Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Dodging the terrible Louisville tornado of 2005


Years ago, John Belski and former WAVE 3 weather guy Craig Edwards were doing a tag team on one of the latest tornados. It was a bad night for weather, and Belski was in full Belski's Bluster. As the storms intensified, so did his demeanor. By the time a major storm was rolling through, he was taking charge and stepping all over everything Craig Edwards was saying. I remember thinking, "What a jerk."

Within the next year, Edwards would leave, and Belski would go from the mode that is now reserved for Jay Cardosi into a much more mellow demeanor. Judging from tonight he hadn't let it go completely. As WAVE 3 showed off their new triple team doppler (appropriate for triple team weather coverage), now with flippovision. Flippovision is the annoying 3D feature of the radar that shows you exactly how high the clouds are over Louisville, or wait, is that Corydon, or is it Des Moines? I can't tell.

Trying to watch a lot of this coverage is like sitting in a room with a kid that has ADD and a remote control. As you try and get your barings and figure out where Popcorn, Indiana is in relation to Louisville, they're flipping it in and out, showing you colors that show the velocity of the wind, throwing in lightning strikes, zooming in to show you the weather at Earl's pig farm, and writing more crap on the screen than John Madden on crack.

Equally troubling is the fact that Wave 3's coverage is the new coverage for WHAS. The former "News, Weather, and Traffic" station is now simulcasting their TV coverage in major weather events. The problem is that none of these guys does their weather coverage for radio. If I'm listening on WHAS, I really am not going to get much from telling me, "As you can see here....." I need to know where thing are and when they're heading my way.

Anyway, we got sent home early from work, as did a lot of people because of this storm of the century. Around the time that it was supposed to hit, the two hours of non-stop weather coverage was switched back to the network. The storm disappeared with a wimper. I'm not complaining, but I do always find it amusing how unpredictible the weather is.

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