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WFAA CHANNEL 8 TORNADO COVERAGE

S

Steve Eberhart

There are times when the weather is bad that we as viewers tend to criticize local stations who many feel local weatherpersons go overboard on their coverage.
Monday's local coverage of the outbreak of multiple tornado's across Dallas Fort Worth was not one of them.
All the local stations were all over it, blowing out normal programming and commercials to cover the unprecedented storms.
Cudo's to all of them for a job well done, especially WFAA Channel 8.
Their coverage was not in the least bit overhyped, but factual, informative and likely saved many lives with their pinpoint reporting of tornado's and locations. This was a day all of that expensive equipment was worth every penny it cost.
Remember, most days, most of that equipment gets zero use. This may be why when it can be used at all, we as viewers tend to think it is being over-utilized, but it is nice to know when it really counts, our local weatherpersons are pretty damn good.
WFAA had the storms covered from every angle - without hype - there was no need, the storms themselves were plenty scary!
 
Even Ch 33 KDAF was on with coverage. I tried watching Ch4's but whoever was at the controls for the radar (Evan Andrews I think) kept twitching around or zooming in and out with the display. I got tired of trying to keep my eyes on it. So I changed channels, mostly 8. Forget which one it was, maybe 5, that showed the flying semi-trailers live. Regardless, pretty incredible coverage, especially when my reference goes back to the West Dallas tornado in 1957!
 
Megapsycle said:
Forget which one it was, maybe 5, that showed the flying semi-trailers live.
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It was Ch. 5, I missed the initial live version but when they showed it again, David Finfrock talked how it was something he was amazed about and never seen conditions quite like it--although the downtown Fort Worth video in 2000 had to have been amazing to him as well.
 
Steve Eberhart said:
Their coverage was not in the least bit overhyped, but factual, informative and likely saved many lives with their pinpoint reporting of tornado's and locations. This was a day all of that expensive equipment was worth every penny it cost.
Click to expand...

Having OTA was another plus for many of us. The cable suffered a lengthy interval of loss in my part of Frisco but the antenna proved reliable. Even when the power went out, the HDHomerun tuner on the UPS-protected computer kept our family informed.

I have to add that we are fortunate in Dallas-Ft. Worth to have such a competitive television news scene. According to what I see on Ed Bark's site, the Big Four constantly trade places for the top spot in the various dayparts. They all try to out-hustle each other and even KDAF does a credible job of weather coverage. There are some markets where one station is so dominant that the others don't even try and some have just abandoned any news effort at all (Syracuse).

Credit goes largely to Marty Haag. His work at WFAA set a lofty standard and the other stations in D/FW use that a benchmark for excellence. If you have any question about just how good of a product we have here, visit some other similar-sized markets and watch their presentations.
 
I still don't understand why so many DFW stations don't use their own weather radars (which are live) but choose to use the (delayed and not live) NWS radar at Spinks Airport. I did see KtVT make good use of their live radar and occasionally KDFW. I don't know whatever happened to KXAS' live radar, when I saw them they were on the NWS Nexrad at Spinks most of the time. WFAA was using low quality national composite which is delayed 15 mins from time to time and NWS radar at other times. I don't know why WFAA doesn't use the radar they had installed NW of the Metroplex, or if it is even there anymore.
 
LiveLocal said:
I still don't understand why so many DFW stations don't use their own weather radars (which are live) but choose to use the (delayed and not live) NWS radar at Spinks Airport. I did see KtVT make good use of their live radar and occasionally KDFW. I don't know whatever happened to KXAS' live radar, when I saw them they were on the NWS Nexrad at Spinks most of the time. WFAA was using low quality national composite which is delayed 15 mins from time to time and NWS radar at other times. I don't know why WFAA doesn't use the radar they had installed NW of the Metroplex, or if it is even there anymore.
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Fairly simple explanation of that was on Fox 4's coverage. When it pours rain over the radar site, the radar's sensitivity is diminished. The very powerful NEXRAD radar that the NWS has at Spinks is not as susceptible to that problem.
 
tested said:
LiveLocal said:
I still don't understand why so many DFW stations don't use their own weather radars (which are live) but choose to use the (delayed and not live) NWS radar at Spinks Airport. I did see KtVT make good use of their live radar and occasionally KDFW. I don't know whatever happened to KXAS' live radar, when I saw them they were on the NWS Nexrad at Spinks most of the time. WFAA was using low quality national composite which is delayed 15 mins from time to time and NWS radar at other times. I don't know why WFAA doesn't use the radar they had installed NW of the Metroplex, or if it is even there anymore.
Click to expand...

Fairly simple explanation of that was on Fox 4's coverage. When it pours rain over the radar site, the radar's sensitivity is diminished. The very powerful NEXRAD radar that the NWS has at Spinks is not as susceptible to that problem.
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I've seen that happen before with other past weather events. I can't remember which local meteorologist used the term then, but he said the radar was 'atenuated' (sp??). I noticed this time around that some radars would show some of the detail, while others were showing storms much more defined-looking. Not sure if that is partially due to technology on the part of an individual radar, or if the less-detailed images were being 'atenuated' or not.
 
I understand rainfall attenuation, a TV station's radar is C-band and the NWS has S-Band on the WSR-88D but the FAA radars at the airports are also C-Band. C-Band has attenuation and S-Band doesn't (or not as much). But if your radar isn't being attenuated, it is located in Corsicana or NW of the Metroplex for example, why would you continue to use the delayed NEXRAD vs a live radar? Most of the time, some of the live radars at TV stations sites were out of the heavy rain, not all of the time of course. I wonder if the TV mets have used the NWS radar for so long they've just put their own station's radar out of mind, if it continues to even work in these times of budget cuts.
 
IIRC-- Not all radars are created equal. Some stations get a lower power radar just to say they have their own radar. Also-- if your radar site is downtown, don't you get a better look at the storm from a suburban radar site so it isn't loaded down with metro ground clutter?
 
LiveLocal said:
I understand rainfall attenuation, a TV station's radar is C-band and the NWS has S-Band on the WSR-88D but the FAA radars at the airports are also C-Band. C-Band has attenuation and S-Band doesn't (or not as much). But if your radar isn't being attenuated, it is located in Corsicana or NW of the Metroplex for example, why would you continue to use the delayed NEXRAD vs a live radar? Most of the time, some of the live radars at TV stations sites were out of the heavy rain, not all of the time of course. I wonder if the TV mets have used the NWS radar for so long they've just put their own station's radar out of mind, if it continues to even work in these times of budget cuts.
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I can assure you they would rather use their own radars.
 
The reason why WFAA didn't use theirs after 2pm was the fact that the storms were entering the radar's cone of silence region. With FWS's located at Spinks and the storms located in DFW Airport at the time, the FWS beam had a good view of the lower levels of the storm, which was practically 1500 to 2000 feet angle. With WFAA's however, that storm near the airport was nearly unrecognizable. Now, when the storms were over the radar site, they probably switched to their Justin radar which had the beam 2500 to 3000 feet over Tarrant County which was looking into still the lower levels of the storm.
 
I never saw 8 or 5 use anything but the FWS radar, even when that storm was over Spinks. What happened to KXAS' radar? Didn't they put a really powerful one down by Corsicana? I did see 4 use their radar at Cedar Hill and 11 use their radar located somewhere out west.
 
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