Hundreds of America’s TV meteorologists are working from home. Here’s how they do it.

But that remote broadcasting becomes a bit more tricky for television meteorologists.

The equipment and data needs for television weathercasters are often some of the heftiest in the newsroom. Between a weather graphics system, map displays, green screens, special monitors and other high-tech tools, producing a television weather forecast is no easy feat. But America’s television meteorologists have innovated and brought their broadcast studios into their homes.

“Necessity is the mother of all invention,” said Nate Johnson, a meteorologist who oversees weather operations at the 42 stations owned by NBC Universal and Telemundo. “We want to provide the same level of coverage regardless of where meteorologist are.”

Coverage when it matters most

Weather may be overshadowed by more pressing health and political headlines dominating the national news cycle. But it still affects people’s routines and, during severe thunderstorm season, can quickly become a life-threatening hazard.

On Saturday, March 28, a potent EF3 tornado leveled homes and businesses in Jonesboro, Ark. Ryan Vaughan, a meteorologist at KAIT-TV in Jonesboro, helped to cover the storm from home.

As tornado season quickly ramps up through May and hurricane season looms this summer and fall, Johnson said his team has been working to ensure it is able to cover any and all weather threats around-the-clock.

“We’re building up our capability,” said Johnson. “We’ve thought through backup signals, backup [electrical] power, et cetera. Some of our meteorologists already have generators at home.”

Transforming a home into a studio

Johnson said there are pros and cons to working remotely; while meteorologists are able to mobilize more quickly in the face of threatening weather, it’s a bit more of an uphill battle to integrate all the backup capabilities that are already built into the infrastructure physically at a television station.

What began weeks ago with a few meteorologists delivering forecasts over the phone or via Skype has since grown, with a number of meteorologists pulling out all the stops to recreate their work studios at home.

“It’s been exciting to see the innovation coming from all corners of the company,” said Johnson. “We have about a dozen meteorologists now doing [green screen forecasts] in their own homes.” One Telemundo meteorologist even managed to integrate augmented reality into his living room, in which weather maps and visualizations come alive in three dimensions.

Chuck Bell, morning meteorologist at the NBC-owned station in Washington, D.C., has been delivering his morning forecasts from home for several weeks. He says he was one of the first three broadcasters at his station to have full studio setups with professional camera equipment. The other two were the station’s chief meteorologist and main news anchor. Since then, that capability has been expanded to accommodate more on-air journalists.

“They brought a light kit into the basement for our full-on home studios,” he said. “Doug [Kammerer, the NBC4 chief meteorologist] and I cover both ends of what could be severe weather at times. They wanted to have a hard-wired connection for times when the news or weather get so vital in case there’s some sort of communications or electronics challenge.”

The station’s assistant news director Matt Glassman indicated that a number of additional journalists had been provided equipment from the station and were broadcasting from home.

Jacqui Jeras, an on-camera meteorologist at the Weather Channel, converted her basement exercise room into a makeshift studio.

“Technology is amazing and I’m able to access my graphics computer from home and advance my maps with the spacebar,” she wrote. “Overall, it’s not that different from when we anchor in the field during live hurricane or storm coverage, except that we are dry and the studio temperature is perfect. Ha!”

Technological hurdles

Accessing those weather graphics from high-powered computer systems back at the office isn’t always seamless, however. The graphics aren’t simply slides that can be whipped up on a home laptop. The data-assimilation and graphics-rendering equipment often costs tens of thousands of dollars and was not initially designed for remote use. That’s why meteorologists need to find a way to remotely tap into their computers at work.

“There never was a preset function for this,” Bell explained. “The app we’re using [to do it] is called TeamViewer.” While there have been a few technological hiccups along the way, he said, it’s working well so far.

It has been a similar work in progress at WUSA, the Tegna-owned station in Washington D.C.

“Remote desktop sharing applications are great, but they have their limitations,” wrote morning meteorologist Howard Bernstein. “After a few weeks though, I have a routine down and I feel more comfortable than I did on day one.”

“Clearly, working from home as a broadcast meteorologist is much different than in studio,” he wrote. “At the office, I have my workflow down. I also present the forecast mostly on camera. At home, I need to find a new way to do my own job.”

A one-person show

For some, it’s more than just a technical learning curve, however. Some things — like the in-person chemistry between broadcasters that adds a dynamic to the newscast — cannot be simulated remotely.

“[The morning shift] is the same 12 or 15 people every morning, five days a week, 52 weeks a year,” said Bell. “You miss your work life and your work family.”

He has tried re-creating some of the characteristic newscast banter on air, but with a 1.5-second audio delay each way thanks to the separated studios, conversation is quite limited.

“It suffers when you can’t have an instant thing,” said Bell. “If nobody can say a word for four or five seconds, it’s awkward to listen to.”

Despite this, broadcasting from one’s own home can add a layer of personality that otherwise isn’t always feasible in formulaic, crisp newscasts.

“We all need quiet when I’m working from home,” wrote Jeras, who explained that her two teenagers are taking classes remotely online as well. “Our other ‘co-worker’ is the problem. He is a 25-pound miniature schnauzer named Astro that is great company … until a package gets delivered or a squirrel is spotted and he feels the need to bark like crazy and alert us to the intruder. You can imagine that doesn’t go over very well during a live broadcast.”

Bernstein was in the same boat, writing: “I think my dog is probably very happy that my wife and I are home as much as we are now.”

In Washington, D.C., both Bell and Bernstein did note that their routines now feature a much shorter commute.

“I haven’t gotten gas since February 21,” Bell said with a laugh. He also has been able to “sleep in” — waking up at 2 a.m. instead of 1:30 a.m. for his morning shift.

Tools of the trade

Across the board, broadcasters have been making the best of it. And while Johnson says the ability to stream live from home is a “new tool in our toolbox,” it can’t fully replace in-studio coverage during the highest-end events.

“If we’re talking a larger event like a [tornado outbreak or] landfalling hurricane or something, that would probably be a time when we’d have a couple folks head back to the station.”

“They are forward-looking,” Bell said of his colleagues. “It’s about ‘what if this?’ or ‘what if that?’ If it’s looking like something more, maybe we’ll be in the building. When it really matters, you just don’t want technology to be the weakest link.”

At the end of the day, though, many meteorologists feel the ability to deliver weather coverage remotely has been a source of normalcy for millions of viewers forced to work from home themselves.

“It’s a difficult time for the country, really,” said Johnson. “But for us to be able to be in front of this message and really walk the walk … it’s been heartening.”