Seven years ago today, after nearly being swallowed up by Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans area is being assaulted by Hurricane Isaac and New York reporters are on the scene.

WNBC/Channel 4 anchor Tom Llamas reported live from New Orleans during last night’s 11 p.m. newscast with Chuck Scarborough and Shiba Russell as the storm was about to make landfall.

WABC/Channel 7 had the only other local presence in the Big Easy. Reporter Jim Dolan also handled the impending fury at 11 p.m. with David Navarro (in for Bill Ritter at the Republican National Convention) and Sade Baderinwa at the anchor desk.

At WCBS/Channel 2, Drew Levinson reported live with Maurice DuBois and Kristine Johnson. Levinson, though, is a national correspondent for CBS Newspath, an affiliate news service.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene hitting our area.

Domenica Davis is being replaced at WNBC. FishbowlNY has learned that the weekend weather anchor has been bounced in favor of WPIX morning traffic reporter, Steve Villaneuva.

It’s a return to meteorology for the easy-going Villaneuva, who joined WPIX in January. Viewers will recall his work at WWOR/Channel 9 as meteorologist and sister station WNYW/Channel 5 from 2002 to 2006. He’s a New York native, having grown up in Flushing and was educated at Holy Cross High School and New York University.

We’re told that Villaneuva leaves his PIX full-time gig for a steady gig at 30 Rock. Along with the weekend work, Villaneuva will produce for main meteorologist Janice Huff. A WPIX spokesperson confirms the move to WNBC. His last day at Channel 11 is expected to be September 7.

As for Davis, the meteorologist arrived at WNBC in the summer of 2010. Before that, she was a forecaster on Fox News Channel starting in 2007.

A WNBC spokesperson did not comment.

Photo credit: thelaurelct.com

Channel 2 weathercaster John Elliott is visiting Los Angeles for today’s edition of The Talk.

The show, co-hosted by Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood, and Aisha Tyler, is assembling some of the best CBS-owned news and weather anchors from around the country. The talent will join the roundtable as guest hosts in place of vacationing Julie Chen each day this week.

For Elliott, it’s a homecoming of sorts. Before joining WCBS, Elliott had two-year stint as the KCBS morning weather forecaster.

The Talk appearance also gives Elliott a chance to get his banter going in preparation for his work on WLNY’s new morning program, starting early next month.

The two-hour Live from the Couch is expected to give viewers a focus on entertainment and lifestyle stories.

The Talk airs from 2 to 3 p.m. every weekday on WCBS.

WCBS/Channel 2 has enhanced storm coverage with Mobile 2, the state-of-the-art vehicle that allows live video throughout the streets of the tri-state. WCBS began adding Mobile 2 to its fleet in the winter of 2010. But the van is a regular contributor to the station’s newscasts, to get the story perspective directly from the road.

Channel 2 is, once again, at the forefront of technology. It’s rolling out the Mobile Weather Lab, a weather center on wheels. It made its debut Thursday as weathercaster Lonnie Quinn reported live from the Bronx High School of Science.

The Weather Lab, housed in a Chevy Suburban, begins the Mobile 2 technology, which makes it possible to broadcast live in HD quality while the van is in motion. But this sports utility vehicle is much more. It includes high definition satellite capability and an on-board weather station that measures temperature, wind speed and direction, dew point readings, and humidity wherever the vehicle is.

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Regular listeners to 1010 WINS know meteorologist Jim Kosek. For more than 15 years, Kosek has been one of the weekday forecasters on WINS. His reports originated at AccuWeather in State College, Pennsylvania. As is the case at Total Traffic (formerly Shadow Traffic), meteorologists have several stations to file reports for during a shift.

Heard mostly on afternoons and evenings, Kosek’s over-the-top personality is a stark opposite to the usual all-news fare heard on WINS. Kosek has gained a cult following of sorts online for his one-part wild delivery, one-part accurate forecasting. 

After more than 20 years at AccuWeather, Kosek left snowy Western PA for snowy Utah. He’s been named the chief meteorologist at the ABC affiliate in Salt Lake City, where he started last week. After so many years at one shop, Kosek says it was time to branch out.

