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| Ramblings |
Jeff Orvis |
Lightning awareness week
According to KWWL-TV’s Mark Schnackenberg, last week was “Lightning Awareness Week.” Anybody living in and around Belle Plaine last Wednesday evening that wasn’t aware of the lightning must have been living in a windowless sound-proofed room with its own power source. I can’t remember a more awesome, frightening lightning display than we had that night.
It’s inevitable that when you get a group of folks together, they will eventually start talking about the weather, especially in a state where the unofficial slogan is, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes.” After the initial complaints about the lack of rain, or the excess rain, or the heat or cold, the folks usually turn their attention to TV weather people. More often than not, you hear some variety of the following comment, “They don’t really know what they’re talking about anyway.”
Well, here’s a news flash for all of you critics: if you took the time to record a week’s worth of weather reports and then carefully tracked what actually happened, you might be more than a little surprised. Claiming the TV weatherman doesn’t really know what’s going to happen is kind of like getting a diagnosis you don’t like from your doctor, not following his or her suggestions on how you can improve your physical condition, then when something goes terribly wrong, confronting the doctor with “Why didn’t you tell me?”
In the old days, if you were a news director at a television station, you looked for some guy who had a nice smile, looked good in front of a camera and could speak in complete sentences and designated him as your weatherman. From what I’ve observed in three markets that serve portions of Iowa, that’s not true anymore. Most weathermen are meteorologists, certified by a national organization, who have college degrees in the subject.
There’s a distinct difference in style, and perhaps in ability of the weather folks I’ve seen in those three markets. Growing up in the Quad-Cities, the weather folks seemed most interested in letting us know if the sun was going to shine tomorrow or how long it would rain or when the snow would stop. Since the vast majority of their perceived audience lives in apartments or in homes on city lots, they probably figured that even the most brutal winter weather would not impact most of them for very long.
When I moved to the area served by TV stations in the Waterloo-Cedar Rapids market, I noted a distinct change in how the weather reports were delivered. The smiling faces with limited knowledge were replaced by people who really took weather reporting seriously. Reporting to a large ag-based viewership, the people on the three stations in the market placed more emphasis in possible severe weather, rainfall or snowfall totals, etc. They realize that life at the end of a one-mile gravel lane in the country can be significantly different in the winter than life a dozen steps from a city street, where the snowplows go by regularly. Knowing if you should take your umbrella or snowshoes with you when you leave the house in the morning is one thing. Being informed if you should consider moving your livestock to higher ground or closer to the barn is quite another.
Even in Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city, they seem to take their weather reporting more seriously than they do in the Quad-Cities and have more experienced meteorologists on staff on several of the stations. Des Moines is a metropolitan area, but that’s due in large part to the agriculture economy.
Technology has gotten so much better in the weather reporting business in the past few years. It’s fascinating to watch the TV guys explain how and why a severe storm is forming and where it might hit, based on sophisticated radar, etc. I know it can be a pain when there’s a tornado warning for a portion of the coverage area and the local stations pre-empt your favorite “reality show” for a dose of true reality. But if you determine you are in the clear, switch to a cable or satellite channel or switch off the TV and pick up one of those strange things people call “books.”
There are still folks who will swear that TV weather people don’t know what they’re talking about. Those folks can continue to consult their “Old Farmers’ Almanac” or look to see if the caterpillars have quit shaving or look at their tea leaves to predict the weather. From this corner, I’m just glad we have the technology, emphasis and expertise delivered by the weather departments at KWWL, KCRG and KGAN.
Keep up the good work, people!