The "News Leaders" New Radar

WCIA-TV has tripped over its own power cord again, unfortunately leaving us in the dark. The self-proclaimed "news leader" has now given us the debut of its new "5X" doppler radar, and its early images are not at all impressive. The background color of the weather map is a medium brown, and the actual radar returns, blobbly and washed out, merge and mush into the background. The viewing range in the Thursday afternoon weather cast was either zoomed in so tightly that we didn't know what state was being shown, or alternately was zoomed out so far that the details amounted to smudges of color subsumed by the gaudy (too bright and to thickly drawn) watch boxes. Finally, the wizards at "your news leader" superimposed narrative text messages over the top of the whole map in a white font, effectively obscuring the map while giving us information that the weather caster could have done better by voice. What they were trying to do with this - other than a bells and whistles show - is beyond me. Perhaps the folks at channel 3 will actually read the manual for their spiffy new gadget and come back with a better weather product in the future. But don't bet on it.