Weatherscan (originally called Weatherscan Local) was a TV channel offered by TWC. The channel is carried on select cable systems in the United States. The channel features uninterrupted local weather information, with graphics on a continuous loop. All content is produce by a computer @ the cable company's headend & unlike TWC, Weatherscan does not feature any OCM's of any kind.
It uses a slightly-modified version of the IntelliStar weather information system used for the main TWC channel. However, unlike TWC's Intellistar, it uses different graphics, features some additional weather products & runs continously. Until November 10, 2015, a pre-recorded narration noted when several segments appeared - including "Your Current Conditions", "The Local Doppler Radar" & "Your Local Forecast". The narration was not the same as TWC's local forecasts & used a female announcer. This is now discontinued and the only Vocal Local heard on Weatherscan is Jim Cantore's messages when the weather bulletin appears with a weather alert from the National Weather Service.
Weatherscan used to be available in many top markets around the US, but in recent years, many cable headends have been phasing out Weatherscan from their digital cable lineup, although a few smaller cable headends still have the channel on their basic cable lineup. Verizon FiOS no longer carries Weatherscan or TWC as of March 10, 2015 at 12:00 AM, DISH Network no longer offers Weatherscan as of June 24, 2015, Cox Communications discontinued their Weatherscan feed on May 14, 2016, and Comcast/Xfinity stopped carrying Weatherscan on December 10, 2017 at around 2:44 PM, making Weatherscan increasingly absent on some of the top 5 TV cable providers. Interesting to note, federal law requires that a cable system allows one to get certain basic cable (local broadcast channels & public, educational & governmental (PEG) channels) & digital service without subscribing to expanded service where TWC is often carried.
Weatherscan can be seen on:
- Local providers like Frontier FiOS (ex. Time Warner, Charter, DIRECTV, U-verse,)
Former availability of Weatherscan:
- Verizon FiOS: Channel 49 (terminated March 10, 2015)
- Dish Network (terminated June 24, 2015)
- Cox Communications (terminated May 14, 2016)
- Xfinity/Comcast: Channel 845 (phased out through October/November 2017, terminated December 10, 2017)
Weatherscan's Packages[]
A screengrab of national Weatherscan feed, in operation from 1999-presumably 2003.
Weatherscan has a variety of segments that show different information regarding the weather. Below are a list of known packages on Weatherscan & some brief information about them. Note that some Weatherscans do not carry some of these packages.
Local Forecast
A must-have segment, the segment provides local weather data, including the current observations, a local radar loop, a text-based two-day forecast, and a five-day forecast. This segment is mainly used for one city, but in some markets, the forecast segments incorporate multiple cities.
Local Doppler Radar
A 1-minute continuous loop of Doppler radar imagery over the course of three hours.
Traffic Report (July 2005 - December 8, 2010)
This segment displays a live map showing traffic flow across the metropolitan area (red indicates jams, yellow indicates slow traffic, green indicates little to no traffic); a text-based construction report, and the average speed and trip time for major highways. Traffic Pulse provides the information.
Airport Conditions
Available in most markets, the segment shows flight arrival and departure delays, and weather conditions for up to 4 airports within the headend's service area; a list of delays and current conditions for 8 selected major airports (out of 16) throughout the United States is also included.
Travel Forecast
Available in most markets, this segment features a map featuring overall national weather pattern for the next 6–10 hours, 2-day forecast maps for the surrounding region and a 3-day "destination forecast" for select U.S. cities.
International Forecast
Available in only a few markets, this segment displaying the forecasted weather conditions and temperatures for select cities around the world, both in map and graphical form.
Weather and Your Health
This segment features health-related forecasts for the area, including air quality, pollen and ultraviolet indexes; during the summer months, a slide illustrating safety information while in the sun is also displayed.
Ski and Snow (November-March)
This segment displays current skiing conditions (including present snowpack and snow density information) for up to 9 ski resorts throughout the country (3 every frame) as well as a snowfall forecast.
