Atlanta TV weatherpeople (Tucker, Decatur: live, celebrities, stations)

[bernsee]

Is anyone else frustrated with the state of TV weather meteorologists in Atlanta? People like Paul Ossman and Dagmar Midcap really aren't meteorologists as much as they are entertainers. They really don't seem to have a clue when they forecast the weather and it looks like they're going through the motions most of the time. I don't want to hear a 40% chance of rain or what the model shows. Any idiot or robot can tell me that. They're basically ripping off the National Weather Service forecast when they do that. Don't they have their own opinion on what might happen? I guess not. I actually want them to give a weather forecast. I want to know where a storm is coming from and why a storm that caused snow in Houston completely missed Atlanta but somehow regenerated over Tennessee. They seem unable to tell me anything but what a damn computer model says. I guess I have higher standards for TV weatherpeople, growing up in the Northeast, where weather forecasting is really a science, and they do a much better job of explaining weather to you.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by bernsee

Is anyone else frustrated with the state of TV weather meteorologists in Atlanta? People like Paul Ossman and Dagmar Midcap really aren't meteorologists as much as they are entertainers. They really don't seem to have a clue when they forecast the weather and it looks like they're going through the motions most of the time. I don't want to hear a 40% chance of rain or what the model shows. Any idiot or robot can tell me that. They're basically ripping off the National Weather Service forecast when they do that. Don't they have their own opinion on what might happen? I guess not. I actually want them to give a weather forecast. I want to know where a storm is coming from and why a storm that caused snow in Houston completely missed Atlanta but somehow regenerated over Tennessee. They seem unable to tell me anything but what a damn computer model says. I guess I have higher standards for TV weatherpeople, growing up in the Northeast, where weather forecasting is really a science, and they do a much better job of explaining weather to you.

My two favorites are Ken Cook on WAGA and Glenn Burns on WSB. They are the most professional of them all and always make pretty accurate predictions.

[PKCorey]

Dagmar Midcap isn't a real weather woman. She just reads weather. ratings gimmick. She's weather eyecandy...

I prefer fox5 team for weather coverage. Ken has been here for 30+ years.

Channel 2 irks me. Glen Burns reminds me of a boring professor.

[Eresh]

Ugh, that Dagmar Midcap!
I don't know where they gete their forecasts from, but they don't seem nearly as accurate as the meterologists from where I moved (Tampa, Florida). I actually get more accurate forecasts for the Atlanta area by going to the regional forecast from my favorite folks in Florida. LOL

[Archan]

I don't think that they just make it up. If the report comes out of Dagmar or the meterologists who wrote it for her, the forecast should be the same. The anchors don't write the news, they just read the teleprompters why should it be any different for the weather people. Let's not hate on the eyecandy!

[Iconographer]

Seen a lot of weatherpersons in a lot of cities. Not sure why Atlanta's are getting singled out for this abuse. There's not a dime's worth of difference between them and those in similar markets IMO.

[nyte3k]

I'm surprised this is even an issue to people lol. I just throw up my mac weather widget, and care about cold/hot or rain/clear.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by LovinDecatur

Seen a lot of weatherpersons in a lot of cities. Not sure why Atlanta's are getting singled out for this abuse. There's not a dime's worth of difference between them and those in similar markets IMO.

Indeed. Three previous posts complain about Dagmar Midcap. She was a Vancouver, BC traffic and weather reporter before being hired away to Atlanta in 2007. I remember reading about her departure in the Vancouver media. Thus this thread's leading example of a non-meteorologist weather reporter is a Canadian product who relatively recently moved to an Atlanta station.

TV weather reporting is scripted anyway, and I guess the stations' market research indicates that good looks and personality gets more ratings than meteorological expertise. As LD says, there's nothing unique to Atlanta about this.

[Brillemeister]

My father met Ken Cook when he was working at Honeybaked Ham in Tucker circa 1982. He just came in, ordered as quickly as possible and left...

[atlantagreg30127]

TV weathermen are for the most part simply celebrities these days. If you did enough into the drama rumors locally, you'll find their personal lives have about as much controversial stuff as a Hollywood E-story on cable, too.

Their job for the most part is to dress nice, show up, and look at weather.com to re-read what they find there to those of us who are too lazy to look it up ourselves, occasionally talk about the "computer models" (they no longer forecast things themselves it seems), and brag about the latest 3-D optiflex infiniradar system they're using. Yawn.

My cell phone gets the "mycast" weather service on it. I can see live radar as it's headed my way, see severe alerts, and forecasts from the same sources as the weather celebs are reading from. And I don't have to listen to 32 minutes of, "Weather, when we come back from the break!", stalls, either.