Anyone Catch The Drama on The Weather Channel Last Night?

[ValuJet]

They had renowned meteorologist Jim Cantore camped out on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago calling the play-by-play.

Jim Cantore reports live from Chicago for The Weather Channel - National TV | Examiner.com

Some of his best work:

- “Chicago Lakefront measured wind gusts to near 70 mph.”

- “Lightning and loud thunder on the Magnificent Mile right now.”

- “Lakeshore Drive may be closing from Hollywood to 67th Drive. Reports of people running out of gas on roads around Chicago.”

- “1 to 3 inch per hour snow rates across all of southern Michigan.”

- "National Guard is assisting stranded motorists in Oklahoma.”

- “Media reports continue to indicate there are several hundred people stranded in cars across northeast Oklahoma.”

Where does this guy actually live, French Polynesia? He's notorious for dropping into weather hotspots, reporting on the local carnage, then in a flash he's gone. Canore has spawned an entire subculture of weather reporters screaming "Do NOT come outside."

When we lived in Florida, all the local channels had goofy guys or petite weather babes who would show up down on the beach as a hurricane was blowing ashore or its outer bands were whipping up momentary breezes. With the petite weather babes, at times it was all they could do to hold on and not get swept away like the little girl's daddy in "Twister" whilst performing a public service to the huddled masses, yearning to get their trees pruned for when a real storm comes.

I recall one particular early morning a few years ago when a Cat 1 fizzled out before it sloshed ashore. Before leaving for work, a PWB (Petite Weather Babe) was on the sand at Miami Beach holding up one of those new wind speed guage thingeys. As she was struggling to maintain her foothold, she held up the gizmo and said "There it is!! Sustained Winds of TEN MILES PER HOUR!!" A couple of other people at work saw that, too, and we had a good laugh over it. Uh....you're about 64 MPH short of having something real to report on! Heh!

I've always wanted to see a sitcom about a Florida based weather reporter's life during hurricane season. You couldn't get much more foolish than it already is.

 

[twofbyc]

The "blow-by-blow" (sorry) account of weather is a bit much, especially since:
a) some people lose power early in a storm and can't watch anyway and
b) Cantore, against my most fervent wishes, never gets literally sucked up and away by a hurricane-spawned tornado.

 

[Hamilton]

James Spann is the worst.

 

[SavannahDare]

Say what you will about Jim Cantore, but those of us here on the Gulf Coast don't want to see him in our neck o' the woods.

That's always a bad omen, typically followed by large swathes of land being washed away by storm surge.

Stay away, Jim Cantore! We don't like you!!

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Our local news stations here in Shreveport are fighting for ratings so they've resorted (and I have to say its worked on me ) to getting rid of the weatherMEN and male news anchors and are replacing them with hot chiks with low cut blouses and tight pants that disclose their "in shape" figures.

One of the stations actually has TWO ladies that it seems are in competition with each other. Each day it's like one tries to wear something that reveals a little more than the other. I get up each morning in anticipation that this will be the day when they do the broadcast in the buff!!! :biggrin:

They had renowned meteorologist Jim Cantore camped out on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago calling the play-by-play.

Jim Cantore reports live from Chicago for The Weather Channel - National TV | Examiner.com

Some of his best work:

- “Chicago Lakefront measured wind gusts to near 70 mph.”

- “Lightning and loud thunder on the Magnificent Mile right now.”

- “Lakeshore Drive may be closing from Hollywood to 67th Drive. Reports of people running out of gas on roads around Chicago.”

- “1 to 3 inch per hour snow rates across all of southern Michigan.”

- "National Guard is assisting stranded motorists in Oklahoma.”

- “Media reports continue to indicate there are several hundred people stranded in cars across northeast Oklahoma.”

Where does this guy actually live, French Polynesia? He's notorious for dropping into weather hotspots, reporting on the local carnage, then in a flash he's gone. Canore has spawned an entire subculture of weather reporters screaming "Do NOT come outside."

