November 1st

It’s November 1st. Did you know that? Have you had a chance to stop and take a look at a calendar recently? I certainly haven’t. Where has the year gone? Halloween was spent thinking about a storm that wouldn’t be hitting us, but would keep us on our toes. Even though we weren’t in the cone, as a newsroom, we stayed on top of every development… and putting together our newscasts meant several minutes dedicated to our weather plus team, and the reporters outside blowing in the wind.

Now it’s a new month… and the first day of sweeps. Probably doesn’t mean much to you at home other than all sorts of fun episodes of your favorite TV shows. And in newsrooms, it means all sorts of special reports (I know you’ve seen the promos). It also means that everyone is back from vacation. Sweeps month means all hands on deck, so for the next 30 days, no one will be on taking a day off, and we’ll be fully staffed. Thank goodness for that.

November 1st also means the Miami Heat. First home game tonight… and a brand new episode of one of my favorite NBC6 shows (after SFL Nightly News of course)… Access Heat. Sharon Lawon will be live at Bongo’s tonight before the game, and make sure to tune in at 7:30pm for Access Heat.

It’s been a fairly quiet morning… but once everyone comes in for their night shifts at 2:30pm… I’m sure that will change.

Tracking Noel

Once again a reminder just how long Hurricane season is. After a pretty quiet season, Tropical Storm Noel is putting everyone on edge. Even though all the forecast tracks show the storm staying over the Bahamas… that huge mass of color on the satellite is disconcerting! As you can imagine it is the big story of the day. Here’s some of the coverage you can expect on South Florida Nightly News at 7PM on NBC6:

Chief Meteorologist Paul Deanno will have the latest forecast tracks and advisories… including what we can expect for Halloween tomorrow night.

Hank Tester is braving the strong winds that are battering South Florida Beaches… and are making a lot of surfers Happy.

Amara Sohn is travelling to the Bahamas, where the islands are bracing for Noel.

Everyone Loves A Hometown Boy

I go on vacation, and come back to a Tropical Storm. That’s the way it works in news. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a news junkie. I travel to other cities, and turn on their newscasts to see what they’re like. And that’s what happened this weekend. I was in D.C. visiting friends, and the weather guy casually mentioned Tropical Storm Noel in one sentence of the forecast. Why do they care about a storm, when they’ve got freeze warnings? But of course, this Miami girl perked up… and I knew what Monday’s lead was, before it even got here.

Storms that hit the caribbean are extremely relevant to our extremely diverse population… so we’re going to continue to keep an eye on the storm as it makes it way. Looks like it’s going to be a wet Halloween.

But my favorite story of the day– after all the weather coverage– has to be homeboy Mike Lowell being named World Series MVP. He was a Marlins and South Florida favorite… and even though he’s in BeanTown now… his family, friends, and Miami fans are still rooting for him. Hank Tester interviewed his dad and people at his high school… just an all around feel good story.

We’ll be back tomorrow… with more news… see ya then.