By Ed Offley
A weather channel dedicated to South Walton and other Florida Panhandle localities is set to begin operations this month, its co-founders tell Sowal Life.
Meteorologists Chris Smith and Dan Nyman left Panama City Beach TV station WJHG on June 15 to create “Panhandle Weather,” a 24/7 weather channel that will be available online and on most streaming channels. The service launched on October 1.
The channel will focus on weather for the Florida Panhandle, with specific segments for individual cities and counties throughout the day. It will also have the capability of issuing weather emergency warnings for severe storms, tornadoes and hurricanes.
“This is going to be the wave of the future for weather,” said Smith, who had worked at WJHG for sixteen years of his three-decade career before making the move into independent weather forecasting. “You don’t need a TV station to broadcast now.”
The data collection process for “Panhandle Weather” is the same as that for traditional broadcast outlets. Smith and Nyman will have a constant feed of information from the National Weather Service on cloud cover, wind, rain, temperature and humidity. From that, they will create specific situational reports and forecasts by incorporating locally collected weather data into the program.
Nyman, who worked at the station for three years after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, said the programming goals for Panhandle Weather are far different from national cable channels like The Weather Channel. “The online weather operations have been taking off for a decade now,” he said. “But they are not local,” Smith added. “We’re going to be hyperlocal.”
Operating on a continuous 24-hour cycle, “Panhandle Weather” will have the capacity to focus on specific locations from Pensacola to Blountstown and from Crestview to Apalachicola. It will offer immediate reports and forecasts of strong interest to both residents and for tourists with a future vacation reservation in South Walton and other Emerald Coast destinations.
“We’ll be able to do a lot more content,” Smith said. “We’ll be more relevant to a lot of people locally.”
The channel will be produced and streamed from a studio at Smith’s Inlet Beach residence. Florida Setworks, a Pensacola-based broadcast studio design firm, has built the set from which Smith and Nyman will monitor the region’s weather.
To enhance reporting accuracy, “Panhandle Weather” is preparing to initially install a half-dozen sophisticated remote weather stations that will continuously transmit weather and storm data into their computer system, as well as transmitting live weather videos. Smith said they are still negotiating with potential businesses across the region to install the devices at key locations. Depending on the location, the remote stations will transmit their data via Ethernet or by the Starlink satellite network.
“We want to have one on Panama City Beach,” Smith noted. “PCB has never had a weather station.”
The app for “Panhandle Weather” will be available at the Google Play Store, the Apple Store and on most of the streaming channels such as Amazon Fire, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and others. The app is free and customers can utilize “Panhandle Weather” at no cost. The operation will rely on corporate sponsors and advertising for its revenue, he said.
Smith described the true value of “Panhandle Weather” if a serious weather emergency should occur. “Say if a tornado is coming and you catch the alert on your computer or TV, you can grab your phone and go to your safe space, and continue to watch everything from there,” he said. “It’s totally seamless.”
Nyman said there are already about a dozen stand-alone weather forecasting firms in operation in the United States. “Panhandle Weather” is the first of its kind in Florida.