When we lived in Florida, all the local channels had goofy guys or petite weather babes who would show up down on the beach as a hurricane was blowing ashore or its outer bands were whipping up momentary breezes. With the petite weather babes, at times it was all they could do to hold on and not get swept away like the little girl's daddy in "Twister" whilst performing a public service to the huddled masses, yearning to get their trees pruned for when a real storm comes.I recall one particular early morning a few years ago when a Cat 1 fizzled out before it sloshed ashore. Before leaving for work, a PWB (Petite Weather Babe) was on the sand at Miami Beach holding up one of those new wind speed guage thingeys. As she was struggling to maintain her foothold, she held up the gizmo and said "There it is!! Sustained Winds of TEN MILES PER HOUR!!" A couple of other people at work saw that, too, and we had a good laugh over it. Uh....you're about 64 MPH short of having something real to report on! Heh!

I've always wanted to see a sitcom about a Florida based weather reporter's life during hurricane season. You couldn't get much more foolish than it already is.

 

[rizolltizide]

He's actually been camped out there since Monday night, reporting on the imminent snow just as they do hurricanes. They were calling this the mother of all storms, or something to that effect. We turned it on because my wife was supposed to connect through St Louis yesterday but that obviously didn't happen.

Eh, it's the weather channel. What else do you expect them to do to fill up 24 hours, I suppose. Although I do think it's a bit, much and in many cases, almost hysteria producing. And like Staci says, I don't want Cantore in my neck of the woods. Stephanie Abrams, on the other hand, can move in with me if she wants.

 

[It's On A Slab]

Whatever happened to Dave Schwartz. Used to be that whenever he showed up, the #### was about to hit the fan....hurricane catg 5 or a massive snowstorm somewhere.

 

[ValuJet]

During hurricanes, they have Cantore in one location and Stephanie Abrams twenty miles or so down the road. Those two are pretty good, but the local ones are the ones to watch, as bamabuzzard says. I think all those local reporters are licking their chops over getting a shot at a Weather Channel job. The more calamatous the event, the more exposure they're likely to get.

Fox News has a PWB named Dominica Davis that's a looker. They don't put her out in bad weather, though.

Funny, you never see Weather Babes over 35 or 40. What do these hotties do when their time is up?

 

[It's On A Slab]

During hurricanes, they have Cantore in one location and Stephanie Abrams twenty miles or so down the road. Those two are pretty good, but the local ones are the ones to watch, as bamabuzzard says. I think all those local reporters are licking their chops over getting a shot at a Weather Channel job. The more calamatous the event, the more exposure they're likely to get.

Fox News has a PWB named Dominica Davis that's a looker. They don't put her out in bad weather, though.

Funny, you never see Weather Babes over 35 or 40. What do these hotties do when their time is up?

Bert Case used to love to head down to "the Coast" whenever a hurricane was bearing down it. Probably reporting from The Buena Vista Hotel or a Totesum.

 

[ValuJet]

Bert Case used to love to head down to "the Coast" whenever a hurricane was bearing down it. Probably reporting from The Buena Vista Hotel or a Totesum.

I remember Bert reporting during Camille. In Jackson late that night, it was clear and calm. By 8 a.m. hell was unleashed.

BTW, Mr. Totesum's pic appeared on Keggers the other day. Don't know where that came from.

Dan Rather got his start reporting on a hurricane that washed ashore in Texas.

 

[ValuJet]

Cantore has just named this storm "The Lakeshore Drive Storm."

Thank the Lord we can now put it in perspective, and he was there to tell us about it.

 

[PacadermaTideUs]

Say what you will about Jim Cantore, but those of us here on the Gulf Coast don't want to see him in our neck o' the woods.

Very true. Weather prediction is all about probabilities and likelihoods. Of course it's driven by physics and fluid dynamics, but it's so complex that ultimately, as a practical matter of forecasting, you have to consider the numbers. So anyhoo, Cantore, being The Weather Channel's marquis name in on-the-scene reporting, is always sent where the highest likelihood is for death and destruction. If you see him with a microphone on your local beach, you'd best be packing up the family car.

