The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Too bad more coming tonight...I hear though they wont have the tornado potential like these ones do.  

Hope everyone here is safe tonight and not in the path of those two storms.

Channel 6 has the storm chaser's I think that is cool.  Why doesn't channel 2 have storm chaser's?

Apparently the level of danger presented by the weather is entirely dependent upon the ten o'clock news.  

Channel 8 preemptes programming all night because of the weather UNTIL ten o'clock when Diana Zoga has a story about firearm safety.  

What a crock of ****.

Was sitting at O'Brien Park watching my son's baseball game and lots of lightning was just to the north of us. Someone said a tornado was down near Pawhuska. People stood up like they were going to leave til a dad said, 'hey we're south of Pawhuska, sit back down you're all right." Funny, why can't our local weathermen say that to us.

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Originally posted by CoffeeBean

Apparently the level of danger presented by the weather is entirely dependent upon the ten o'clock news.  

Channel 8 preemptes programming all night because of the weather UNTIL ten o'clock when Diana Zoga has a story about firearm safety.  

What a crock of ****.

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The threat to populated areas died shortly before 10.  There was no BS.

All I care about is LOST...and I missed it. My DVR recorded an hour of weather.

Now my productivity will go down today as I watch it on ABC.com.

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Originally posted by yldchyld

Was sitting at O'Brien Park watching my son's baseball game and lots of lightning was just to the north of us. Someone said a tornado was down near Pawhuska. People stood up like they were going to leave til a dad said, 'hey we're south of Pawhuska, sit back down you're all right." Funny, why can't our local weathermen say that to us.

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I bet the folks North of Pawhuska did not sit back down.[xx(]

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Originally posted by JoeMommaBlake

All I care about is LOST...and I missed it. My DVR recorded an hour of weather.

Now my productivity will go down today as I watch it on ABC.com.

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+1

They could just as well not show the weather and let viewers go to those stations.

The sad thing is that weather drives ratings in Oklahoma.

That said, advertisers HATE getting preempted for weather, particularly if it is a special show like a sporting event.

No doubt north of Pawhuska took shelter hopefully. My point was, if there is no immediate danger in my area then let me watch my son's baseball game without running for cover when there is no danger. I miss the good old days when we didn't need weathermen to remind us its raining outside. Tornadoes - yep that's serious, but thunderstorms- come on, get real.

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Originally posted by JoeMommaBlake

All I care about is LOST...and I missed it. My DVR recorded an hour of weather.

Now my productivity will go down today as I watch it on ABC.com.

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they typically will rebroadcast these shows when they do breaking weather.  here is the article, apparently they have decided what times to reair the shows.


http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/0508/516214.html

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Originally posted by YoungTulsan

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Originally posted by CoffeeBean

Apparently the level of danger presented by the weather is entirely dependent upon the ten o'clock news.  

Channel 8 preemptes programming all night because of the weather UNTIL ten o'clock when Diana Zoga has a story about firearm safety.  

What a crock of ****.

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The threat to populated areas died shortly before 10.  There was no BS.

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Maybe I'm wrong, but Northeast Oklahoma and Southeast Kansas are both "populated" areas.  This isn't the middle of Nevada.  

. . . or do you mean, "people who do not live in the city or in small towns do not count as people."

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Originally posted by Steve

Like most people, I get very frustrated at the Tulsa TV stations' weather coverage, especially when the threat is not near my home in the City of Tulsa, but a storm down by Sallisaw or up near Kansas.  

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oh yes thats right, we should let the television stations in Sallisaw and Coffeyville cover the weather there.[8)]

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Originally posted by Steve

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Originally posted by inteller

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Originally posted by Steve

Like most people, I get very frustrated at the Tulsa TV stations' weather coverage, especially when the threat is not near my home in the City of Tulsa, but a storm down by Sallisaw or up near Kansas.  

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oh yes thats right, we should let the television stations in Sallisaw and Coffeyville cover the weather there.[8)]

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Do Sallisaw and Coffeyville have major network affiliate stations with the weather capabilities that Tulsa TV stations have?  Maybe so, but not to my knowledge.  That is why I give "benefit of the doubt" to Tulsa TV stations during severe weather coverage.  But granted, Tulsa TV carries things to the extreme.  Like I said before, the Tulsa TV weathermen should have to sit and watch a 4 hour tape of their own coverage; they could learn a lot from that.

