December 11th, 2008 Twin Cities AMS visits KARE11 Sven Sundgaard

I have been a Twin Cities American Meteorological Society(AMS) member for a couple of years now but, for some reason I only make it to one meeting per year, generally the first of the season.  I was really disappointed in all the cool meetings I missed over the last couple of years, the last one was at Weather Nation with Paul Douglas, Todd Nelson, Kristen Clark, and Gretchen Mishek.  Having read the newsletter the previous night and remembering the next meeting was, well tonight, I sent an e-mail last minute to try and get on the list last minute.  Tonight’s meeting was at the KARE 11 studios in Golden Valley with Sven Sundgaard as tour director.  I showed up for the 6pm news broadcast, the news studio was mostly automated, other than the news anchor’s only two other people were in the studio (although, more people were in different control rooms and newsroom within the building).  The high definition camera’s(Canon) were all robotic mounts along with most everything else.  15 or so of us watched the newscast with more people arriving for the 7pm meeting/tour with Sven.  We went outside to the KARE 11 backyard for the weather portion, three camera’s (two live outside) follow Sven as he walks outside the door to the backyard to do his part in front of the green screen outdoors.  It was pretty cold out but, Sven’s genetic makeup originated in Norway and he had previously been Chief Meteorologist at KBJR-TV in Duluth.  I had seen a news broadcast with green screen done before but, it’s always fun to watch.

(1600ASA/f4.9 – no flash – SD1000)

The clicker is in his left hand to control the images that are superimposed over the green screen with two monitors on either side of him and in front of him in order to see what he is pointing at.  I kept wondering if he ever loses his clicker, he had it on him the entire night.  We then went back inside to watch the rest of the newscast.  More people arrived for the meeting then we got the full tour of the studio’s and the meteorology area in the newsroom which was pretty cool and of course a few had to play in front of the green screen as Sven clicked through the screens, eventually we frooze and went inside.  Kare11’s NexRad tower is by the blackdog power plant in the River Valley, the dome on top of the studio’s was actually the old one.  We are not positive if the dome is empty or not.  They run a couple of meteorologic models on-site in addition to many third party feeds in the newsroom along with the ability to control the radar in Burnsville he went through many of the products that he had access to along with how he constructs the overlays you see during the newscasts.  Like most other ‘on-air meteorology personalities’ in the Twin Cities Sven does have a degree and background in meteorology.

no comments yet.