If I recall correctly, I don't think CFTO ever had an actual meteorologist on staff. As you noted, Dave Devall was not one of them. Neither was Anwar Knight or Tom Brown. 

Global has two - Anthony Farnell and Ross Hull. 

City has several, led by Natasha Ramsahai, Jesse Uppal and Chris Potter.

CBC Toronto makes use of several from the Weather Network. 

But CFTO to my knowledge has never had one on staff for its local newscasts. Nothing against Lyndsay Morrison, who is a pleasant enough personality, but the others have more credibility simply because of their training and education.

Easily Amused wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

If I recall correctly, I don't think CFTO ever had an actual meteorologist on staff. As you noted, Dave Devall was not one of them. Neither was Anwar Knight or Tom Brown. 

Global has two - Anthony Farnell and Ross Hull. 

City has several, led by Natasha Ramsahai, Jesse Uppal and Chris Potter.

CBC Toronto makes use of several from the Weather Network. 

But CFTO to my knowledge has never had one on staff for its local newscasts. Nothing against Lyndsay Morrison, who is a pleasant enough personality, but the others have more credibility simply because of their training and education.

All this may be true, but CFTO had 'The Uncle Bobby Show' and the Rankin - Bass 'Pinnocchio' and 'Tales of the Wizard of Oz'. Skews in Channel 9's favour. 😁

The one thing about the Pinocchio cartoon that drove me crazy was a lyric in the theme song, "He can walk and talk and fly." 

How the f- could he fly?

Even as a kid I couldn't figure that out.

Easily Amused wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

Easily Amused wrote:

All this may be true, but CFTO had 'The Uncle Bobby Show' and the Rankin - Bass 'Pinnocchio' and 'Tales of the Wizard of Oz'. Skews in Channel 9's favour. 😁

The one thing about the Pinocchio cartoon that drove me crazy was a lyric in the theme song, "He can walk and talk and fly." 

How the f- could he fly?

Even as a kid I couldn't figure that out.

Crick was definitely the brains of that outfit.

But could he play a flute?

Really! I just saw him on City a few days ago. I wonder what happened. 

Yes, there are many. But my feeling is if you're going to go to the trouble of staging a news show, which takes a lot of people and resources, you owe it to whatever audience is watching to fully staff it. And when the lead story is a huge winter storm that paralyzes the entire city, you don't want an anchor that's never seen the maps before and forgets the order to bumble their way through it.

Weather is a big deal, especially in this season. I believe the Buffalo newscasts, which have experience with winter unlike anything we've ever seen here, always lead with the forecast, regardless of what's going on. It's that important to the market. 

We can get by on anchor weather when it's sunny and 20C. But when the GTA gets clobbered by an ice, rain and snow storm, having someone to explain the maps, tell viewers what's coming and most importantly, when it's going to stop, really helps.

Don't do the news (which is also available on the Internet) if you're not going to do it properly. 

Mr magoogain wrote:

People still get the weather VIA tv news?

There’s an app for that

TV news is a lot better for weather reports/news. Sometimes it's even more fun watching someone outside showing us what we should wear when outside.

Aytononline wrote:

I hope I am wrong but I suspect many local CTV tv stations will have 4 days with no local news. ( Christmas, Boxing, Saturday and Sunday)

The big storm is here and we will not know about it till Monday at 6pm

And that newscast will be replete with obligatory film of plows, people struggling along slippery and snow covered sidewalks, and three kids on a sled.  Just as bad as the U.S. networks cannot refrain from showing the Niagara Falls skyline as seen from Highmark Stadium, or some chef saucing chicken wings in a bowl during a Bills home game.  Lenny Bruce got it right when he said "with usage, it becomes trite."

Aytononline wrote:

I hope I am wrong but I suspect many local CTV tv stations will have 4 days with no local news. ( Christmas, Boxing, Saturday and Sunday)

The big storm is here and we will not know about it till Monday at 6pm

I mean, unless you look out a window.

RadioActive wrote:

Yeah, but a window won't tell you how it is in another part of town if you need to head elsewhere. Plus, the pics of snowy streets and messed up slippery sidewalks speaks more than any app about what's going on beyond your door. What I'm saying is this kind of coverage still has a point.
 

How on earth is TV supposed to do that? Images of every part of the coverage area? What use are those visuals beyond what you can see yourself? 

It's going to snow a lot, mostly through the middle of the day. Best to avoid driving. There.

Sure you may want to know about whether an event is cancelled or if your GO train is going to be late, but it's way too big a city for TV news to give those details.

The apps will tell you snow times and amounts specific to your neighbourhood, TV cannot.

Not sure how pictures from a smattering of places that may or may not be live are more useful than actual information.

If I got up at 9 today and wondered if it was still a good idea to go across town to meet for lunch, TV is the last place I'd check.

I think the idea of TV weather is mostly comfort food as it's always been there. But, it has to be the least practical way to convey relevant, specific, timely information.

RadioActive wrote:

If I recall correctly, I don't think CFTO ever had an actual meteorologist on staff. As you noted, Dave Devall was not one of them. Neither was Anwar Knight or Tom Brown. 

Global has two - Anthony Farnell and Ross Hull. 

City has several, led by Natasha Ramsahai, Jesse Uppal and Chris Potter.

CBC Toronto makes use of several from the Weather Network. 

But CFTO to my knowledge has never had one on staff for its local newscasts. Nothing against Lyndsay Morrison, who is a pleasant enough personality, but the others have more credibility simply because of their training and education.

I thought former CFTO weather guy Steve Jacobs was a meteorologist.

RadioActive wrote:

I find the Future Radar extremely useful and often play it back in slow mo to watch when the storm is coming and when it's going to leave. That works for my needs, except when those idiot presenters stand right in front of the clock, one of my biggest pet peeves. Why put a graphic on TV if you're just going to stand in front of it so no one can see it? That's just dumb. 

The app can do that, any any time, and nobody stands in front of it.

mic'em wrote:

We received about 25 cm in the Greater Sudbury area. Forecast was for 10. I have been out and got about half my driveway shovelled out, waiting for the plow to go by so I don't have to do street end of it twice. 

I live in Val Caron and the official snow total according to the reporting station at the Sudbury Airport was just a smidge below 10cm.  Here in the Valley, I recorded about 11cm.  

Here is a link to the Weather Dashboard for Sudbury.  It lists the exact snowfall amounts by day.  We still haven't had a snowfall over 10cm yet this winter, but i get the feeling that is about to change with this next storm.

=13pxhttps://sudbury.weatherstats.ca/
 

Last edited by frostycold (December 27, 2025 6:39 pm)

By the way, the forecast for the coming week is the possibility of three days (!) of rain and freezing rain, with winds hitting 100 km/h at times. If they don't have someone in for this, then I have no hope left for CTV. This could be the worst storm of the entire year, that stretches into New Year's Eve.

If they hope to have any credibility left, that had better be their lead. 

Edit: Just watched Rahim Ladhani on the Saturday 6 PM struggle through the weather. At one point, he introduced the wrong map and had to apologize to viewers. What an embarrassing mess!