Golf Forecast (June-October)
This segment provides weather information for area golf courses and resorts within the area, as well as a golf index (gauging the forecast's impact on golfing activity) and a "tee time forecast" segment (a two-hour cumulative forecast showing expected conditions between 6am-10pm; for example, the segment would show conditions at 10pm and next day's 6am, 8am, 10am and 12pm if shown at 8pm hour).
Garden (March-August)
Carried on only a few headends, this segment includes forecasts tailored toward gardening, and includes a "watering needs index" as well as maps showing forecasted precipitation amounts (both in the past and next 24 hours) and drought severity.
Boat & Beach
Boat & Beach is only available for select headends in coastal locations. It includes marine forecast, tidal information & surf reports.
Weatherscan Timeline[]
1999
- Weatherscan Local debuts, showing only a 2-minute local forecast back-back. The only song that was played was a 2-minute cut of "Fair Weather" by Trammell Starks.
Late 2000
- Weatherscan Local gets a new look. The weather icons' animation was removed (they were animated prior to this update) & are now still icons.
- New products are added to several Weatherscan Locals nationwide, including health, airports, Spanish forecast, among others. Some Weatherscans have been reported to still show only the local forecast back-back.
- As for the music, an entire album of Trammell Starks music is now played, previously it only played one of his songs. A few cable headends didn't get this update until late 2002.
2001
- Weatherscan Local's local forecast now comes directly from TWC, previously from NWS. This has occurred to Weatherscan Local earlier than the WeatherStar's used on TWC.
September 27, 2003
- Weatherscan Local has been simplified to "Weatherscan" & has received entirely new graphics. The weather icons once again become animated & the graphics are a lot more superior than it's older version.
- A "severe weather mode" was added to Weatherscan during this upgrade. The yellow, blue colors become red & gray & it only shows the local forecast & a severe weather message saying "Weatherscan gives you this special message because of severe weather in your area".
- Weatherscan gets new music, now featuring tracks by unknown production music companies.
- The narration by "Local on the 8's" announcer Allen Jackson is replaced with female narration by Amy Bargeron.
- The narration for the 36-hour forecast is changed from "the forecast for your area" to "your local forecast".
Early 2004
- The first signs of the music "skipping" are heard on Weatherscan. Eventually, the music started skipping more often.
Early-mid August 2004
- Weatherscan's font becomes bolder.
- A fade in-fade out effect was added in between each day on the 36-hour forecast.
- The local radar is enhanced, now showing more major roads on the radar & city identifiers that are closer to the domestic InteliStar's.
- The local radar now shows the precipitation moving within the past 3 hours instead of 2.
- The music has been fixed show it does not skip.
- Some icons, such as "AM Clouds/PM Sun" & the nighttime "Mostly Clear" are updated so they are identical to the icons on the IntelliStar.
February 17, 2005
- The 36-hour forecast now becomes a 48-hour local forecast, now showing the forecast for today up to the next day's night.
- The point size of the text on the local forecast becomes larger, now bigger than the "Local Forecast" title heading.
- Some songs on Weatherscan have been replaced with new ones.
- During severe weather mode, Weatherscan now shows only the local radar, weather bulletins (if a weather watch or statement is issued) & the special weather message.
July 2005
- A "traffic report" was added to Weatherscans on the top viewing markets such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh & Atlanta showing the traffic conditions from Traffic Pulse for a city's metropolitan area. Also, a 1-minute long local radar segment has been added to Weatherscans nationwide.
- The Weatherscan in Frankfort, Kentucky had a travel forecast for 2 weeks then was never seen again until May 2008.
September 27, 2005
- Weatherscan receives a bold new look in accordance with TWC's new logo & graphics. An "L-bar" was added, that shows instant information to viewers, which is much similar to NBC Wx+. Current conditions, extended forecast, local radar & local observations are now shown constantly to the viewer.
- More narration is added to Weatherscan, such as narration to the local radar, traffic segment, among other segments.
- The severe weather message is changed to "Weatherscan/<Insert cable Headend here> bring you this message because of severe weather in your area".
- Note: Areas that were in Hurricane Rita's path received this Weatherscan update about a week earlier.
December 2005
- A traffic.com advertisement graphic is added @ the end of the traffic report segment.
- The narration for the "traffic flow" screen is removed.