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Sallisaw is closer to Fort Smith than to Tulsa.  Growing up watching KFSM in Fort Smith, I can attest they cover Sequoyah County extremely well (they have to, as much of Fort Smith's weather comes directly from there...)  That being said, I don't have a problem with programming being prempted by a storm in the remote fringes of the viewing area.  I'd rather watch the weather coverage than most of the crap on TV these days anyway.

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Originally posted by yldchyld

No doubt north of Pawhuska took shelter hopefully. My point was, if there is no immediate danger in my area then let me watch my son's baseball game without running for cover when there is no danger. I miss the good old days when we didn't need weathermen to remind us its raining outside. Tornadoes - yep that's serious, but thunderstorms- come on, get real.

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A couple of weeks ago we had a round of storms, and a tornado warning was issued for Tulsa County about 2 or 3 AM.  The cell in question was near the Keystone Dam area and tracked towards Skiatook. The tornado sirens went off in Midtown.  In no way was any of the city of Tulsa in danger (except for maybe the northern fringes).  I had some friends call and ask what was going on (they know I'm kind of a weather junkie) and I told them to just go back to sleep.  Later, somebody told me they heard the sirens go off and got in their closet and stayed in there for 20 minutes.  Why do they do this?  Okies are afraid of the weather enough as it is, so why the false alarms?  I'm assuming this happens because tornado warnings are issued for counties instead of cities.  Can't they do any better?

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Originally posted by Steve

Like most people, I get very frustrated at the Tulsa TV stations' weather coverage, especially when the threat is not near my home in the City of Tulsa, but a storm down by Sallisaw or up near Kansas.  But we should also remember that the Tulsa broadcast stations not only serve the City, but a wide geographic area, from southern Kansas to southeast OK.  I try to remind myself of that everytime they preempt.

But I do think their on-air presentation is getting out of hand with all the multi-colored radar screens and displays that mean nothing to the average viewer.  Travis Meyer (and others) should be forced to sit down and watch a 4-hour tape of his incessant babbling and repetition.

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I like the multi-colored radars.  They are very simple to read, and even a novice like myself can "forecast" the weather by reading a looped radar image.  One day I was looking at a radar, and a friend called.  I saw what appeared to be a hook echo, and told him that's where the storm probably was.  A minute or so later, they mentioned on the TV that a tornado was on the ground in that exact location.  Point is, I have no weather training, and I can easily read the radars.  I assume the typical viewer who is the least bit weather savvy can do the same.  

I do tend to ignore the babbling, except I do listen to that older gentleman on channel 6, as he seems to really know what he's talking about.  What I do not like is how they have the live remote feeds at night.  A gray screen isn't very informative, and I've seen it rain, so unless you have a remote feed of a tornado on the ground, why bother?

The weirdest thing about Tulsa weather coverage to me is that station that has the radar with the little "pulpit" in the right corner.  That is plain weird.  Reminds me of sitting in church when I was a kid.

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Originally posted by bugo


A couple of weeks ago we had a round of storms, and a tornado warning was issued for Tulsa County about 2 or 3 AM.  The cell in question was near the Keystone Dam area and tracked towards Skiatook. The tornado sirens went off in Midtown.  In no way was any of the city of Tulsa in danger (except for maybe the northern fringes).  I had some friends call and ask what was going on (they know I'm kind of a weather junkie) and I told them to just go back to sleep.  Later, somebody told me they heard the sirens go off and got in their closet and stayed in there for 20 minutes.  Why do they do this?  Okies are afraid of the weather enough as it is, so why the false alarms?  I'm assuming this happens because tornado warnings are issued for counties instead of cities.  Can't they do any better?

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Tornadic storms often turn right, and at the time, it wasn't at all clear that the tornadic storm wasn't going to move through downtown and somewhere between admiral and 15th street. (I am also a weather junkie [:D]) Also, the national weather service had issued a tornado warning that covered most of the City of Tulsa north of I-44 that was reduced in size 15 or 20 minutes later to north of about 15th street.

Since the sirens way down here near the Creek didn't go off (although one could faintly hear the sirens in the distance) Tulsa does presumably have some sort of zone system so that they don't have to blow them all at once, but I don't know how finely grained the zones are.

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Originally posted by Steve

Like most people, I get very frustrated at the Tulsa TV stations' weather coverage, especially when the threat is not near my home in the City of Tulsa, but a storm down by Sallisaw or up near Kansas.  But we should also remember that the Tulsa broadcast stations not only serve the City, but a wide geographic area, from southern Kansas to southeast OK.  I try to remind myself of that everytime they preempt.

