By Fern Alling

What would you do without your local weathercaster? That’s a question the people of Tupelo, Mississippi had to ask themselves earlier this year.

On Jan. 18, Allen Media Group announced local weather coverage at 27 of its 36 member stations would transition to The Weather Channel headquarters in Atlanta. The next day, meteorologists at the affected stations started sharing that they’d been laid off. 

Tupelo residents sprang into action when they learned Matt Laubhan and his team at WTVA were threatened. The day before Allen Media published a press release confirming the plans – when there were still only rumors from the meteorology community – an online petition kicked off to prevent all of the weathercasters threatened by the change from leaving their stations.

Six Mississippi state legislators even wrote a resolution urging the company to spare WTVA from the layoffs. Senate Resolution 7 argued, during a 2023 tornado, “the timely reports from WTVA saved the lives of those who took shelter because of the reports on WTVA.” Its adoption was unanimous.

As WTVA viewers know, local meteorologists do more than just the forecast. They’re a source of life-saving information when extreme weather strikes. This role is only going to become more important as climate change continues to amplify the impact of tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and drought.

Under Allen Media’s plan, weather coverage would switch to a hub model of broadcasting. The company, which owns The Weather Channel, would tape customized forecasts for each station in Atlanta instead of having each station produce its own forecast.

The change might’ve been negligible on ordinary days. “The normal two- or three-minute forecast that’s presented on air as part of a news broadcast, where that’s coming from is not such a big deal,” said Keith Seitter, executive director emeritus at the American Meteorological Society. But working at a remote hub is a significant disadvantage when extreme weather strikes.

“Usually when a tornado warning is issued, you only have a matter of minutes, if not seconds, to take cover,” said Vanessa Alonso, a station meteorologist at KQ2 in St. Joseph, Missouri. 

Alonso covered the weather in 34 cities at The Weather Channel for a few years before returning to KQ2. She said that, while hub meteorologists know the areas they serve, they don’t have the intimate familiarity local meteorologists do.

“In the local news, you are responsible for a certain amount of counties,” Alonso said. “You know what the main city is in each of those counties. You know exactly the population, the area supermarkets, court houses, you know that [area] down to the back of your hand.” 

So it makes sense that, even in the age of apps and automatic alerts, people still turn to their local broadcast meteorologists when extreme weather strikes. A 2024 report by Climate Central found that local television audiences in Orlando doubled during Hurricane Ian and increased by 78% in Los Angeles during Tropical Storm Hilary when compared to the week before each storm. 

“We just had a blizzard here almost three weeks ago where we received about 13–16 inches of snow, and people came to myself and to my team first to see what was going to happen to us locally before they checked out other sources,” Alonso said.

Local forecasters’ value doesn’t begin and end after a storm passes. Meteorologists are community fixtures in the towns they serve. They host charity auctions and drum up kids’ enthusiasm for STEM careers. This outreach is essential to the role, said Seitter. 

“Going into local schools, talking to local community groups, that’s a really important part of what a broadcast meteorologist does.” 

The relationship between local weathercasters and their viewers will remain essential as climate change picks up speed. It’s already exacerbating extreme weather across the U.S., from hurricanes and flash floods to wildfires and heat waves. Community meteorologists are uniquely positioned to help their audience make the connection between the two. 

In a 2020 experiment by the American Meteorological Society, participants were randomly assigned videos featuring their local meteorologist to watch: either three standard weather reports or three reports that tied climate change to the local weather. Participants who watched the climate-focused videos were more likely to think that climate change was personally relevant to them and would harm people in their community.

John Toohey-Morales, one of the meteorologists involved in the study, said it’s critical that others in the profession help viewers understand the personal stake they have in addressing the climate crisis.

“Why do people need to personalize the threat? Because then they’ll talk about it. Why do they need to talk about it? Because if we talk, if we normalize talking about climate change and the crisis, it’s no longer the taboo subject of Thanksgiving,” Morales said.

The Allen Media storm seems to have blown over, at least for now. WTVA and a few other stations posted articles on their websites declaring their teams are here to stay. Laubhan is safe. But without a public statement from the company it’s unclear where other threatened stations stand, or whether those who already lost their jobs will be rehired. 

Though the company hasn’t given an official reason for the reversal, it’s hard to imagine the outcry from affected audiences didn’t have an impact.

“Byron backed out because so many viewers spoke up against what they were doing,” said Alonso. “That shows how powerful local TV weather still is to the viewers.”