Wednesday, July 28, 2010

What the Hell Happened to WCPO.com ?

Or to be more specific, what the hell happened to their online weather forecasting? To be, like, laser specific, what happened to their hour by hour forecast?
If you don't have a rolling steel and glass raincoat, knowing the weather on an hour by hour or, at least, an every 2 - 4 hour forecast is important when planning when & how to go traveling. Weather.com has comprehensive forecasting. Their hour by hour forecast leans heavily towards rain & snow. It stops hour by hour predictions about 16 hours out. WCPO used to go off into infinity but now only goes out 12 hours. WCPO's hourly forecast used to be amazingly accurate. I would use weather.com for a general view & then use WCPO to pinpoint potential rain. Now it's not even the opposite as WCPO's hour by hour forecast is so horribly inaccurate, it's rendered useless.
Doppler Schizophrenia.
Yesterday, by WCPO's hour by hour, it was raining all afternoon & evening. Of course their up to the minute, stick-your-head-out-the -window section was right. So you had a sunny picture sitting next to a cloudy picture with a lightning bolt sitting there next to each other. It did not rain the entire time. It wasn't even cloudy most of the time.
How in the hell does a new layout destroy the quality of reporting? Why have we not heard reports of Larry Handley beating the crap out of some programmer in the WCPO parking lot? It's the reputation of the meteorologists that suffers here. And the peace of mind of people who now must assume they need a raincoat & umbrella 24/7....

2 comments:

Teresa Shouvlin said...

I noticed that WCPO's weather is not what it used to be. I don't even go there for forecasts anymore. Ever try Ch. 19? They're pretty good. Also, Coney pool has a weather link that's more optimistic than the regular networks. Whodda thunk?

Quimbob said...

Well, yeah, Coney wants you to come out & work on your melanoma....
Damn, 19's is buried.
CPO sez it's been raining all day but my garden begs to differ.