But I do think their on-air presentation is getting out of hand with all the multi-colored radar screens and displays that mean nothing to the average viewer.  Travis Meyer (and others) should be forced to sit down and watch a 4-hour tape of his incessant babbling and repetition.

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They would probably get a stormgasm.

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Originally posted by nathanm

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Originally posted by bugo


A couple of weeks ago we had a round of storms, and a tornado warning was issued for Tulsa County about 2 or 3 AM.  The cell in question was near the Keystone Dam area and tracked towards Skiatook. The tornado sirens went off in Midtown.  In no way was any of the city of Tulsa in danger (except for maybe the northern fringes).  I had some friends call and ask what was going on (they know I'm kind of a weather junkie) and I told them to just go back to sleep.  Later, somebody told me they heard the sirens go off and got in their closet and stayed in there for 20 minutes.  Why do they do this?  Okies are afraid of the weather enough as it is, so why the false alarms?  I'm assuming this happens because tornado warnings are issued for counties instead of cities.  Can't they do any better?

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Tornadic storms often turn right, and at the time, it wasn't at all clear that the tornadic storm wasn't going to move through downtown and somewhere between admiral and 15th street. (I am also a weather junkie [:D]) Also, the national weather service had issued a tornado warning that covered most of the City of Tulsa north of I-44 that was reduced in size 15 or 20 minutes later to north of about 15th street.

Since the sirens way down here near the Creek didn't go off (although one could faintly hear the sirens in the distance) Tulsa does presumably have some sort of zone system so that they don't have to blow them all at once, but I don't know how finely grained the zones are.

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I'm at 51st and Lewis.  There was absolutely no danger to this area.  The storm was tracking east-northeast, and had shown no signs of a sudden shift to the south-southeast which it would have had to have done to reach downtown, much less the southern parts of midtown.  And, had the storm taken a sudden right hand turn and headed this way, there was plenty of time for the NWS to modify the tornado warning.

The only effect the sirens had going off was to disturb and terrify residents of an area that was in no danger whatsoever.

I think the weather coverage is even worse (more obnoxious) here in Oklahoma City!  You've not seen anything until you've seen Gary England drop an F-Bomb and tell you  that you are going to die!  The other two stations are just as bad.  It's all just a way to plug their new chopper and improved doppler radar for ratings.  Blah blah blah.

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Originally posted by bugo
I'm at 51st and Lewis.  There was absolutely no danger to this area.  The storm was tracking east-northeast, and had shown no signs of a sudden shift to the south-southeast which it would have had to have done to reach downtown, much less the southern parts of midtown.  And, had the storm taken a sudden right hand turn and headed this way, there was plenty of time for the NWS to modify the tornado warning.

The only effect the sirens had going off was to disturb and terrify residents of an area that was in no danger whatsoever.

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When the warning was issued, the storm was still in Creek County west of Sapulpa. Last I checked, that's quite far south of midtown. Yes, it was moving northeast and was turning more northerly, but it wasn't a foregone conclusion at the time the warning was issued.

Our local weather stations are often 5 minutes or more behind on relaying warnings to the public, even when they're in full "stormgasm" mode. Only on rare occasions do they beat my feed.

Again, it may be that the City just doesn't have the control over the sirens needed to only blow them north of, say, 31st street and not south of there. I don't know. I do know that I wouldn't have issued the warning all the way south to 51st street, but probably would have issued it to 31st or 21st were I in their shoes. It may not have made a lick of difference to which sirens the City ended up activating, as they may have had no choice if they wanted to activate them in the warned areas.

Would've been nice if Channel 8 would've allowed me to watch some sporting events in HD this weekend.

All of Saturday night's NBA game was in standard def so they could have their weather information at the bottom of the screen.

The Indy 500 was also in standard def due to weather scrolls. At least they got rid of the weather info and showed the last few laps in high-def.

When I turned it to the Indy 500 the only thing happening was a tornado watch east of here and t'storm warnings in Arkansas. They kept showing maps of storms traveling east of Fayetteville and Van Buren.

Those places have their own affiliates!

I think channel 8 is the only one of our local network stations without the capacity to broadcast in HD when they show weather overlays.

Get with it, you cheap bastards at Channel 8!!!