I'm what you would call a "weather nut" and would like to give my perspective.
The intrusion to the weather graphics has been evolving since the 1980s. In the beginning, they'd only put on a graphic for a warning. It started out as a simple "T" or "S" in the corner of the screen. Then in the early 90's they put a lightning bolt or tornado next to the letter. A few years later they listed the names of the counties along with the graphics. Then came the map of the counties in addition to everything else, and now they actually roll back the screen to make room for the graphics. Channel 12 is the only one to put the graphics on constantly for watches, 58/41 also did last year but stopped this year.
I agree that the intrusion is very obnoxious and only hinders their purpose. The advent of new research and technology in weather forecasting is allowing meteorologists to give more advanced warning, but the unforseen downside is the explosion of false alarms, which is developing a serious (and warrented) "crying wolf" situation in the eyes of the layperson. You have to understand that only the National Weather Service (a federal government agency) can issue watches and warnings and hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been invested in radars, etc. So the last thing they want is a storm to kill somebody when there wasn't a warning issued. I think its a flawed logic, as was just shown in southern Indiana when a tornado hit when everyone was asleep. Compounding the problem are the people who run the TV stations and think that because their studies say that weather content is what attracts viewers, more is always better.
All I can say is, maybe if they get enough complaints they will put up less intrusive graphics, but there's not much you can do about the frequency of the intrusions.
The intrusion to the weather graphics has been evolving since the 1980s. In the beginning, they'd only put on a graphic for a warning. It started out as a simple "T" or "S" in the corner of the screen. Then in the early 90's they put a lightning bolt or tornado next to the letter. A few years later they listed the names of the counties along with the graphics. Then came the map of the counties in addition to everything else, and now they actually roll back the screen to make room for the graphics. Channel 12 is the only one to put the graphics on constantly for watches, 58/41 also did last year but stopped this year.
I agree that the intrusion is very obnoxious and only hinders their purpose. The advent of new research and technology in weather forecasting is allowing meteorologists to give more advanced warning, but the unforseen downside is the explosion of false alarms, which is developing a serious (and warrented) "crying wolf" situation in the eyes of the layperson. You have to understand that only the National Weather Service (a federal government agency) can issue watches and warnings and hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been invested in radars, etc. So the last thing they want is a storm to kill somebody when there wasn't a warning issued. I think its a flawed logic, as was just shown in southern Indiana when a tornado hit when everyone was asleep. Compounding the problem are the people who run the TV stations and think that because their studies say that weather content is what attracts viewers, more is always better.
All I can say is, maybe if they get enough complaints they will put up less intrusive graphics, but there's not much you can do about the frequency of the intrusions.