NWS mets reading severe warnings on TV

[Morgan Palmer]

Something I remember well from my years growing up in Abilene TX is that during the 80s, severe weather bulletins would be read on the air by the meteorologist at the WSO. On the NOAA weather radio, you would hear the normal 1050 Hz tone, and then a noise of equal length that sounded like, well, pursing your lips together and blowing, or well, breaking wind. ANYWAY, the tone of that was quite low in pitch and would activate the station's own alert tone played on air.

Once that tone stopped (I sometimes listened to NWR and watched TV to confirm this sequence), the master control op would switch to the radar display and the voice of the WSO forecaster would come on reading the warning. The voices and names of those forecasters would become quite well known. They would end the broadcast by saying "This is so-and-so at the Weather Service, now back to regular programming."

At that time, either the station's weathercaster would come on, or the station would go back to normal programming (usually with very primitive on-screen bugs).

Does anyone else remember this in other cities? I do wish I had a recording of it, but I don't.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Showing my age, but yes I remember this ... in a way, it seemed to be a better means to convey the seriousness of the situation, IMO - and led to people taking notice. Just seems more official for someone in authority to be reading a written statement.

 

[Eric Friedebach]

It would be fun to hear that again. Perhaps someone has an audio file they could share…

 

[rdale]

Some offices gave a countdown timer after the warning was issued - I remember IND did it during my Purdue days late-80's. But obviously TV stations realized having some scratchy voice read off generic warning info was no match for having the on-air met give detailed city-by-city radar looks.

 

[Pat Lawrence]

I believe the CRS voice still reads the warnings on some Fox stations.

Pat