This afternoon thousands of dapper people will file into Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. They will sip mint juleps, wear funny hats and make “trifecta” wagers after pretending to read the book on handicapping.

Yes, the Kentucky Derby is here, and NBC, which paid good money for the TV rights, is planning wide-ranging coverage, including contributions from NBC News and The Weather Channel.

Al Roker was at Churchill Friday for a “Today” segment, as well as “Wake Up with Al” on Weather Channel. His colleague Stephanie Abrams will continue coverage on Weather Saturday morning. “Today” correspondent Dylan Dreyer will report from the hallowed grounds on Saturday and Sunday, previewing and recapping the event, respectively. Brian Schachtman, CNBC’s sports business reporter, filed reports from Churchill Friday, and will continue all day today.

E! news is also planning coverage. The fancy hats may cover people’s heads, but they won;t cover themselves, you know.

Bob Costas will lead the coverage, along with:
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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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• Armen Keteyian‘s inside report when the lights went out at Super Bowl XLVII airs tonight on “60 Minutes Sports” on Showtime. Keteyian was in the NFL control booth interviewing the league’s Senior V.P. of Events when the power went out.
• As the “Today” show marked one year to the Sochi Olympics this morning — with tubing on man-made snow on Mt. Rockefeller — NBC Sports chief Mark Lazarus predicts, “We believe we’ll be profitable in Sochi.” NBC lost $223 million on the 2010 Vancouver Winter games, and made $88 million on the London Summer games.

• The Weather Channel’s Stephanie Abrams and “LIVE’s” Kelly Ripa will be among the runners taking part in the Empire State Building Run-Up tonight, a race up the 86 floors of New York City’s most famous office building.

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.

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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The Weather Channel’s “Wake Up With Al” is making New York City its permanent home. Since it launched in 2009, the program had been split between New York, where Al Roker also co-anchors NBC’s “Today,” and Atlanta, where Weather Channel and anchor Stephanie Abrams are based.

In April, Weather decided to test out having Abrams co-anchor with Roker from New York. At the time it was described as a “tryout.” Well, the results are in, as Abrams and the show will be moving to New York permanently.

At this point, the only firm decision is to have both Abrams and Roker anchor from New York. Some staffers will likely move as well, and we have heard rumors of a new studio for the show, though none of those are firmed up yet.

The Weather Channel meteorologist and “Wake Up With Al” co-host Stephanie Abrams received quite a surprise on the program, as she found out she was being inducted into the Space Camp Hall of Fame.

Al Roker brought on the director of education for Space Camp, as well as a former Space Shuttle commander, to break the news.

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Fresh off of his new contract with NBCUniversal, “Today” co-anchor Matt Lauer is named one of the “Time 100″ most influential  people. As is customary for Time’s list, Lauer was profiled by a well-known colleague, in this case, “America’s Got Talent” judge, radio host and fellow Hamptons-dweller Howard Stern.

We all wondered, Was it over? It’s over, it’s over, he’s losing his hair! It’s got to be over! But we were wrong! The strength was still there, perhaps stronger still, crashing pillars to earth with innate strength and charm and class — Matt Lauer, 54, the anti-Samson, going up against pretty guys and girls, the hairy people. He was still the smartest, the strongest, the classiest. How? Why? This is a guy who never gives up! Why? How? ‘Cause he works his ass off and cares about everything he does. Adversity, begone! Katie leaves. Meredith leaves. Knuckleheads come and go. Matt is there and stronger still. Our leader, diving into treacherous TV morning waters unscathed by sharks, unstung by stingrays, impossible to harm ’cause our Matt is cool and relaxed and so we’re cool and relaxed and we can deal with the complexities of a presidential interview, a great sports event or the wacko.

Later on, Stern gets inappropriate, as he is want to do. Read the rest here, and see the rest of the “Time 100″ here.

Lauer also stopped by the Weather Channel’s morning show “Wake Up with Al,” yesterday, welcoming co-anchor Stephanie Abrams to New York.

WATCH:
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Starting in mid-April, The Weather Channel’s “Wake Up with Al” will have a decidedly different vibe, as the show originates from New York, rather than Weather’s Atlanta headquarters.

Co-host Al Roker usually hosts the show from New York, with his colleague Stephanie Abrams joining him via video from Atlanta. For the next few months however Abrams will be joining Roker in New York. A Weather Channel tipster tells us that the move is a “tryout,” designed to see how the chemistry looks when Roker and Abrams are in the same room rather than in different states. If the results are positive, the show may originate from New York permanently.

To go along with her temporary move, Abrams will also be hosting “Your Weather Today” from New York.

This Thursday, the 2011-2012 NFL season kicks off with the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers taking on the New Orleans Saints. The game will be broadcast on NBC, so naturally the network is making full use of its corporate siblings to promote the event.

NBC News, CNBC, Weather Channel, E! and other networks will all have football-related programming this week, leading up to Thursday’s big game.

Media companies such as NBCUniversal and News Corp. pay big money to secure sports rights, so they make sure that they leverage their other resources to maximize tune-in. For example, earlier this Summer Fox News sent a number of hosts and producers to Arizona during the MLB All-Star Game, and featured baseball in a number of segments that might have otherwise focused on different news.

So what does NBC have planned?

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