March 2006
- More songs are removed & more new ones have been added to Weatherscan.
April 2006
- HiRAD technology begins to be introduced into some Weatherscans.
August 2006
- Due to the discontinuation of P. Allen Smith's garden segments on TWC, the P. Allen Smith advertisement @ the end of the garden segment is replaced with a generic weather.com/garden advertisement.
December 12, 2006
- Weather icons that have been in use on Weatherscan from 1999-2006 were replaced by more realistic icons.
- The slashes for phrases such as "Partly Cloudy/Wind" on the extended & daypart forecasts are replaced by commas (e.g. "Partly Cloudy, Wind").
- The background was also changed near the left from the weather icons from the white shine of light to light blue near the "now" section.
The White Shine Background from September 27, 2005-December 12, 2006.
The light blue shine from December 12, 2006-present.
January 23, 2007
- As with the TWC IntelliStar, the Weatherscan radar has been changed. "Light" & "Heavy" changed to "rain", "mix" & "snow" were added. The color key was removed from the mini-radar in the corner of the screen.
May 22, 2007
- The radar legend becomes interactive with the precipitation. The snow & mix color keys now only display if frozen precipitation is detected.
October 24, 2007
- The traffic overview map on Weatherscans with this segment is updated to match the map on the domestic IntelliStar.
November 5, 2007
- Several new songs were added to the music loop and some were removed.
Mid-November 2015
- The female narrations were removed and Jim Cantore's narration "The National Weather Service has issued a weather bulletin" were added.
- On September 12, 2022, it was announced by a letter from Weather Group Television to the National Cable Television Cooperative stated the company's intention to discontinue the Weatherscan service entirely on or before December 9, 2022. Though, a Weatherscan IntelliStar unit in Beckley, WV on December 10, 2022, mentions that the nationwide shutdown for the last remaining Weatherscan units was scheduled for December 12, 2022.
National Feed[]
Since Weatherscan Local's debut, there has been a national version of this channel that is used for satellite companies & smaller cable companies that cannot afford Weatherscan Local. This channel features current temperatures & the forecast for the next two days for select cities throughout the USA, as well as national & regional radar images. This channel is named simply Weatherscan. There is uncertainty whether or not the national version was discontinued. However, since Weatherscan Local simplified it's name to "Weatherscan" in 2003, it's likely that the national feed was discontinued during or around that time.
1 -minute segmental sequence (starting from national segment)[]
All of the frames were displayed for five to seven seconds, in contrast to Weatherscan Local's uniform length of ten seconds.
| Frames | Cities featured |
|---|---|
| National | Portland, Billings, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Denver, Kansas City, Atlanta, Raleigh, Los Angeles, El Paso, Dallas, Brownsville, New Orleans, Miami |
| At a Glance: Northeast | Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh |
| At a Glance: Mid-Atlantic | Charleston (S.C.), Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Roanoke |
| At a Glance: Southeast | Atlanta, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Miami |
| At a Glance: South Central | New Orleans, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Oklahoma City |
| At a Glance: North Central | Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver |
| At a Glance: Northwest | Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Boise, Great Falls |
| At a Glance: Southwest | San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Salt Lake City |
| Northeast | All "At a Glance" cities + Buffalo, Burlington, Detroit, Cincinnati, Roanoke, Bangor |
| Mid-Atlantic | Charleston (S.C.), Louisville, Nashville, Birmingham, Knoxville, Lynchburg, Charlotte, Wilmington, Norfolk, Baltimore |
| Southeast | Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, New Orleans, Jackson, Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Birmingham |
| South Central | Houston, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, El Paso, Amarillo, Midland, Shreveport, Little Rock |
| North Central | All "At a Glance" cities (except Kansas City) + Bismarck, Fargo, Rapid City, Dodge City, North Platte, Topeka, Sioux Falls, Des Moines, Marquette |
| Northwest | All "At a Glance" cities (except Great Falls) + Medford, Red Bluff, Elko, Pocatello, Missoula, Pendleton, Burns |
| Southwest | All "At a Glance" cities (except San Diego) + Eureka, Fresno, Yuma, Las Vegas, Reno, Ely |
Gallery[]
See also[]