Television Meteorologists Improvise During Lockdown

Betty the weather cat poses for a quick photo while preparing a
weather forecast for the Evansville, Indiana area, with her
meteorologist human, Jeff Lyons

Very many television meteorologists are giving their reports from home, given most of us are in lockdown while we wait for the coronavirus pandemic to at least ease.

That means these meteorologists need to improvise.  Some of them create new celebrities.  For instance, WFIE-TV Chief Meteorologist Jeff Lyons set up at home during the quarnantine to give his daily weather forecasts for the Evansville, Indiana area.

A few weeks ago his cat, named Betty, made a quick cameo during a forecast. Now, Betty is a regular on Lyons' daily forecasts and is his full co-host. 

There's even graphics that Betty uses to offer forecasts. For instance, when she's forecasting rain, there's an image of her tail going up vertically, and it turns into an umbrella to ward off the wet weather.

Betty the weather cat has become a star, having been seen worldwide in viral clips on social media.  It'll almost be a bummer when Lyons eventually goes back to providing forecasts from a television studio. I hope they find some way to keep Betty on the air.

Here's a clip of Lyons and Betty, then we'll move on to another television meteorologists who is making do just fine during these trying times.



You can't have a proper televised weather forecast without intro and outro music, so what do you do when you're working from home?

Here's Welsh BBC weatherman Owain Wyn Evans, who decided he need to figure out the BBC's outro music at the end of his forecast. So he came up with this totally mean drum solo:

Old Crow Medicine Show Tornado Relief Song Does Us All Good

Last month, as you recall, devastating tornadoes blasted through Nashville, Tennessee and surrounding towns, killing 24 people and causing widespread destruction.

As in virtually every disaster, people come together and help those whose lives are upended.  Of course, people are trying to do that on a much larger scale, what with the coronavirus pandemic killing so many people.  

In any event, one of the Tennessee recovery efforts came from the group Old Crow Medicine Show, which has always been a favorite of mine.  "Nashville Rising" is a benefit for Nashville tornado recovery of course, and proceeds from sales of this music is going toward that recovery effort.

It also works a bit as a little glimmer of hope as we try to get through the pandemic.  Plus, it's just a terrific, terrific song.  If you can do a little for Tennesse tornado victims, or the pandemic fight in your own town, maybe this great song will inspire you a bit:

Slow Weather News, So Time For Some Music/Weather Song Favorites

A still from the music video for "Tornado" by Little Big
Town, one of my favorite "weather songs."  

Weather news has been kinda slow lately.

True, we had that tornado in South Carolina yesterday morning. There's going to be some minor coastal flooding today along the Mid-Atlantic seaboard. Hawaii has some unpleasant weather coming from Tropical Storm Niala this weekend.

And the supermoon eclipse is coming. I'll have a post on that tomorrow morning.

But since things are slow, my mind is wandering to songs that involve weather. There's so MANY of them of course. There's those multitudes of Christmas songs that pratter on and on about snow.

Rain is always present. "Purple Rain"  "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head," "Rainy Night in Georgia," "Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down."

Nice weather is well represented, too. "Walking On Sunshine." "Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In." "Country Sunshine." "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me." "Here Comes The Sun." "Soak Up The Sun."

Storms are always present, too. "Hurricane," the Bob Dylan classic about the boxer is in there, for instance.

Arguably my two favorite weather songs are about big storms. One is directly about one famous storm, the other is a metaphor.

View of the sunken Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior.
It's the subject of one of my favorite weather songs.  

The one directly related to weather is "The Wreck Of the Edmund Fitzgerald," the Gordon Lightfoot classic that documents the real life disaster of a ship going down in an epic 1975 Lake Superior storm.

The shipwreck killed 29 people. The 40th anniversary of the disaster is coming up on November 10.

The music in "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" evokes gloom and towering waves and danger and I always get a little seasick when I hear it, but it's still just so well done.

My other favorite weather song is "Tornado" by Little Big Town.

It's sung from the point of view of a woman promising revenge on a cheating boyfriend.

There's lyrics such as these:

"Thought you'd take a swing
Try another girl, try another night.
But it's the pain that brings my force of nature back to life
I'm a tornado more disturbed than an F5.

Bonus points to a country band that makes a weather geek reference to the Fujita scale of tornadoes that mean an F5 is the worst, strongest tornadoes. They're EF5's nowadays, for the Enhanced Fujita scale, but I quibble.

Like "Wreck Of the Edmund Fitzgerald," the musical arrangement of "Tornado"  evokes the feeling you get under the type of weather they're talking about. With "Tornado" the music makes you feel the threat and dread of a threatened twister.

Tell me what your favorite weather song is too, but posting a comment on this blog post.

Anyway,  here's two videos of the my two favorite weather songs. First, "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" and, next, tornado.

Touching, Important Video On Family Momentos Lost In Tornadoes, Storms

Those tornadoes that devastated huge swaths of the Midwest last month scattered photographs and other important papers and family mementos for miles, sometimes dozens or even hundreds of miles.

Photographs found scattered far and wide
in Oklahoma and nearby states after a big
May tornado in Moore, OK. A group worked to
return the photos to their owners.  

When disasters strike and people have to hastily evacuate, often the first thing they grab are the pictures.   Which is certainly understandable. I'd do the same thing. But often, there's no time to save them.

The worst part of a disaster like those tornadoes last month is when loved ones are hurt or killed.

The second worst part is when those photographic memories and touchstones are lost.

Meteorologist Eric Holthaus has a great idea or reminder that nowadays, you can put your photos in "The Cloud" as they say, so they are kept off site and accessible pretty much no matter what happens.

I also love that there's a Facebook page that acts as a clearing house for people who find photographs and documents scattered far and wide by the tornadoes. That way, some of them can get back to their owners.

There have been other, similar, wonderful efforts after a series of tornadoes across the South in 2011 and the twisters in Oklahoma earlier this year. 

Most of the photos are damaged, but nowadays you can restore a lot of them.

Holthaus also today linked to a wonderful YouTube video that is a tribute to the tornado victims in the Midwest and is a music video for Laura Marier's really great song called "Running For Photographs"

Here's the moving, must watch video: