4 Adds A Couple of Weather People

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Ashlee Baracy is back from Columbus.

Ron Hilliard is coming over from WEYI/WSMH Flint/Saginaw.

Both start after the 1st and their roles will be announced then.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/weather/ ... ee-baracy/

[non-anon bob]

No big surprise about Ashlee. She is one of Kim Adams' homies!

[MWmetalhead]

Ashlee is a great hire for WDIV. Hopefully she lands weekday mornings. I am unfamiliar with Ron but he sounds promising.

[Luke]

So… 7 people?

[MWmetalhead]

They have Kim, Paul, Brandon and Bryan right now (in terms of on-air people). Wouldn't shock me if someone is leaving.

They really should have two people covering weekends. Having one person handle early morning, 6p and 11p on weekends is insane.

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They have Kim, Paul, Brandon and Bryan right now (in terms of on-air people). Wouldn't shock me if someone is leaving.

They really should have two people covering weekends. Having one person handle early morning, 6p and 11p on weekends is insane.

This makes 6. Lets say one leaves... that still makes 5... you would think at that point they could spare someone to break weekends up.

[Luke]

Brett Collar not on air anymore?

[OnTopic]

Ron has done very well in Flint and his family is in Detroit. Even without having a full degree at this time he seems to be on par with degreed meteorologists in terms of coverage and knowledge.

[MWmetalhead]

I've not seen Brett on the air in at least a couple months.

[TRTV]

I see them putting both as co-hosts of Live in the D and showing Tati the door? And then both would fill in for weather spots when needed.

[SolidGoldDancers]

Ashlee is a great hire for WDIV. Hopefully she lands weekday mornings. I am unfamiliar with Ron but he sounds promising.

From the guy who complains that WDIV can't create decent forecasts and gets it wrong more than they get right, *this* is a good hire? She was the morning traffic girl, after being the co-winner with Heather Zara of the dumbest on-air promotion and then running off to get a broadcast degree for meteorology from Mississippi State.

Not to mention, the other person hired went to Specs Howard. This is all from the GM's office, Bobby Ellis is gonna make the flagship station just like that also-ran in Jacksonville. And yes, that dumb promotion was that guy's idea.

Weather is fluid dynamics, I'm sure they get to that at MS State right after the multivariate calculus. When are they digging up Ruth Spencer? 'Cause she's actually more qualified.

Enjoy the cute graphics and the mom vibes, that's all you're gonna get with any reliability.

[unscopedaircheck]

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I have an MS in atmospheric science. There is no way someone like Ashleeeee can just create forecasts. What people like her do is read the area forecast discussion and try to wade through that and get a nugget out of that to repeat in their on-air segment. Then take the NWS predicted high and wiggle the temps by 1 or 2.

Even I can rudimentarily do that...

[smallwonder]

Most likely, these hires are going to fill the void where news programming doesn't currently air. Don't be surprised to see Local4+ ending up on a subchannel to compete with CBS News Detroit's own digital news channel.

[MWmetalhead]

She was the morning traffic girl, after being the co-winner with Heather Zara of the dumbest on-air promotion and then running off to get a broadcast degree for meteorology from Mississippi State.

Lauren Podell was the co-winner, not Ms. Baracy.

Baracy was the chief meteorologist at the #1 news station in a significant TV market. She might be better at this than you think. There are plenty of on-air weathercasters with degrees from MS State who do a good job, and yes, there are some who aren't very good, too.

Andrew Humphrey has degrees from U-M and MIT (!!!) yet his accuracy was mid pack at best.

I do see Ron is not yet a degreed meteorologist and is currently enrolled at MS State. I suspect he'll be working weekends.