The Weather Channel loses its L-bar in graphics update

In many ways, removing the L-bar gives the network more of a canvas to showcase forecasts, graphics and talent on its national feed.

While at-home TVs have continued to grow in size, the increase in streaming viewing on mobile devices and even smaller desktop windows may have been at least part of the reason behind the change — when viewing the old L-bar version of the network on a smartphone or tablet, for example, much of the information becomes very difficult to read.

While the old L-bar approach physically “shrank” the national feed (as opposed to allowing the graphics to “cover-up” parts of the video feed), the new approach is much less obtrusive and allows the network to use almost the full screen.