President Obama is scheduled to comment on the disaster in Oklahoma at 10 AM and it is likely that all of the broadcast networks will break into regular programming to cover it.  ”CBS This Morning” went into the 9 AM hour to cover the fallout. We hear that “CTM” will stay live until 12 PM on the east coast covering the damage, and 10 AM pacific.

Update: “Our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today,” Obama said. “Oklahoma needs to get everything that it needs right away.”

“If there is hope to hold onto, not just in Oklahoma but around the country, it is the knowledge that the good people there in Oklahoma are more prepared than most, and what they can be certain about is that Americans around the country will be right there with them,” he added.

Meanwhile, the news channels are sending their A-teams to Oklahoma to cover the fallout from the tornado.

As we noted yesterday, NBC has Brian Williams,  Lester Holt, Ann Curry, Harry Smith, Kate Snow, Anne Thompson and Dr. Nancy Snyderman in Oklahoma, as well as the Weather Channel team of Jim Cantore, Mike Bettes, and Mike Seidel.

ABC News has Sam Champion, Ginger Zee, David Muir and Alex Perez in Oklahoma. Byron Pitts, Mike Boettcher, and Cecilia Vega are also either in Moore or en route.

CBS has Norah O’Donnell anchoring from Moore, and Anna Werner on the ground, and Scott Pelley will anchor the “CBS Evening News” there this evening.
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The Weather Channel is planning its largest programming push in its history over the next year, expanding not only its morning and dayside weather news programs, but also its entertainment and long-form programming in primetime. “Wake Up with Al” will be sticking around, but will be joined by new shows.

At a splashy upfront presentation at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York City this morning, the channel pulled back the curtain on what is coming down the pipeline. It was the first upfront event for the company in five years, and the first real presentation in its history.

“This is an incredible, incredible thing, because being at the Weather Channel 26 years, I have never seen us do something like this, and throw something this huge,” meteorologist Jim Cantore said.

Aside from the programming, the biggest change viewers will see is the graphics packages, which are being redesigned to be consistent across all of the Weather Company platforms, including Weather.com and the Weather app. The new TV graphics bear a striking resemblance to the graphics found on the website and app. Local weather and information will always be on-screen, at leastin the morning, when so many viewers tune in to the channel.

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Jim Cantore and Stephanie Abrams are having a bit too much fun covering Winter Storm Hagrid (or whatever this one’s called). Reporting live from Worcester, Mass. this morning the two Weather Channel meteorologists had a good old fashioned snow throwdown. The area is under a severe winter storm warning until 7pm tonight with snow totals anywhere from 15 to 24 inches.

Watch after the jump…

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The Weather Channel is airing a one-hour special about Hurricane (and later Superstorm) Sandy tonight at 8PM and 9PM. “Sandy: The Anatomy of a Superstorm,” is being produced by NBC’s Peacock Productions, and will feature Jim Cantore, Stephanie Abrams, Bryan Norcross, Stu Ostro and Bill Nye (The Science Guy) talking about the storm.

From the logline:

This one-hour special reveals the science of how this hurricane began in the Caribbean and developed into a devastating super storm, slamming the eastern United States as a combination hurricane/nor’easter/winter storm. The program spotlights historical records broken by the storm and explores the possibility of more super storms in our future.

LostRemote’s Natan Edelsburg caught up with Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore Tuesday night as Sandy’s devastation was just beginning to be measured.

We caught up with Cantore in Battery Park, a part of Manhattan that felt Sandy the worst. He had recently come from filming a guest appearance on Letterman on CBS (and was filmed in front of no audience). Cantore told Lost Remote how important Twitter was when they lost power in their truck. “Nothing travels faster than the news on social media,” he explains.

TV news organizations are gearing up for covering Sandy. There is still lots of uncertainty  but here is what we know so far. We will update this story as we get more information.

Cable:

The Weather Channel not surprisingly, has a slew of coverage planned. “Wake Up With Al” will air this weekend starting at 5:30 AM, and 5 AM starting next week.

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Hurricane Sandy continues to move northward, and is projected to slam into the eastern seaboard on Monday or Tuesday of next week. Networks are beginning to plan for coverage (more on that later) but there are still lots of uncertainties.

“This is something that we have never really seen,” The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore tells TVNewser. “We have never seen a tropical system this late in the season come up and take a left hook and morph into a Nor’easter/hurricane combination, which is what the models are suggesting.”

For TV news crews, planning is key, but when you don’t know where landfall will be, logistics become a problem.

“The challenge for us is to get there before the storm. Period,” Cantore says. “I expect a lot of deployment tomorrow from the Weather Channel teams.

Maybe a little fine-tuning on Sunday for us to get there beforehand, to have all of our ducks in a row, and to be ready for three days of non-stop coverage of this thing.”

Safety is paramount when covering a storm like Sandy. The hurricane has already killed 29 people across the Caribbean.

“You don’t take unnecessary risks,” NBC and Weather Channel anchor Al Roker tells us. “You don’t do anything that is going to put you or your crew in danger, and you take best practices. Nobody wants do die covering a hurricane. At least nobody I know.”

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The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore was in the field this week covering Hurricane Isaac, and at one point the winds were so strong that he had to kneel down. He opted to take the opportunity to honor New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow by “Tebowing.”

“Whatever it’s worth, I hope I’m making Tebow proud,” Cantore said.

Two stories dominated TV news coverage this morning: the landfall of Hurricane Isaac in New Orleans, and the speeches from Ann Romney and Chris Christie at the RNC.

On Weather Channel (which it should be noted was the first outlet to report Isaac’s landfall), Al Roker and Jim Cantore reported from inside the heart of the storm this morning. The duo also appeared on “Today”:

For CNN, Anderson Cooper and Rob Marciano reported as Isaac made landfall:

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Hurricane Isaac is expected to make landfall overnight tonight on the Gulf Coast, and you can bet that cable news channels are planning special live programming to cover it. Weather Channel, CNN and Fox News Channel will be live overnight in the hours normally reserved for repeats.

Weather will have live coverage throughout the night, with Reynolds Wolf and Jim Cantore in New Orleans, Mike Seidel in Alabama and Paul Goodloe and Eric Fisher in Mississippi. Locations are subject to change, if Isaac’s path changes.

Fox News will be live from 1-4 AM, with Gregg Jarrett and Jamie Colby anchoring. The network is sending “Fox & Friends First” anchor Anna Kooiman to Baton Rouge, joining Elizabeth Prann, Jonathan Serrie and Casey Stegall in New Orleans. Steve Harrigan is in Biloxi, MS, Rick Leventhal is in Dauphin Island, AL, and Phil Keating is in Mobile, AL.

CNN will have a live edition of “Piers Morgan Tonight at midnight (it was already planned for the RNC), and will add live coverage from 1-4 AM. “Early Start,” which normally begins at 5 AM, will start even earlier at 4 AM tomorrow.

Update: MSNBC will be live til 1 AM with live coverage of the RNC and Isaac. An overnight decision will be made soon.

Update AM: MSNBC ended up replaying its primetime programming through 3 AM, and rerunning the RNC speeches beginning at 3. It broke into programming twice an hour with Hurricane Isaac updates.

We’ll update with more information as we get it.