Alan Sealls: “In my ‘hiatus’ from a 30-plus year career as a broadcast meteorologist, I have a little more time to reflect on TV news and weather. When I venture out in public, I get a focus group of unsolicited opinion. I interact frequently with kids and adults in formal presentations and hear what they think about our industry. Here are seven simple thoughts that I think can strengthen broadcast news and meteorology.”
Many TV stations show off the skill of meteorologists like WUSA Washington’s Topper Shutt by giving viewers a “3-degree guarantee” for their forecasts, with some tying them to donations, prizes and the like. But whether such a guarantee has any value for viewers is at best questionable.
WeatheRate Verifies ‘Most Accurate’ Forecasts
We Interrupt This TV Program To Save Lives
WeatherNation TV announced today an agreement with Son Broadcasting Network to deliver local weather news in Albuquerque for Son’s KCHF’s digital tier. WeatherNation can be now be seen in high […]
Exclusives
With another hurricane season about to start, TV meteorologists and their crews are gearing up, devising new graphics, stockpiling historical information, and — their greatest and most eternal challenge — trying to hone in on the fine line between warning their viewers and panicking them.
Today’s television weather forecasters, increasingly called meteorologists, are going beyond simply telling people whether to carry an umbrella. As scientists explore the implications of climate change and severe weather’s effect on everything from crops to urban infrastructure, broadcast meteorologists are the ones who bring it home every day in eye-popping computer graphics.
Sunny Forecast For Station Weathercasters
“There are, in my opinion, more good jobs in weather than any other aspect of the business,” says Rick Carr, a Denver-based attorney who represents news talent. Even stations in small markets, he says, will go out of their way to secure weathercasters blessed with a knack for accurate forecasting and a telegenic personality.
WJLA Washington weatherblogger John Metcalfe blasted those who called into the station over the weekend to complain about the decision to interrupt Jeopardy! to air updates on the tornadoes that were devastating the Southeast. “Would cutting into the show with tornado news be O.K. if it wasn’t during the ever-so-important double-Jeopardy!” he writes.
Decades after the heyday of the “weather bunny,” local TV weather is still a man’s world.
