'First Alert' strikes a chord with WSFA viewers

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - Technology, like nothing else, has a tendency to make you feel old. It was only a few years ago that television was quite literally the only source we had to provide live, real-time updates during severe weather situations. For many, this was enough. For some, it left something to be desired. The last several years have featured an explosion of tech updates from dual polarity radar to the utilization of smartphone apps and live streaming. You've seen us use our Velocity Scope regularly, but new to the arsenal is Correlation Coefficient, allowing us to detect debris during tornado situations. The entirety of our severe weather coverage today is vastly different than only a few years ago. And that's a wonderful thing.

Our Saturday/Sunday bout of tornadoes was something of a first for our weather team. We've covered countless severe weather events. But we've never quite covered them this way. Live broadcasts and updates were seen on television, but thousands flocked to our WSFA Weather app and social media pages for live stream coverage and in-depth analysis.

The way you consume media has changed, and the way we go about our business has changed too. Several months ago, the WSFA team collectively decided to go down the "First Alert" road. It's not just a branding element, it's a focus on providing the earliest detection of potentially hazardous weather we possibly can. You've seen a few cases of "First Alert Weather Day" being issued in advance of severe/wintry weather. But it goes deeper than that.

Our team always goes back and assesses what went right and what we can do better with a severe weather event. None of them are perfect, which is why we need to look back constantly. The National Weather Service, as always, did a fantastic job issuing Tornado Warnings with plenty of lead time for all of you to get to your safe place. When we are in "wall-to-wall" coverage for Tornado Warnings, we have times when our experience gets our spider senses tingling. In these instances, we're able to offer insight into what could be a developing situation BEFORE that situation ever becomes a situation. The First Alert element of coverage gets a chance to come into play. 
 
So we went back through the coverage and found several interesting cases where this whole First Alert thing was worth its weight in gold. On Saturday, as Josh was at the weather wall describing a Tornado Warning in Elmore county, we noticed something. We noticed a spin-up that really got our attention, forming quickly and heading toward Wetumpka. It was one of several that were popping up. This couplet became a topic of conversation on-air and on our live stream on the WSFA Weather App. We urged residents of Wetumpka to get in their safe place. That couplet went on to produce an EF1 tornado.

This situation played out in Troy, Auburn & Opelika going into the following day, producing EF0-EF1 tornadoes. Someone noticed something on radar that got our attention enough to say something.

Our team has been flooded with testimonials from people thankful for the ability to watch our coverage from a handheld device and thankful for taking a First Alert approach to our coverage.

This is 6-year-old Tristan. His grandmother, Lillie Knight, wrote us to says that while he was playing a game on the cell phone, he got a WSFA mobile alert we'd sent urging viewers in his area to take cover. He grabbed his dog, Ziya, and climbed into a box while listening to the live weather reports on the phone.

There are countless others, including calls to the station. One, in particular, was a man who remembered his childhood and a father whose only fear was tornadoes. His teary conversation lamented about how he wished he could take current forecasting back to his childhood to ease his father's fears.

While we strive for precision and the best utilization of technology possible, it is you, our viewers, who put your trust in this expertise to get you through rough waters.

The First Alert mantra appears to have struck a harmonious chord with the relationship between meteorologists, viewers, and the various methods at our disposal to consume weather information. Times are a'changin, and we couldn't be more thankful for that.

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