deemed night chasing in the south was too dangerous.
I was also amazed at how there were no 'officials' to speak with on the situation on the ground. I suppose everyone was on site and I think either the police or fire station was destroyed in Mayfield although I might be wrong about that. Usually there is someone, say outside the community, that could give reporters an idea of the destruction.
I was also amazed at how there were no 'officials' to speak with on the situation on the ground. I suppose everyone was on site and I think either the police or fire station was destroyed in Mayfield although I might be wrong about that. Usually there is someone, say outside the community, that could give reporters an idea of the destruction.
Mgomrjsurf
Banned
The Weather Channel could of been on with live coverage in areas been hit by Tornado's at the time and didn't feel the need to cover it national live at that time.
It was dark. No one knew for a fact that tornados had hit. The people in the affected areas said that even they didn't know what happened until daylight the next morning. The live coverage at the time was mainly showing weather radar that gave indication of "rotation" in certain areas. Those on the air were warning people not to go outside, but rather stay inside in their "safe place," which was identified as the lowest area in the house.
Once again, it was a Friday night, and this was an isolated rural area. It took hours for emergency officials to actually know what happened. No one really knew what had happened until daylight.
This complaint against the Weather Channel not covering Tornadoes live reminds me of when CBS News had call on the KCAL-TV News staff to make a national announcement that Former President George H.W. Bush was deceased in 2018 given that KCAL-TV was doing an active newscast at the time of announcement and CBS News later went to the KHOU-TV feed in the announcement.
Or when CBS News had to close their New York offices during the early days of COVID-19 because of safety concerns. This was when other CBS O&O's had to take over WCBS Newscasts, the weekend CBS Evening News, CBSN and where the Washington DC offices of CBS News took control of News operations due to their Broadcast Center offices shutdown until New York City and New York State gave the clearance for CBS to return to their New York offices.
Actually the feed I was watching was showing a 3.5 mile wide debris ball reflecting on doppler radar as the tornado was about 5 to 10 minutes away from Mayfield. There were Tornado Emergencies issued (above Tornado Warnings), some issued up to an hour in advance since the National Weather Service had such confidence in the particular line of storms. On the feed I was watching, they actually said you need to be underground to survive this one. They even said a bathtub on the first level was little protection from the wind velocities doppler radar was indicating. Even a second hook echo appear along the edge of the storm leading them to speculate a sister tornado but were careful to say it was mere speculation on their end.
It seems the National Weather Service got the area about an hour's heads up with warnings. Simply put, locals likely knew it was coming but likely thought nothing would happen. After all after you've lived through hundreds of warnings with nothing happening, you tend to think the same will happen this time.
It seems the National Weather Service got the area about an hour's heads up with warnings. Simply put, locals likely knew it was coming but likely thought nothing would happen. After all after you've lived through hundreds of warnings with nothing happening, you tend to think the same will happen this time.
Correct. I saw the same thing. It was shown in a different color from the wind and rain. It may have been orange. The meteorologists described it as taking debris from the ground and lifting it into the air. But that was the only indication they had that anything had happened. No one had any on-site reporters because it was dangerous and everyone was told to stay inside. The same meteorologists were tracking NWS alerts and they were being issued less than an hour before impact. Some with less than 30 minutes warning. This was a fast moving storm. They said it was traveling at 70 miles an hour. And yes, the warnings covered huge blocks, and the tornadoes were hit in very narrow, targeted areas. It wasn't until the next day that they were able to confirm what they had seen on radar.
Correlation Coefficient, it shows up on radar as an unnatural signal. Usually debris.
We learned all about that in the Philly area this year as well.
TWC quit at Midnight, Eastern time. The affected communities are in Central time. So they quit just after the tornado rolled through Dawson Springs, KY.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK nailed this forecast, starting with their Day 3 outlook on Wednesday at 4am, calling for "a few tornadoes" originating over Arkansas or Mississippi. By Thursday at 1am, they said, bluntly: "Some of these nocturnal tornadoes may be strong."
Which is exactly what happened.
Storm Prediction Center Dec 8, 2021 0830 UTC Day 3 Severe Thunderstorm Outlook
Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.
www.spc.noaa.gov
Storm Prediction Center Dec 9, 2021 0700 UTC Day 2 Convective Outlook
Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.
www.spc.noaa.gov
Bowling Green, KY is under five hours drive from TWC and CNN in Atlanta, and Jonesboro, AR is just over six hours. Totally possible, even if they didn't start until Noon on Friday.
