Severe Weather Coverage in Kansas City

Kansas City has certainly had it's share of tornadoes. 50 years ago, a huge tornado rolled through the south side of the Kansas City metro area and wiped out a good portion of Ruskin Heights. The 1957 F5 tornado occurred only a few short years after the government began to take a greater look at relaying severe weather information to the public.

The tornadoes that hit Kansas City, KS and the northland on May 4, 2003 marked another major turning point in the relay of severe weather information in Kansas City. Ever since the 2 F4 and 2 F2 tornadoes ripped through the city, severe weather coverage in the media has gotten extreme. Non-stop and sensationalized coverage of severe weather has people beginning to turn off their televisions when severe weather begins to fire.

Have we gotten to the "cry wolf" scenario where people won't get the warning because the choose not to listen to the coverage any more? Today, in a special edition of the Kansas City Weather Podcast, I look into what the coverage has become, the force driving how much coverage is done, and if the increasingly sensationalized weather coverage is good in the long run.