HD Conversion Update- Control Room Operational! 9/27/11

Stadium seating! In the above picture, you are sitting in the new audio booth of the new HD Control Room at KAIT! You are looking through some glass and the next row is where the Producers sit. In front of the producers would be where the Director sits during the newscast. Lots and lots of monitors, to monitor live feeds, other stations, storm chase feeds, live shots, and Judge Judy.;)

In the above picture, you can see one of our directors during Region 8 News at 10:00 last night. This is where all of the buttons are pushed to show you video of the day's news!

They are in the process of building the new set now and the new Storm Center is at least 5 times larger than the old storm center! Fun times at KAIT! I can't wait until you guys see it!

Stay tuned for more updates,
Ryan

HD Conversion Update- New Control Room 9/23/11

For years, we have been in the Control Room in the picture above. It gets the job done, but it's not the best layout for these guys and gals. It's also not suited for an HD newscast. For those that don't know, the control room is the area where all of "buttons are pushed". When you see video, the guy in the far distance hits the button to make it roll. When you see someone's name on the bottom of the screen, someone in this room does it. When someone is talking into our earpiece about severe weather or breaking news, it comes from this room. Starting THIS weekend (before the new set is revealed), we will start using the NEW HIGH DEFINITION control room!

As you can see from this picture, they are still working on it and many more monitors will be added before they use it on Saturday. I'll give you more updates when it is completed. You may not tell a difference when we change control rooms, but it paves the way toward the HD conversion of Region 8 News!

Ryan

HD Conversion Update 9/22/11

We have an empty shell now! In order for the new set to be built, we had to completely demolish, empty, and clean the old studio. In the above picture, you are looking at the future East Side Studio. This will house the set for interviews, reporter stand-ups, and is also the door that leads to the Weather Deck. As you can see, it is empty and the floors have been redone with a HIGHLY industrial paint. It's shiny too! Now to more pictures!

The above picture is still in the East Studio, looking the other direction. You can still see one walls of the old storm center. As soon as the new set is installed, those computers will move and that will just be a wall. If you look through the opening, that is the main studio that will house the future news desk and the awesome storm center! The floors were still a little sticky, so I could not go in there. Believe me, it's just an empty shell.

One downfall has been the smell! The paint needed for a studio floor has to be TOUGH. This means that we had to use some STRONG paint. When I say STRONG... everything about it is STRONG. The smell on Tuesday night was horrible.

We know there will be some uncomfortable moments, some challenges, and some smells that we will have to deal with over the next few weeks. With that said, the final product is going to be awesome and worth it!

More updates coming soon. In case you don't know, we are also getting a BRAND NEW control room. I'll blog about that next!

Ryan

HD Conversion Update 9/20/11

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to blog about the HUGE transition that is taking place at KAIT! On Friday, we earnestly started the demolition on the news set at KAIT. Craig was having some fun after the 10:00 news! As you can see, we are excited at work! This set has been with us for awhile, with some changes here and there.  We have seen Tony Brooks, Dick Clay, Terry Wood, Mark Frankum, Daryl Hobby, Glen Marini, and many more great people deliver news, weather, and sports from this set. It has a deep history, but it's time for a dramatic change!

In the above picture, two legendary people at KAIT (Gerald Erickson and Ronnie Weston) are taking down the Region 8 Storm Center. We started this process earlier last week. Lots of tornado warnings have been covered in that room! From Terry Wood, Shane Carter, Ron Smiley, Mark Frankum, Chad Watson, etc... A lot of work has been done in that area! My first tornado warning from here, was my first day on air at KAIT! It was 10+ years ago for a Tornado Warning in Cross County. After the midday show on Friday, another part of the studio started to come down...

As you see, it has been a VERY busy area lately. The room you see above is now an empty shell. I'll show it in the next update.

I'll keep you posted on the process, but I'm not going to let too much out on what the final product looks like. I want to let you see that in gorgeous HD video in the coming weeks! In the meantime, we're on a temporary set!

Stay tuned!
Ryan

Rain On Friday?

Sometimes there is data, sometimes it's a gut feeling, and sometimes it is a little of both. I'm concerned that some football games on Friday night will have some rain. Not much and it will not last long, but I don't want someone caught off guard.

The above image is a 500mb map or what you may refer to as an "upper-level" map. If you click on the map to enlarge  you will see some shades of greens, yellows, and reds across Arkansas. This indicates a small "hiccup" in the atmosphere or "upper-level disturbance". This is what may spark off some showers and storms. This next map shows a simulation of what the radar might look like...

