I'm back
Rolled in last night around midnight. And until I walked into the living room, I literally had not seen a TV for an entire week. So maybe I'll be able to look at the fall TV season with fresh eyes now. Or maybe I'll spend the weekend catching up on "Top Gear" repeats on BBC America. Ah yeah!
posted by AndyW @ 9/07/2007 11:54:00 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Has the tv show, "Burn Notice" been renewed by USA network?
Yes, it'll be back next year for another 13 episodes.
will MY TV ever be available on Comcast or satelite? Looks like for now its only on KKTV-hd2.
Is My not showing up on Comcast 141 these days? I don't have digital cable in the office, so I haven't checked.
What's this sheet?
--------------------
Weather is on KKTV’S radar
GETTING IT FASTER
By CARLYN RAY MITCHELL
THE GAZETTE
September 10, 2007 - 12:21AM
There are some things that television news can do better than anyone else, and an immediacy in reporting the weather is one of them.
Which is why KKTV is looking to build its own Doppler radar tower independent of the National Weather Service.
The NWS currently has the only weather tower in southern Colorado, a device KKTV’s chief meteorologist Brian Bledsoe calls slow and, therefore, inaccurate.
KKTV gained initial approval to build a 60-foot tower on its 40-acre parcel near Yoder at last week’s El Paso County Planning Commission meeting, despite some opposition from nearby residents.
All four local television meteorologists currently get their Doppler radar information, used to track severe weather, from the NWS database of information collected by the agency’s tower in Pueblo County.
Since the NWS Pueblo office is charged with watching a broad area, its radar must follow a pattern of elevation scans to cover the atmosphere.
It takes four to 10 minutes for NWS reports to reach the media, a time period during which a storm might have already blown through an area without any warning.
Bledsoe pointed to last spring’s tornado in Holly as an example of when a better warning system would help.
“As a meteorologist, I am kind of at the mercy of the National Weather Service radar,” Bledsoe said. “To me, it is really simple. If your radar data is not live, it is obviously old. If it is old, it is wrong. And wrong to me is a danger to the public.”
When a television station purchases its own Doppler radar system it can manipulate the system’s range and focus on a particular storm system, said Larry Alford, an engineer with Alabama-based Doppler radar system dealer Enterprise Electronics Corporation.
That company’s systems range in cost from $300,000 to $3 million.
“Our point in this is really to drastically improve realtime weather reporting,” said KKTV news director Nick Matesi. “When you’ve got a hailstorm coming in and it is getting ready to just unload, that’s good information to have. It is not just about tornadoes, but those certainly can be life-ordeath situations.”
KKTV’s radar will be for its use only. Information it gathers will not be shared with the NWS.
And even though NWS meteorologist Tom Magnuson said there is no current interface on which KKTV could share data, some neighbors in eastern El Paso County question the altruism behind the station’s proposal.
“KKTV wants to be the first, to be able to say, ‘Look what we did,’” said Debora Caudle, who owns land adjacent to KKTV’s and is worried about her views being blocked and her property value decreasing if the tower is built.
Calhan resident Marty Joel questioned at last week’s meeting how valuable the tower will be to the people on the eastern plains.
“Most of the time when there is a severe storm, the power goes out,” he said. “If KKTV is not choosing to share their information with the National Weather Service . . . the people in Colorado Springs are going to be aware that I’m in trouble, I’m not.”
Ownership of the technology will not give KKTV power to issue severe weather watches and warnings. Only NWS meteorologists are legally allowed to do so.
Magnuson cited one example of a television station in Oklahoma City with its own radar issuing a form of warnings a few years ago and confusing the public.
“We talk to the media quite often,” Magnuson said. “There is just kind of a general agreement that we are going to issue the warnings.”
In the future, the NWS will purchase Doppler radar systems that will scan the atmosphere in one minute or less, Magnuson said.
“The whole idea of having more frequent updates, that is really important,” he said. “We’re with the technology that was developed many years ago, but what is coming up is going to be 21st century technology.”
You could've just posted the link. Why's it "sheet"? Just another "X" for KKTV on the old tic-tac-toe board. Bring on the helicopters!
A better question for Brian would be to ask why he wasn't in the building during the first part of the Holly tornado?
Was that article actually written by a Gazette reporter? Read more like a press release from KKTV, save for the last four paragraphs about the watch/warning issue!
like what??a chopper for kktv 11 oh boy ! u mean that gray comm has the money to cough up for that??some one is pulling my leg here. lets see were in the 90th tv d.m.a market right yes..check..krdotv 13 dont even have a sat truck or a new studio with the new owners..let me see.yes some body is pulling my leg here. and with this neww doppler news13 news first and kxrm 31 will go down the tubes with the weather.ugh..
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