That LIVE POWER DOPPLER looks more like a SNOW JOB

That LIVE POWER DOPPLER sure is a humdinger, ain't it?
KCTV's new mega-powered, mega-hyped radar system has taken over
Channel 5's weather center, if not the entire news operation, thanks
to the station's relentless on-air promotional campaign during the
Nagano Winter Games. This campaign has taught us, among other things:
That LIVE POWER DOPPLER is laughingly superior to the Doppler
systems at rival stations WDAF and KSHB.
That 2 1/2 minutes is an incredibly long time to be stuck
watching a LIVE POWER DOPPLER commercial.
That if you happened to drop your keys in a cornfield at night, a
huge bank of stadium lights would come in real handy.
And Wednesday morning, it taught all of Kansas City that a
Doppler radar system can't forecast the weather.
On Tuesday Channel 5 meteorologist Gary Amble appeared for his
nightly promotional shot during CBS' Olympic coverage. With the
by-now-familiar LIVE POWER DOPPLER logo looming over his left
shoulder, Amble gave the forecast.
"There is a chance we could see a few widely scattered sprinkles
in some areas by morning," said Amble, adding that we "could see
some of those turn into snowflakes."
As anyone who spent an hour or more sitting in traffic Wednesday
morning knows, that's not exactly what transpired. The "scattered
sprinkles" and "snowflakes" quickly turned into 1 to 2 inches of
snow that became a slippery slush and mucked up area streets.
Amble's casual tone in no way suggested any of this was coming.
To be fair, many local weathercasters ate crow Wednesday, but the
endless trumpeting of the virtues of LIVE POWER DOPPLER - and the
fact that Amble gave his forecast while promoting Doppler radar -
compounded KCTV's error.
Amble said in an interview that he first noticed the rain
changing to snow at 7:05 a.m. Wednesday - hours after his forecast.
"What Doppler tells us is what is out there at the moment,"
Amble told TVKC. "We forecast with computer models and we observe
weather with the Doppler. We may or may not forecast correctly,
but when there's dangerous weather, we'll have the best tools to warn
people about it."
Naturally, the two other stations in town with Doppler radar take
issue with that claim.
WDAF's Doppler 4 is not as powerful as KCTV's, said chief
meteorologist Mike Thompson, because it doesn't need to be. Its
receiver is more sensitive and far more efficient than KCTV's.
"Our little radar here is just fine," Thompson told TVKC.
"We've had this thing for 13 years."
As far as KSHB's Lori Miller is concerned, power is only one
attribute in a Doppler system.
Versatility is another.
"We can do so much more with our radar when it comes to storm
analysis," Miller said. "We can actually stop on one storm and get
what we call a vertical profile" - which even shows tornadoes
forming inside the clouds.
Amble's reply: "I think if you stuck any meteorologist in the
room and said, 'You can choose any radar system and cost is not a
factor,' I think everyone would choose the one we have now."
But why the promotional overkill? "I know some people will be
turned off by it," Amble said, "but we're only doing this to let
people know where to turn when severe weather happens."
That's not likely to be until severe storm season in April - long
after the double insanity of the Olympics and Doppler wars has
subsided.
StarTouch: 889-7827 and enter 8852 (TVKC).
E-mail: writeme@tvbarn.com