Notice, there is green on the map. While this model shows rain and so does our "in-house" computer model (StormCAST)... not all data supports this solution. This is when the gut feeling kicks in.... My gut feeling says we need to have the rain chances higher than 20% and if I wake up tomorrow morning with similar data, I will be increasing the rain chances fro Friday. Stay tuned!

Ryan

Where is Tornado Alley?

The above map was released by the SPC recently and it shows the number of tornadoes per state on average, per year, using the data from 1981-2010. At first, you would think that the most likely place to be hit by a tornado is Texas, but we have to remember that the data is skewed because of the size of Texas. This next map is a better representation.

The above map shows the Average Annual number of Tornadoes per 10K square miles, per state. As you look at THIS map, you have to ask where tornado alley exist. I think a person could argue that tornado alley is a little more South and East than people think.

We have had some very quiet weather for a few months in Region 8. Let's remember that we typically see severe storms and tornadoes in the fall as well. Let me encourage you to review your severe weather plans at work, school, and home!

Ryan

My 9/11

My wife and I lived in a house in the Turtle Creek Mall area. At the time, there was no mall... just a field. She had left for work and I was getting ready for the day. I worked at KAIT as the weekend meteorologist and reported during the week from time to time, so I was to be at work at 9:00. While brushing my teeth, I heard a little blurb on the TV about a plane hitting the WTC. My mom called and also told me about the report. I thought it was bad, but I also thought is was a small plane and that it was an accident. I continued to get ready for work.

 My college roommate called me and wanted to know what was going on. He was in traffic in Nashville and was hearing the reports on the radio. As I talked to him and sat on my couch watching GMA, I saw the second jet hit the 2nd Tower on LIVE TV. I was shocked! I saw the outline of the fuselage and knew it was a large jet. Because of the shadows, it looked solid black and I did not think it was a commercial airliner, but rather a military jet from another country. Honestly, I think I said a few explicit words as I told my close friend what I was seeing. It made no sense. It was something I had never seen or imagined. And it was something that was obviously deliberate. Within minutes, the text pagers that were issued by KAIT read "All staff report to KAIT NOW"...

At work, there was really not much to do in the morning. ABC News was handling most of the coverage and we watched.... We quickly found out some local impacts. The most shocking was the fact that one of OUR reporter's dad was in the WTC. Allison Martin's Dad was in one of the towers. As you can  imagine, the emotions ran high at KAIT until we heard he was OK. In addition to her dad, we found out that Adam Staples from Region 8 was in the building. We hear he is OK and get an interview from him. Unfortunately, we then hear about a young lady from Batesville that worked for the airlines. She had died and quickly we assembled a crew to go to Batesville. I was the photographer in that crew and we set out for Batesville for the day.

At home that night, I walked in and hugged my wife for a long time. We were young and had no kids. I vividly remember telling her that I don't trust the world and that I did not want to bring kids into this world. It seemed uncertain, violent, unsafe, and the future did not seem to have any light. We went out to the grocery to ease our minds and to buy ice cream. (Typical thing for a young couple). Most people were at home and the aisles were empty. The people that were there, had blank stares and we all looked at each other with the same uncertain and scared faces.

The next Sunday, my wife and I were still searching for a Church home. We went to Highland Drive Baptist and it was packed. We sat in folding chairs because so many people had come to church looking for answers.

The country was united! There were no Republicans or Democrats. There was no Tea Party. There was America and we were all Americans.

Today, we are torn apart again. The Churches are not running the numbers that they were in September of 2001. I'm not sure what else I can say about it, except that we have forgotten. America has forgotten what it was like to walk the aisles of a grocery store on the evening of 9/11/01. We have forgotten the peace we got from Christ on the Sunday after. We have forgotten that people are STILL dying today to fight the evil that rammed jets into our buildings! I'm just as guilty as everyone else...

Can't say much more.
Ryan

Windy Labor Day!

For weeks, we have been stuck in hot, humid and stagnate air! That has changed! In the above map, I have plotted the winds (colors), wind direction, and pressure. The reason it is colder is because we had a cold front push through, but the reason it is breezy is because of the pressure gradient between Tropical Depression Lee and the center of High Pressure NW of us. Click image to enlarge.

The green lines are lines of equal pressure. Like a topographic map, the closer the lines are together... the "steeper" the gradient is... and the windier it is.Can you see how close the lines are over Arkansas? The shades of blues also indicate the winds at 20-30 mph.

I'd venture to say that this is the most comfortable Labor Day we have had in a long time! Enjoy it!

I'm laboring on this Labor Day, but it is the greatest job on Earth... so no complaints. I'll see you at 5:00 and 6:00 from the weather deck!

Ryan