But again, we're not even really talking about needing people in Arkansas or Kentucky. TWC can analyze a radar from New York or Atlanta -- or Nome.
I didn't see this dearth of interviews. I went to bed at 1am (central), just after the threat ended, and heard from several communities where there was damage. The basic message was "it's real bad". I suppose there's not much more to say for two more hours after that.
National Weather Service bulletins state otherwise. The first bulletin from NWS Paducah, just before the storm crossed into their territory said (sorry for the ALL CAPS, that's how the NWS writes their bulletins):
"AT 841 PM CST, A CONFIRMED LARGE AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO WAS LOCATED NEAR CLAYTON [TENNESSEE] ... SOURCE...LAW ENFORCEMENT CONFIRMED TORNADO."
Then:
"AT 904 PM CST, A CONFIRMED LARGE AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TORNADO WAS LOCATED NEAR CAYCE... THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. TAKE COVER NOW!"
Then:
"AT 925 PM CST, A CONFIRMED LARGE AND DESTRUCTIVE TORNADO WAS OBSERVED OVER MAYFIELD, MOVING NORTHEAST AT 60 MPH... SOURCE...WEATHER SPOTTERS CONFIRMED TORNADO."
I get it, I live here. I was in Mayfield and Dawson Springs recently on vacation. It is most definitely not a place I want to chase a tornado. But no matter how many chasers were on the storm, they wouldn't have had much to show because of darkness.
It's a jerk move to suggest they should cover tornadoes on Long Island a couple of Saturdays ago, but that providing coverage of Kentucky on a Friday would be going above and beyond the call of duty.
I have a feeling the decision had nothing to do with where the tornado was. They apparently had no staff available, so they switched to recorded programming. The fact that they had to fly a reporter from Minnesota to Kentucky the next day tells me they had staffing problems. The guy doing the bulletins overnight was clearly not an on-air person.
Once again, I have no reason to believe the decision was made because of where the tornado was. This appeared to be a staffing issue. I've seen the same thing happen at big networks. When there's no one available, you switch to the back-up.
The Weather Channel has a staff of dozens of on-camera meteorologists. They had a couple of days to shuffle the deck chairs to prepare, for a very well forecast event as I noted above.
So if they didn't have appropriate staffing arranged, it was their own fault.
Yeah, after the event occurred. It is easy to go into a disaster area after the disaster has happened. Much harder to report on the the threat.
That may be and heads may roll as a result. The Weather Channel is a private business, and their staffing is not public information. But if you saw the guy doing the bulletin at 2PM, you'd know he had never been on camera in his life. The reporter they flew from Minnesota to Kentucky was a good reporter, but he was not one of their regular on air people.
But unless you're in the line of the storm, that doesn't matter. If you're in Texas or some other place, you want to see pictures, and those were not available until the next day. If a tornado is heading in your direction, you're hopefully not watching TV, but preparing for impact.
Mgomrjsurf
Banned
They sent Justin Michael's. Could of bought in early Kelly Cass and Reynolds Wolf. They have somebody out west covering the next Storm and other then High Wind Watch for KS/MO no Risk yet.
Bottom line is cable networks are experiencing the same thing as most businesses these days. They are short-staffed. Covid has been much the blame here, but come on, let's get it back together.
The bigger problem is cable companies want to hold the line on channel costs. When you read about inflation, an example is when rising cable channel rights fees cause your cable bill to increase. So are you OK with increased cable bills? Comcast and similar companies are having a hard time holding the line when channels such want to get an increase. The second problem is getting staff who will work weekends and overnight shifts. It's getting to be very difficult.
Of course it is. And what exactly would the extra cost have been for? To appease a few vocal whiners in the middle of the night on a random December weekend?
Going way back to the death of Lady Diana, when that news broke the CBS newsroom that late Saturday night was unstaffed and no one was available to do coverage. CBS picked up an ITV feed and went with that until CBS Sunday Morning went on the air.
Yep. That whole thing was untimely for US audiences. I was actually on an overnight flight from Anchorage to Seattle when I heard the news. But the flight attendants were talking about it.
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