Tuesday, May 13, 2008

What's A Weather Alert?

A lot of people have asked what a "Weather Alert" is this evening. That really defeated the purpose of it's design! Let me explain...

Whenever storms move through Region 8, people call the TV station wondering why there isn't a severe thunderstorm warning for their county when there is a lot of lightning. As some of you know, lightning is not what determines if a storm is "severe" or not. It's based off of the size of the hail and the winds.

The "Weather Alert" was designed to flag the storms that were not "severe", but were storms we were tracking closely. Storms with lots of lightning, gusty winds (below 58 mph), and pea-size hail.

Our plan backfired on us. MORE people called wondering what a "Weather Alert" was! LOL... Sooo, that was the last time you will see a Weather Alert. If there is a storm over your house and there is nothing on the screen, don't worry... it's not severe. :)

I hope that helps explain it...
Ryan

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ya know..i wondered the same thing but i waited because i knew if it was something to really worry about you would let us know and then the craziest thing happened...text scrolled across the bottom of the screen telling me what was going on! wow the powers of technology lol anywho personally i like the weather alert it kind of gives us a heads up as to what these storms are doing and what they are capable of & best of all the storm team can communicate this info without breaking into tv programming. I say keep the weather alert and scroll the text continously...wait then someone would complain the text is interfering with the tv show...i give..ryan use your judgement lol

Anonymous said...

I would keep the weather alert. People were calling because they did not know what it was. A simple explaination in a broadcast would clear things up and stop the calls. I'm not sure if it was you who emailed me about the weather alert deal or not when you were here in Alabama. I remember emailing someone at WSFA when lighting hit my house before 7 am one day, and asking about if the storm was severe, anyway, that is when I found out about the NWS possibly sending out weather alerts...I'm glad to see that you guys are using it, sure wish they would here in good ole Montgomery. Keep up the good work and keeping people safe!!

Donna
Wetumpka

Jason H said...

I don't even work for Kait8, and got a dozen phone calls. :-D

Anonymous said...

Laughing. I thought the weather alert meant stay tuned weather Dumb-Bunny`s so I was all eyes......Granny

Stacy said...

You try and you try but.....

This is so funny :)

MrsRobbieD said...

Weather.com sends me a text sometimes for a "significant weather event" I look at it as a reason to find a TV and see why.

Andrew said...

Ryan,
Listing a Significant Weather Alert is a good idea since these storm are close to being severe but just not there yet, this will at least let the people in those counties know there is the possibility of some severe weather and they should take the proper steps to insure their safety.
It will take some time before everyone knows what this type of alert is but once they do the phones will settle down. In the meantime your just giving them a heads up and making them aware of possible bad weather.