“You’re spread so thin at AccuWeather,” Kosek tells FishbowlNY.

He maintained a presence on a handful of radio stations, but would monitor for severe weather and in turn additional reports. Kosek kept busy with plenty of on-camera prognosticating for the AccuWeather website. He did specialty forecasts for up to 20 cities.

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The Reagan Revolution still had two more years, Platoon was Oscar’s choice for Best Picture, and the New York Mets staged one of the most dramatic comebacks in World Series history.

Also in 1986, meteorologist Nick Gregory arrived at WNYW/Channel 5.

“It was so exciting for me because I grew up in [New Rochelle] New York,” Gregory tells FishbowlNY. “From childhood really, and into my teens, I was also thinking that maybe one day I could do this.”

On December 26, Gregory commemorates his 25^th anniversary at the station. A quarter-century earlier, it began with the answer to the trivia question—who were the anchors on his first night?  Barbara Laskin and Steve Powers.

“I just had this rush of excitement and adrenaline and saying, ‘I’m actually back home in New York, on New York television, living the dream,” Gregory recalls.

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Wayne Cabot sporting "protest" beard/Courtesy Wayne Cabot Facebook page

Call it “Close Encounters of the Scruffy Kind!”

The rare October snowstorm that blanketed many neighborhoods north and west of New York City has still left many homes and businesses without power.

One of those people with no electricity since the Nor’easter hit last Saturday is longtime WCBS 880 afternoon anchor Wayne Cabot.

Before too long, the lifelong Hunterdon County resident decided to hold a whimsical “beard protest” as a way of drawing attention to his plight.

“As the days went on, I kept seeing my beard get longer,” Cabot tells FishbowlNY. “After five, six days, I was like, ‘The heck with this, I might as well keep this beard going until the power comes back on.’”

As of this writing, it is day seven and still no electricity at the Cabot household.

“My whole street is out,” Cabot says. “Our town is slowly coming back.”

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Dealing with snowstorms is nothing new to New Yorkers. Those weather systems can be destructive and deadly. But until now, they were never in October. Saturday’s storm produced record-setting numbers that WABC/Channel 7 morning meteorologist Bill Evans finds mind-boggling.

“It was very historical for everyone really,” Evans tells FishbowlNY.

The path of the Nor’ easter blanketed north and west of New York City with upwards of a foot of snow. Central Park eclipsed its previous all-time October high of eight-tenths of an inch with 2.9 inches of snow.

“That’s a tremendous amount of snow when you consider that usually mid-December is when we should start with accumulating snows,” Evans says. “We just don’t see that. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

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In trying to return some normalcy to viewers’ lives, and preparing them for the morning commute, newscasts had typical team coverage to cope with the aftermath of a bizarre October blast of winter.

However, one channel was not typical, bringing in its “big gun” for last night’s coverage. 

Ernie Anastos, the veteran WNYW/Channel 5 anchor, was on the air for Sunday’s 10 p.m. newscast with Christina Park. With many angles to explore, Sports Extra was preempted, expanding the broadcast to an hour.  

There was no 6 p.m. newscast on WNYW due to its NFL commitment.

You’ll recall, in August, Anastos teamed up with Park for the Sunday night newscasts as Hurricane Irene cut a path of destruction across the tri-state.

The new kid on the news block, WEMP, fails to use the historic snowstorm to its advantage.

As Merlin Media’s FM News 101.9/WEMP was officially starting in August, we reported on their failed coverage of record-setting rainfall.

On Saturday, weather brought the spotlight was back to WEMP with the most October snow to ever fall in New York (1.3 inches), and much more in the suburbs.

Forecasters had been eyeing this weekend for the affects of a Nor’easter in the tri-state region.

However, WEMP did not to plan accordingly.

In the afternoon, as the storm intensified, listeners heard anchors Therese Crowley and Gene Michaels lead with the weather story. WEMP even offered updates from staffers, including anchor Catherine Smith, Doug O’Brien, and producer Judy Speicher. Unlike stalwarts WCBS and WINS, WEMP featured the radio pros “holed up” in their homes.

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