KPHI TV research scientist, Kodi Berry, and KPHI TV participant, Denise Isaac, were guests on the 12/23/2019 episode of WeatherBrains. Check out the video below to learn more about Denise’s experience, the types of experimental products tested in the project, and great discussion!

Emma Landeros is an undergraduate at the University of Oklahoma (OU). She is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Meteorology with a minor in Broadcast Meteorology. Emma is involved with OU Nightly, OU’s student-run TV broadcast, where she records a Spanish weather briefing every week. She is also involved with The Oklahoma Weather Lab, where she is a co-deputy director of Broadcast Media. After graduation, Emma hopes to pursue a career as a bilingual broadcast meteorologist. Emma is excited to be a part of KPHI-TV and is looking forward to learning anything and everything she can, focusing on how broadcast meteorologists communicate severe weather to the public.

Joseph Trujillo is a MA student with the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma and a Graduate Research Assistant with the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies and the National Severe Storms Laboratory. Prior to graduate school, Joseph wanted to pursue a career in bilingual broadcast meteorology; however, he quickly noticed that communication methods and dissemination in Spanish needed additional work. Since starting graduate school, he is working to raise awareness of weather and climate translations in Spanish and collaborate with the National Weather Service.

With KPHI-TV, Joseph hopes to focus on the communication of rapidly updating warning and probabilistic information in Spanish. In addition, he hopes to analyze how probabilistic hazard information will influence the way social media coverage is disseminated in the future.

KPHI-TV researchers were excited to participate in the Threats in Motion workshop held in Norman, OK this August.  Threats in Motion is a proposed change to National Weather Service tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings.  This concept would allow warning polygons to update every minute and move forward in time spatially.  This potential change represents a bridge to probabilistic information in the future under a FACETs paradigm, and is a significant change to the current warning system.  Other industry representatives included those from The Weather Company, Baron, Midland Weather Radio and NBC Universal.   The workshop also included stakeholders from other NOAA laboratories and NWS entities, as well as the emergency management community.  Threats in Motions concepts will be tested (in addition to probabilistic hazard information) with broadcast meteorologists during this October’s Hazardous Weather Testbed.

KPHI TV Station Management is sending out a nationwide call for broadcast applicants to participate in the 2019 Probabilistic Hazard Information project in NOAA’s Hazardous Weather Testbed. We need 2 broadcasters each week of our 3-week project. The application closes August 9, 2019. See our invitation letter, Recruitment page, and SampleSchedule for more information.

We want to say “Congratulations!” to our 2018 NOAA Hollings Scholar and KPHI-TV intern,  Caroline Carithers.  Caroline has accepted a meteorologist/reporter position at WKRG in Mobile, AL.  She graduated magna cum laude from the University of South Alabama this spring,  with a Bachelor of Science in Meteorology and a minor in Math.

We are proud of you, Caroline, and wish you the best of luck in your new broadcasting career!  May there be endless Target brownies in your television studios today and beyond!

You can follow Caroline and her weather updates on Twitter and Facebook.

Are you a broadcast meteorologist headed to the AMS Conference on Broadcast Meteorology? The newest member of KPHI TV, Sean Ernst, will be conducting focus groups in San Diego on how  broadcasters use SPC’s Day 1-3 Convective Outlooks. If you’re willing to spare 30-45 minutes during the conference to talk about how you use these products, sign up here.

Sean Ernst is a MS student with the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma (OU).  Sean’s research interest is the societal impacts of hazardous weather and weather risk communication. Sean  earned his BS in Meteorology in Spring 2018 from OU.  His research interests were greatly impacted by the 2013 Moore and El Reno tornadoes, as he has focused his study on how weather information is communicated to the public, and the impacts that public perception of that information can impact their response to dangerous weather.  Since then, he has worked to study emergency managers’ weather information needs, the perceptions of NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologists of effective Impact-based Decision Support Services, and the general public’s reception of tornado warnings in Oklahoma.

With KPHI TV,  Sean will focus on how the Severe Weather Outlooks, created by the NWS Storm Prediction Center, impact severe weather communication by broadcast meteorologists. Stay tuned for more information regarding focus groups at the upcoming 47th Conference on Broadcast Meteorology/Fifth Conference on Weather Warnings and Communication.

Our friends with the GOES Program are taking applications for broadcasters interested in sitting in the warning seat and participating in their Hazardous Weather Testbed experiment. Read more here. Apply here!

Block out your calendars, we’ve set the dates for our 2019 Hazardous Weather Testbed Experiment!

• October 7-11
• October 21-25
• October 28-November 1

Recruitment will start late spring/early summer!