Kind of interesting story (to me anyway) about Jim Cantore. He's been on The Weather Channel since its startup. I remember when I was in school for meteorology years ago watching him do his thing, and he was always kind of a topic of conversation in class because TWC was a new thing around that time, we as meteorology students were always watching it, and he was always very smooth in his delivery. On television, he seemed to be a fairly large, well built man and many of the female students thought he was "hot". So he's always kind of had a nickname in the weather community as "Rico Suave".

So anyway, I went to the 2008 National Hurricane Conference in Orlando and was in a restroom at the conference doing my thing at the urinal and glanced to my right, and it's ole' Rico standing there next to me doing his thing. Funny thing is: in person, he is fairly "height-challenged", bald and not nearly as impressive as he always seemed on television. I guess I always expected him to be a larger dude and more, well - "Rico" - than he really is.

Still, he's an omen of destruction, so if you see him reporting near you, leave.

 

[Hamilton]

That's the thing...why can't weathermen just tell us that crap is going down, and leave it at that? Some of them are among the biggest attention whores on earth (reference my James Spann post above). Gee, a tornado MAY be forming over BFE Alabama...I'll monopolize the TV station for the next hour. I've heard James Spann issue a "tornado warning" when the National Weather Service has done no such thing ("I'm going to go ahead and issue a radar indicated tornado warning," as if he has the authority to do so). I dunno, maybe they could put the little map in the corner of the screen and leave it at that. Either way, do NOT interrupt a new show to blather on and on about the weather. I watch TV stations for the shows (when I actually watch TV), not the local news.

 

[ValuJet]

A few years ago, in South Florida, one of the local papers announced during a hurricane threat, "Hurricane Hunk Blows Into Town."

As soon as the threat was over, The Hunk was on to his next award winning calamity.

 

[PacadermaTideUs]

Well I could play devil's advocate, and say that the reason they're attention whores is because it saves lives. And that's true: people by and large really would rather throw a hurricane - or tornado - party or finish watching the latest episode of The Real Housewives than actually evacuate or take cover in the basement. It's really easy to miss a little map thingy in the corner of the screen or even a scrolling banner when you're concentrating on the CSI Miami plot line, and often, an immediate threat is just that: immediate - no time for being subtle.

Also remember that with the exception of a hurricane, viewing areas are typically much, much, much larger than the effects of individual severe storms or tornadoes, and the only way to warn the few who are truly at risk is to warn them all. The interruptions may be annoying, but only to those whose house or community wasn't wiped out.

But - and this is only my opinion as I'm not involved in, nor have I ever been involved in media forecasting - the truth is that they interrupt so often and for so long because they'll lose fewer viewers for over-warning than they will for under-warning. All it takes is one tornado that they didn't interrupt programming for that destroys a community, and that station gains a reputation as having a useless (but conscientiously non-whoring) weather team who, though kindly allowing people to watch Desperate Housewives, also allowed them to die without giving them a heads-up. Suddenly, the station that interrupted is the poster-child for helping the community and the station that didn't interrupt employs amateurs. It's about ratings. And they lose more viewers by not interrupting than they lose by interrupting.

And maybe the most important reason: People love drama. Again, ratings. It may not be your idea of entertainment, and Jerry Springer's not mine. But death and destruction sells. If it bleeds it leads.

As for issuing warnings when NWS has not done so, they are free to do that, but also assume risk in doing so in that they are putting their own reputations on the line and assuming the risks and rewards that go along with that. The NWS is the Department of Commerce's (DOC) agency charged with providing weather data and information which (from their mission statement) "can be used by other governmental agencies, the private sector, the public, and the global community." Emphasis on the word "can" as opposed to "must". If James Spann thinks he can do it better, well - it's a free market. And apparently his station manager has given him the go-ahead. Again, goes back to ratings.

A good parallel, going back to The Weather Channel is that for the longest time (maybe still - haven't paid attention over the last few years), TWC did not use the National Hurricane Center's (also DOC) official hurricane forecasts. Dr. Steve Lyons and the TWC crew routinely issued their own forecasts and predictions for landfall location, timing and strength, which in many cases differed significantly from the NHC and in my estimation, routinely outperformed the NHC forecasts. TWC likely gained a lot of hurricane season viewership because of that fact. Had they been less accurate than the NHC, they may have lost viewership.

Risk and reward. Ratings. Playing the numbers.

