What Happened To using Satellite Views?

When I started in Tampa (Ch. 13) way back in 1971, we received one or two satellite pictures A DAY from NOAA.  My boss (late Roy Leep) talked management into buying a satellite receiver that we could track the lower polar orbiting satellites.   It took 3 passes, but we were able to put together a composite view for the later weather programs.  No looping back then, just black & white and many hours old.  Compare that to modern technology and you can see why I appreciated and utilized the looping & color channels that were a big part of my storytelling.  Fast forward to today's weathercasters and many don't even show any satellite views.   Joe Friday (Dragnet) used to say, "just the facts ma'am".  Now it's "just the models Ma'am".  Take today for instance.

NHC isn't spoon feeding them information, but look what I see.  Clearly, there are 2 clusters of disturbed weather.  One is down over the southern Caribbean & the other over the eastern Gulf.  Models show neither developing.  But on a day when not much is going on except our daily storms, can't someone come up with something interesting?  In the Gulf, there is a weak, but obvious, low level circulation south of Apalachicola moving to the east with a mid level upper swirl south of Pensacola moving to the SW.  Perhaps nothing will form, but at least show me you're looking.  

Using the looping feature, you can clearly see the upper high to our west centered over Oklahoma with clusters of storms rotating around it (ring of fire).  Now look what's under the upper high.  Temps 100+.

Add in dew points into the mid to upper 70s and that's a real weather story.  But very few story tell anymore.  Let's just show the models.  If you don't show me what is happening now, how can I be sure the model initializes correctly?   Nah. just show me the models.  Sad.

We do have some storms around this afternoon giving cooling relief to some while others are baking.  As that upper high drifts to the east the next several days, look for our rain chances to go to near zero while our temperatures climb to the mid to upper 90s.

In the "good old days" before technology/computers/models, forecasters used knowledge + experience (gut feelings) to earn your trust.   Now it's all about what do the models say?  Stay tuned!