Comments (3) Best Local Weathercaster - 2009
Frank Billingsley, KPRC-Channel 2
The only time a Houston weathercaster can truly earn his or her stripes is during hurricane season. A trained monkey could give you the forecast eight months a year. After all, how hard is it to say, "It's gonna be hot and humid and it might rain" over and over again? No, it's only when we get hit or menaced by a big blow that the wheat gets separated from the chaff, and Billingsley proved his mettle again last year during Hurricane Ike, much as he did in 2005 during Rita. While many of the other weathercasters milked the fear and paranoia of both storms for all the doomsday scenarios they were worth, Billingsley remained calm throughout. During Ike, he stayed most focused on Galveston and the coast, where the danger was greatest and where he owns a home. Nobody knew better than Billingsley that as real as the suffering was in Houston, things were much worse on the barrier islands and along the rims of the bays. As Houston Chronicle blogger Eric "SciGuy" Berger put it, Billingsley is the local weathercaster who demonstrates best how to inform rather than scare, and a hurricane-weary region loves him for it.
