Twin States Weather Blog

What a Day

131 Tornado Warnings. 97 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings. All in all, the most active weather day in Mississippi in a long time. NWS survey teams are continuing to review the damage from around the state; preliminary reports are that an F3 tornado touched down in Rankin County. There was also tornado damage in Newton County, near Union. I'll post their findings on here later this afternoon/evening.

From the mailbox...

Thanks for the great coverage yesterday. After living in Oklahoma, I know how important a good meterologist is. You have given us confidence that if there is bad weather, we will know about it.

The mail wasn't all good though:

I must say that I have recently been highly disappointed in your severe weather broadcasts. As a long-time resident and viewer, I have always depended on WTOK as my primary source of weather information and you guys usually do a very good job. But recently, especially during the severe weather on April 6, I have noticed that you are slacking. I was upset to notice that the only time the weather seemed important was when it was affecting Meridian and Lauderdale County. There were 2 tornadoes not once, but twice during the day when you CUT BACK TO PROGRAMMING while we sat in waits to see if we would be sucked up by a tornado! But lo and behold when Lauderdale county was being affected, we sat there watching with no interruptions for over an hour while absolutely nothing happened. I hope that you will get it together and soon. And please remember that for most of us in your viewing area, you are our ONLY local television weather source! It could mean life and death for us!

Those of you who read this regularly will remember the e-mail of a week or two ago that blasted us pretty good for interrupting their favorite show. Now we get e-mail telling us to go on more often.

And, the statement about covering only Lauderdale County could not be further from the truth. We did long form coverage yesterday for Newton, Neshoba, Smith, and Jasper counties. We chose to go back to programming when the threat of a tornado was decreasing. Thankfully, it worked out well this time. There are some station policies that are beyond my control. If the decision was mine, we would stay on for any tornado warning for any county in our viewing area. That way, there would be no complaints like the one above.

* Enjoy the nice weather this weekend. Highs in the 70's, plenty of sunshine. I'll be heading down to Mobile this weekend for a tropical weather symposium. It's free of charge and open to the public. Here's a link:

SECAPS

posted by WTOK Weather Staff @ 12:26 PM