As snow storms rocked the New York area on Monday morning, stations expanded their local coverage in lieu of the regularly scheduled network morning shows.
WABC powered through the morning with local coverage, forgoing “Good Morning America.” WABC’s expanded morning newscast featured weather reporting from senior meteorologist Bill Evans and traffic updates from Joe Nolan. Anchors Ken Rosato and Michelle Charlesworth checked in with reporters NJ Burkett and Lisa Colagrossi, who both covered delays on local commuter trains, as well as Jamie Roth, who covered the status of flights at LaGuardia Airport. At one point, Charlesworth underscored the newscast’s warnings about the dangerous commuting conditions by saying that the WABC morning news team did not commute to work that morning, rather they slept the previous night in a hotel just four blocks away from the studio.
WNBC went with the regularly scheduled “Today” at 7:00 a.m. with Ann Curry and Lester Holt starting off the broadcast with coverage of the blizzard. By the 8:00 o’clock hour, though, WNBC had switched to full local coverage of the weather. The special coverage was anchored by Pat Battle and Erika Tarantal. NBC correspondent Peter Alexander provided a traffic report while driving through New Jersey and reporter Deborah Tamborski spoke to those that braved the commute on Long Island. Katy Tur stayed close to WNBC’s 30 Rock studio, reporting on Manhattan traffic conditions near Central Park.
>Update:
According to WCBS anchor Rob Morrison, the CBS flagship station ran 10 straight hours of local weather coverage on Monday.