Your Trueview Forecast / My Eternal Struggle: 10 Minutes in the Life of NBC 15 Morning Weatherman Charlie Shortino

Guest Blog by: NBC 15 Morning Weatherman Charlie Shortino.


“Clear skies for Southern Wisconsin and clear skies back into the plains, we’ll go with sunshine today starting off in the teens with a 26 degree high, both 15 degrees below our seasonal average. Becoming partly cloudy tonight, low 12. Aaaaannnnddd partly cloudy tomorrow, high of 38. Seven day outlook: high of 46 on for the high temperature on Sunday, partial sunshine. That’ll be the warmest day for the next week or so but still not bad highs in the mid and upper 30s Monday through Wednesday of next week.”

For the next two hours, this graphic and I are closer than brothers.

We're partners.

It’s 5:40, this is the 5th time I’ve repeated that forecast and I’ll say it 7 more times before I’ve done. Every 10 minutes, I repeat the same message for 2 grueling hours during the NBC 15 Morning Show.

Even though the viewers hears this forecast 3 times during 30 minutes of programming, I still know most are tuning me out within a few seconds, right after they hear today’s forecast. The viewership doesn’t really pay attention to the 3-day outlook, they only care about today. Humanity, as a species, is perhaps unique in its ability to judge the passage of time, yesterday and tomorrow are concepts we can comprehend but most choose to squander that gift and focus on the animalistic gratification of the now. As a meteorologist, I am a modern-day oracle, offering the masses a glimpse at their own future, on a climatological scale at least, which they choose to reject in their own short-sighted way. If more people paid attention to the 3 to 5 day-forecast people would start looking to the long-term forecast of global warming. Maybe if people listened to the weather forecast they would have paid attention to the all of the economic warning forecasts that were right in front of us for the last several years.

Who am I kidding? Anchor/Reporter Christine Bellport sits next to me every morning and she still doesn’t believe in global warming. I’m a degreed meteorologist, I own a weather consulting company… I know what I’m talking about when I say climate change is real. But Christine Bellport thinks she is just as much an expert as I because she can spout off pseudo-science nonsense about ‘long term natural climate shifts’ or whatever else she repeats ad-nauseum from Michael Savage or whatever other talk radio she blares in the News Room. Her ignorance knows no bounds, during the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, she thinks the most pressing issues are young girls wearing skimpy clothing and Oliver Stone’s liberal Hollywood bias.

There is no soul behind those eyes.

People ask me why I act so goofy during the newscast banter, it’s the only way I can put up with talking to Bellport. If I tried to talk to a dullard such as her with a straight face I would probably break down and cry. So I crack a joke to stifle the tears and I like making weather-based puns. They are fun.

But there are something that even I, Gold Medal winner in Madison Magazine’s Best of Madison 2008: Best TV Personality, cannot laugh about. Bellport’s fellow sycophant, Anchor/Reporter Sarah Carlson, can’t see the disgusting irony that she just delivered a report that area food pantries are dreadfully low that was immediately followed by a story on how to avoid holiday weight gain from overconsumption. People can be so cruel to ignore the suffering inherit to the gross inequality of wealth but the weather isn’t like that. The weather isn’t kind or evil, it just is. Sometimes I prefer the weather to people but there are still two reasons why I keep sitting through all of this everyday.

The first reason I stay is that I appreciate the kindness and respect the public sphere gives me for my job. I look with pride upon the NBC 15 Morning Show’s dominance in the local ratings. I know I spend much of my time disparaging the intellect of the viewing public but I still feel a need for their praise. I think about this strange dichotomy a lot, particularly during commercial breaks. Maybe I need my local fame, it may be my drug of choice, I know I get a buzz off of my top ranking in the Isthmus Madison’s Favorites for TV personalities. I love to shove in the face of WKOW meteorologist and cocky jerk Bob Lindmeyer. I’m number 1 in this town, Bob!

Suck on it, Lindmeyer.

The other reason I stay onboard through the two hours of misery is the half-hour of heaven I get every day at 11am. It’s still the same forecast but I get to sit in the presence of the angelic Afternoon Anchor/Reporter Carleen Wild. She is an almost unearthly beauty whose grace is only matched by her intelligence and kind soul. At the end of every show at 11:30, as we cut away to Family Feud, I hope I’ll be able to talk to hear about a topic of depth like poetry or music but then I get intimidated by her gorgeous chestnut hair. In my cold sweat, I only manage to stammer something about the only topic I feel truly comfortable about… the weather. Someday, Carleen, I will take you out of this studio and we shall travel the world. But for now, I will be content with the 30 minutes a day I get to share a studio with you.

You are the wind beneath my wings.

But 11am is still so far from the now. I try to get back to the morning weather by looking down at the Doppler reading on my computer monitor, looking for any shifts that would cause he to alter my next 10 minute forecast, even by the smallest amount. I look at the lines representing barometric pressure and the green blob of far-off precipitation and wonder if my forecast of the weather changes the actual weather. After all, science such as the double-slit experiment has shown that observation does change the outcome of events, at least on the quantum level, but maybe it has a similar impact on larger systems, like the weather. While this is a fascinating idea, sometimes I believe that existentialist views of perception defining reality are simply a response to their philosophy rejecting religion, their need for something beyond pure science causes them to transfer that divine spark from their cast-off God to the human brain. That’s an interesting thought, maybe I should bring that up to Carleen today at 11:30.

Bellport and Carlson have finally shut up. It must be 5:50, once more unto the breach, dear friends.

“Clear skies for Southern Wisconsin and clear skies back into the plains, we’ll go with sunshine today starting off in the teens with a 26 degree high, both 15 degrees below our seasonal average. Becoming partly cloudy tonight, low 12. Aaaaannnnddd partly cloudy tomorrow, high of 38. Seven day outlook: high of 46 on for the high temperature on Sunday, partial sunshine. That’ll be the warmest day for the next week or so but still not bad highs in the mid and upper 30s Monday through Wednesday of next week.”