" (even though no tornado was confirmed). " YOU GUYS SAID ON AIR "confirmed tornado" at one point during that looooooooooooooooong storm coverage that day. You folks were maybe a little too jumpy, and that long live coverage was totally unecessary.
In Mr. Ryan's defense, in the Tornado Warning issued by the National Weather Service at the time, it explicitly said "a confirmed tornado was reported near Fairfax". It wasn't until a later that the NWS found that the report was issued by Fairfax County law enforcement but came from an untrained second-hand source, and the ensuing storm survey did not find any damage consistent with a tornado. Mr. Ryan was absolutely correct at the time in saying that there was a confirmed tornado, because typically if an NWS warning says there's a confirmed tornado it means that a trustworthy source (law enforcement or a trained storm spotter) saw it. It is the fault of law enforcement in passing along faulty second-hand information.
I hope you listen to your viewing customers next time. Almost all of us have technology and can check this information on our phones, tablets or computers. You also have the live doppler radar on television. The 90 minute rant was totally not needed, and many people were angry you interrupted their afternoons watching college football. I, for one, was one of them.
To me the graph looks too much like the allergy level graph (mold level, grass pollen, etc). A scrolling bar and/or radar picture would be good. As to interrupting a football game? the weather has been SO weird and unpredictable the past few years, I personally would much rather hear if there's a strong tornado risk in my area and lose a few minutes' coverage of a football game.
I don't know, I don't like the graph above like Pachacutec said. I understand it, but I think it could be confusing to general public. It takes a while to see what it's saying. When talking to the general public who do not know much about this stuff, I would use something like this: http://blogs.wdtn.com/files/2012/01/SWI.jpg
Informed? Yes, Maybe Too Much