Toledo area's TV meteorologists have high-tech ways to report the weather

Toledo area TV meterologists include, from top left to right, Robert Shiels, Stan Stachak, Bill Spencer, Norm Van Ness, and Doug Moats. Enlarge

The sun was beginning to blaze. The skies were a hazy blue. The humidity was high.

There was nothing extraordinary about the way June 5 started for most area residents. It's the way the day ended that few will forget.

Raging thunderstorms zipping at 70 mph raced through northwest Ohio and southern Michigan late that Saturday and into early morning Sunday, spawning several tornadoes that resulted in six deaths and millions of dollars in damages.

It was the worst tornado activity in the area in decades, a "once-in-a-lifetime" event, kicking off what has been an unusually active and unpredictable summer of storms and record heat for local meteorologists to dissect and discuss for viewers.

And while residents awoke that day to what appeared to be a routine, muggy, late-spring, there were others who suspected that evening would prove to be anything but.

Two storms to the west were already wreaking havoc, and meteorologists' computer model predictions indicated that it was highly likely that the weather would get much worse as it approached the area.

"We could see it coming, that afternoon and evening, when the stuff started to develop," said "Blizzard" Bill Spencer, weekend meteorologist at WTVG-TV, Channel 13. "Having a live radar really helped. I could see the signatures of tornados forming on the radar. That's when I said, ‘Don't wait for the warning, it's obvious.' "

The storms proved to be the vanguard of a rough summer.

The transition of the warm Pacific Ocean water of El Nino to the cold Pacific waters of La Nina has lead to a powerful jet stream, Spencer said, which creates more — and more powerful — thunderstorms, along with more wind shear and spin in the atmosphere. It's also led to the devilish heat wave gripping the South, North, and Northeast.

But it's the June 5 tornadoes that are likely to be filed away in our collective memories of this summer.

On June 4, WTOL-TV, Channel 11, chief meteorologist Robert Shiels ran a computer model simulation of two westerly storms and what to expect when each system arrived in the area.

"I was seeing [weather information] I had never seen before in Toledo," he said. "It was going to be very intense."

Norm Van Ness, chief meteorologist at WNWO-TV, Channel 24, had just returned home after a four-day driving vacation and was relaxing that morning from the trip.

"The last thing on my mind was the weather that day," he said.

But his job, coupled with his fascination of weather, compelled him to examine the storm data for that night.

"It looked very marginal through the day," he said. "The triggers didn't seem like it was coming together."

But when it did, Van Ness knew he needed to get to work quickly.

Hours later he was standing by the corner of Lake High School, recording newscast footage of the building that was destroyed by a tornado that ripped through the area.

Meanwhile, on Channels 11 and 13 Spencer and Shiels were anchoring marathon newscasts that began just before 10 p.m. and continued through the night and into the next day, providing warnings for residents to take shelter — in some cases minutes before a tornado developed.

"We call this the Super Bowl of severe weather," Spencer said. "You want to be on your game and you want to do it right; it's a once or twice-in-a-lifetime event. You want to be on your game, be right, accurate, and calm, but you want to tell the truth. That night I had to tell the truth. Everything I saw on the radar was very dangerous."

Nights like June 5 are the exception for meteorologists, who are often accused of stirring up interest in the weather when there is none.

Cynics contend weather forecasters are trolling for viewers, while management of the local stations counter that weather is the most important news story of the day because it affects everyone. For its 11 p.m. newscast, WNWO, for instance, now leads with the weather, while the other local affiliates typically get to a quick update and weather tease within minutes of signing on their evening news programs.

"It seems over the years [the weather] has evolved from important to hyper-important," said Stan Stachak, WTVG's chief meteorologist. "Research has shown that people want weather information above all else."

Still, he said, the suggestion that news stations are pre-empting network programming with weather updates to increase viewers simply isn't true.

"You can't scare the hell out of people and promote yourself at the same time," he said. "That's unethical."

Just as stations have made a bigger commitment to the weather during newscasts, they have also spent considerably more money updating the equipment to do it.

Gone are the days of the static black-and-white satellite images, magic markers, and magnetic numbers. Instead, viewers are treated to 3-D color models, live radar images, and the ability to peer into the heart of the storm to see what's cooking in there.

"Compared to what I first started with to what I have now, it seems like science fiction," said Stachak, who joined WTVG in 1980, shortly after beginning his meteorology career.

He also was a pioneer in the early days of weathermen, having received a bachelor's degree in meteorology, better known now as atmospheric sciences, in 1972. The degree put him in high demand for jobs.

Now, such credentials are almost a given, including almost all of Toledo's 15 or so weather forecasters.

"So much more emphasis in today's world is being put on people having some sort of education and credentials, because the technology is so advanced from what it used to be," said WUPW-TV, Channel 36, chief meteorologist Doug Moats. "Obviously, you want to have some sort of decent appearance for television. But the education and credentials go into it, along with understanding the technology and the technology that has been developed for forecasting."

But for all the work meteorologists put into analyzing the local and national atmospheric patterns, and how that translates into weather conditions for the week to come, there's no getting around the fact that they can be wrong.

A 10 mph shift in the wind speed of a storm in Alaska, for instance, can be the difference in whether a storm dumps eight inches of snow in Toledo five days later, or in Chicago instead.

Such variables — big and small — make prognosticating the weather tricky at best, and open meteorologists to a barrage of good-natured ribbing and even nasty criticism.

"I think it's a common thing that people assume the weather person is wrong," Moats said. "Even with the advances of technology, forecasters have limitations.

"I take my forecasting very seriously ... [but] the atmosphere is so chaotic, weather is so chaotic with so many variables it makes it difficult."

Then there are those times when a meteorologist has a profound impact on viewers.

After a June 5 tornado ripped through her street in Moline, Ohio, one woman wrote Shiels thanking him for the early warning to take shelter immediately, only two minutes before the tornado hit.

"She wrote in her words I may've saved their lives," Shiels said. "For all the teasing that we get as weathermen, to have one night like that just makes it wonderful."

Spencer said he was affected by the news of the first few deaths from that night's tornadoes as well.

"When I found out those people were gone, I wondered, ‘Did I do it right?' Based on the [viewer] e-mails I did. I don't feel guilty, but I feel bad."

And for those who contend that meteorologists appear almost "giddy'' during such traumatic storms, don't count Van Ness among them.

The Channel 24 meteorologist has had enough of extreme weather in Toledo, as well as his previous stints covering the weather in Colorado and East Texas.

"I've seen too much in Colorado, and I've seen what storms and tornadoes can do in Texas and Toledo. I hate it. I really hate severe weather."

Contact Kirk Baird at:

kbaird@theblade.com

or 419-724-6734.