Tag: Florida State University

News At The Speed Of Internet

On Twitter itself I saw someone complain Fox News and CNN had dropped the ball. I guess he was expecting them to have crews standing by in Tallahassee in case anything ever happened at midnight.

There’s a new boss in breaking news.

CNN is on with news from Tallahassee. People have been shot in the FSU library.

CNN didn’t break this story. I first got the news on Twitter. That’s becoming more rule than exception.

FSUShootingInternal640Florida State’s original tweet about a DANGEROUS SITUATION caught fire! News like this explodes through social media. It becomes unavoidable.

Meanwhile, it’s still the traditional news sources we turn to once we get the tipoff. That’s why the TV went on. But their resources pale in comparison to crowd sourcing. Right now it’s social media CNN is relying on!

I saw someone complain Fox News and CNN had dropped the ball. I guess he was expecting them to have crews standing by in Tallahassee in case anything ever happened at midnight.

There’s a new boss in breaking news.

Connecticut Gets A 5-1-0 From Hurricane Irene

Right now Irene is going through puberty. Earlier Monday there was a rapid growth spurt. Irene matured and stabilized.

I know you want to read about storms like Irene. My traffic spiked yesterday. It’s OK. I like writing about hurricanes. They are scary. They are fascinating. I know enough to be fearful should a storm strike.

Right now Irene is going through puberty. Earlier Monday there was a rapid growth spurt. Irene matured and stabilized.

Lots of things will affect this storm. Irene’s in warm water which is conducive to growth.

She has a tiny bit of wind shear on the southern side. That will act against growth, but will probably be outweighed by other factors. Because of the shear the growth will be slower.

Interaction with the mountainous Dominican Republic seems minimal.

This is when these storms come to life. Hurricane Irene will get stronger. Satellite images aren’t sharply defined yet. They will be later.

Our impact will come Sunday or Monday.

At Florida State University Dr. Bob Hart’s nifty webpage compares Irene to similarly placed storms in previous years. Since so much of tropical weather is climatology based historical numbers are useful.

We get a 5-1-0. There’s a 5% chance we’ll feel some impact from Irene in Connecticut. There’s a 1% chance we’ll get a hurricane strike and 0% (actually fractionally higher than zero, but rounded there) it would be a major hurricane.

For a tropical system getting to Connecticut is not easy. It has to operate in a narrow lane. If it hits anything on the coast it’s weakened. If it’s too far east it misses land. Other places have more forgiving paths and are hit more often.

I am concerned. I am not panicking. I have done little to prepare at this point, though I’ve been thinking of things we could use.

At work (FoxCT) we are very conscious of your desire to know about Irene and other storms that might concern Connecticut. We get it. I promise we’ll be informative and won’t hype you. Joe is on in the morning, Rachel and I are on at 4, 10 and 11p. We are assisted by Dan Amarante and an excellent newsroom with reporters who care. No one will do more for you. We hope you’ll watch.

Sitting, Waiting for Thunderstorms

Even a few days ago, today looked like it would be a thunderstorm day. Lots of heat and humidity, a cold front approaching from the northwest, negative lifted index numbers (a very telling severe weather parameter). Movement from the northwest is the ‘favored’ direction for severe weather here in Connecticut.

As I type this, there’s a Severe Thunderstorm Watch in effect for Litchfield County (far Northwestern Connecticut) and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it expanded later. Even without the watch there will be more thunderstorms late tonight throughout the state.

I’ve got one eye on the radar and the other scanning the watches and warnings popping up from the Weather Service. I’ll have to be more thoughtful than usual tonight in making decisions to break into programming, since we’d be breaking into ceremonies for President Reagan, not a sitcom or reality show. I understand the solemnity in this event.

I hate severe weather, which isolates me from many of my peers. There’s a weather oriented bulletin board I read from time-to-time. I constantly see meteorologists begging for storms (not that we can affect the outcome!

I wish I was in Lincoln…or St. Joseph, or a number of places besides southern MO. MCI forecast sounding for 00z tonight is impressive:

LI of -12, Sweat 681, SREH 319…enough for some nastiness. Normally I’d like to see the LCL a bit lower, but given the instability any negatives should be overcome. FSU…have fun!

Have fun!

Let me translate a little. MCI is Kansas City (in the same way LAX is Los Angeles and JFK is New York). LI is the previously mentioned lifted index. Sweat and SREH are two more severe weather forecast parameters. Most importantly, this guy wants to be there. And, he along with others, root for stronger storms! FSU is a forecaster who graduated from Florida State University.

Am I missing something? Won’t this stuff injure or even kill people? Property and business will be lost. People near the severe weather will be frightened.

News anchors don’t hope for a murder or fire so they can have a more compelling lead (at least I don’t think they do). Why are weather people so different?

No matter how long I work in this field I’ll never understand why some of my contemporaries are hoping for the worst. It’s just weird.