Simulated tornado rips through Weather Channel studio

The Weather Channel used immersive mixed reality to showcase the power of a tornado — by having it “wipe out” its own studio.

‘Nightly’ anchors from border — while CBS, ABC cover immigration from New York

The segment, which aired the morning of Wednesday, June 20, 2018, started out looking normal enough — with Jim Cantore standing in the studio in front of a video wall array, which served as a portal to a realtime simulation of a tornado.

An empty country road with increasingly angry sky gets darker and darker as the storm approaches. 

After the funnel cloud approaches, a power line and pole “crashes” onto the studio floor, giving Cantore an opportunity to explain safety tips surrounding downed power lines — as important facts appear in floating yellow boxes.

In the segment, Cantore encourages viewers to stay at least 40 feet away from any live wires while noting that he would, in fact, be standing too close if the downed pole was real.

Advertisement