A Television Station's Wall-to-wall coverage of the May Tornado Outbreaks in Kansas City

The Spring of 2003 was an active period to say the least. Just when you thought you were done with violent weather, another round would come your way.

The longwave pattern during the 1st week of May, 2003 was such that strong dynamics were locked over the mid-Missouri river valley numerous times during the span of a couple of weeks. The most active days were Sunday May 4th when tornadoes later determined to be F4 in intensity combed through both sides of "state-line" and May 8th, when individual tornadoes skipped across other, before then, untouched regions of the metro.

Supercells, some individual, some merging, were over most of the DMA sometime within these two outbreaks.

Miraculously, only one person was killed as a direct result of the tornadoes that week. Large credit was given to the media for getting the warning out early, and with wall-to-wall coverage until the event was over.

KMBC Chief Meteorologist Bryan Busby will take you through some of the thought process that was necessary to produce continous coverage on that Sunday and then again on that Thursday. He will address, staffing and equipment utilization, as well as show brief samples of the wall-to-wall coverage airchecks capturing the formation, maturity, decay and damage from the tornadoes.

In addition, he will outline what he and his station and staff have learned on improving such broadcasts for future outbreaks.