Weather Woody II

KSN might get the turnaround award after their performance on Tuesday's latest Weather Woody. For a storm that was hyped as much as it was on a local and national level, the system gave the local media a nice little "photo op" with a few funnels and a touchdown that looked equivalent to a dirt devil, all while not injuring anyone nor damaging much of anything. I must say the funnel looked real good on the three stations and unlike on Monday, we actually could see video of it on KSN. Like I have said in earlier posts, when a story is in or very proximate to Wichita, KSN can excel (that's not always a given). Once again today they did. Reporter Chanda Brown did a nice job interacting with the meteorologist during continuous coverage. She used terms that weather experts like to hear, yet "Joe 6-pack" in his recliner could probably still follow. As far as the newscasts, Chanda's package at 10PM was interesting on two points. First, the Australian who comes to Kansas every year for tornadoes was good as well as the video of all of the traffic while the funnel cloud is about. Clearly the others were putting all their marbles in thinking they would be able to find damage somewhere and interview the surprised homeowner and witnesses and make that their story. When that didn't happen they had to resort to just showing video. KSN, on the other hand had a little sidebar with Chanda's story and that worked, since the tornado turned out to be minor. Although I might be stretching it if I called their 24 hour turnaround (from their disaster in coverage on Monday to Tuesday) a miracle, I will say it was a very respectable comeback. Once again, though, it was closer for them to get to it as opposed to Western Kansas on Monday. I still question if they are indeed the "Kansas State Network." Despite Tuesday, they still don't have me convinced. They will need similar performances this storm season to prove me otherwise. Meanwhile KAKE brought in little used meteorologist Tanner Swift in a totally useless live story on the touchdowns in Harvey county. I know they had to use the "Team Coverage" banner, but was it really worth dusting off a little used meteorologist and dragging him out to a corn or wheat field so you had two people on the story? I don't think so. KWCH had solid coverage from their spotters the night before but, the station didn't perform as well on Tuesday. Although their reports during the break-ins were great as usual, the 10PM newscast wasted time, when they had one of the spotters live, then showed video, they had just shown during Michael Schwanke's report. Once again I am wondering if they had thought the tornado damage would be worse and thought they could fill the time with a longer story about that from Schwanke. Overall Weather Woody II proved a little surprising to me, especially with KSN's comeback and KWCH, who had so much promise on Monday, seemed to go back to the conservative "we are number 1" approach. -Hal