The National Weather Service has the rare designation “Particularly Dangerous Situation” for potentially extreme weather. The most recent one issued in Iowa, according to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, was in a pair of tornado warnings issued for parts of Polk and Warren counties on July 15, 2024.
The NWS Quad Cities office issued a PDS with its severe thunderstorm watch for its entire area (as did La Crosse for three counties) on August 10, 2020, at 11:28 AM CDT — about when the derecho was slamming the Iowa Highway 14 corridor to the west, and about 75 minutes before Cedar Rapids lost power.
Now, we have a Particularly Dangerous Situation in the KWWL and KIMT viewing areas. NPR, and WSIL-TV (Paducah/Carbondale/Cape Girardeau), along with trade publications Cord Cutters News and AdWeek, are reporting that Allen Media Group will dispose of the weather departments of its entire TV station portfolio by the end of March. A meteorologist in Huntsville confirmed it on Facebook.
Each station on the broadcast airwaves must operate in the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” I would say wall-to-wall coverage of a tornado warning is one of the highest forms of all three. You can’t break into weather on the 8s or a for that.
I joke when meteorologists point out long-extinct towns that still show up on the maps for some reason, places that they’re reading because that’s what’s on the screen. But if someone in Atlanta drops a bad pronunciation of Keokuk or Winneshiek — or, Lord help us, Quasqueton — it’s going to resonate.
