WRAL WeatherCenter Now Providing 24-Hour Weather on TV

Triangle television viewers can now have WRAL-TV Chief Meteorologist Greg Fishel's weather forecasts on their TV sets any time of the day. Fishel and his staff are now providing continuous local weather forecasts on the WRAL WeatherCenter via Time-Warner Digital Cable channel 252 or over the air on WRAZ-DT channel 50.3.

"It is yet another way we can provide weather information to the public at a time that is convenient for them," said Fishel.

Under the technology savvy Project Manager John Clark, the channel went live during February and continues working towards perfecting the product. The channel works on a ten-minute rotation with weather forecasts updated several times per day. The channel includes some national weather conditions and forecasts, some regional weather conditions and forecasts and, of course, local conditions and forecasts from the WRAL Weather Center.

"AccuWeather provided the actual programming of the software that runs the channel. However, we had them modify it substantially to make it do what we wanted," explained Clark. "The national and regional data comes from AccuWeather Via satellite feeds - but ALL of the local forecast information comes from our Weather Center."

POSTED: April 28, 2003