^^^Probably TMI^^^

 

[Hamilton]

Risk and reward. Ratings. Playing the numbers.

^^^Probably TMI^^^

Not necessarily TMI...but a couple of thoughts:

1) You can warn me about a tornado without interrupting the show. A map and scrolling marquee will do.
2) James Spann's non-NWS Tornado Warnings have never resulted in a tornado when I've been watching (and we always watch because we have a James Spann drinking game)...he's also the only person in the Birmingham market, including the others on his own station, who does this.
3) His over-warning, as you call it, tends to desensitize me (and I'm sure others) to what could be a real danger. Crying wolf, and all.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

We got the same problem here in Shreveport with a local meteorologist who thinks everytime it clouds up he's to cut into the regular program which many times is the CBS College Game of the week and say the same things over and over and over for an hour. He did it this past year when LSU was playing and got a ton of death threats. Yes, literal DEATH THREATS. The station president had to come on air the next week and give a five minute speech explaing their procedures. But to me it just comes across as crying wolf as you say.

Not necessarily TMI...but a couple of thoughts:

1) You can warn me about a tornado without interrupting the show. A map and scrolling marquee will do.
2) James Spann's non-NWS Tornado Warnings have never resulted in a tornado when I've been watching (and we always watch because we have a James Spann drinking game)...he's also the only person in the Birmingham market, including the others on his own station, who does this.
3) His over-warning, as you call it, tends to desensitize me (and I'm sure others) to what could be a real danger. Crying wolf, and all.

 

[PacadermaTideUs]

Not necessarily TMI...but a couple of thoughts:

1) You can warn me about a tornado without interrupting the show. A map and scrolling marquee will do.
2) James Spann's non-NWS Tornado Warnings have never resulted in a tornado when I've been watching (and we always watch because we have a James Spann drinking game)...he's also the only person in the Birmingham market, including the others on his own station, who does this.
3) His over-warning, as you call it, tends to desensitize me (and I'm sure others) to what could be a real danger. Crying wolf, and all.

We got the same problem here in Shreveport with a local meteorologist who thinks everytime it clouds up he's to cut into the regular program which many times is the CBS College Game of the week and say the same things over and over and over for an hour. He did it this past year when LSU was playing and got a ton of death threats. Yes, literal DEATH THREATS. The station president had to come on air the next week and give a five minute speech explaing their procedures. But to me it just comes across as crying wolf as you say.

I hear ya' both. And frankly, I agree with you. When I was learning the ropes, we were always taught that "false alarm rate" (warning issued, never occurred) was just as important as missed warning rate (DID occur, warning not issued), and for exactly that reason: desensitization. But here over the last ten years or so, it seems like that philosophy has changed among the leadership of the meteorological community. Consequently, it's filtered down and the culture has changed. I've literally heard it stated by some of the highest former leaders of NWS, "I don't give a crap about false alarm rates - we will not miss warnings."

Exaggerated hypothetical example: 10 different days. Warnings issued every day. 1 of those days see severe weather. Missed warnings: 0% (Awesome!). False alarms: 90% (Pathetic! Listeners desensitized and no longer listening).

But I'll stick to my opinion that missed warnings lose more viewers than do false alarms. Not defending it, just stating my belief as to the motivating factor.

 

[RJ YellowHammer]

Say what you will about Cantore VJ, but it sounds like he still got you to watch, even if it was for the bad melodrama. TV weathermen are TV personalities first and meteorologists second.

 

[We_are_Bama]

James Spann is the worst.

Yep. He really ticked me off when he caused mass hysteria yesterday with another one of his doomsday forecasts. I mean, yes, there was freezing rain, but it wasn't of the caliber we had been dealing with. It was more of the slushy variety. But, he got on tv and ran around flapping his arms, and what happened? Everybody shut down for the day. Schools, businesses, you name it. The problem was, EVERYBODY let out at once. Causing unreal gridlock on every road you could imagine. So, i got out of work 2 hours before my usual quitting time, and got home 2 hours past the time I normally would. 4 hours it took me to get home yesterday and I live 20 minutes from work. And naturally, grocery stores were packed.