Up close, some things at the Channel 69 studio look different than they do on a 36-inch home television screen.
Behind the anchors’ desk is a window-and-wall section that on TV looks like part of a spacious living room but in person could probably be felled by a good body block.
And the famed weather “boardwalk,” which on the tube looks so inviting that people have asked how they could vacation there, is simply a wooden deck outside the studio in Salisbury Township.
One thing that comes across the same up-close and on-screen is the cheerful personality of WFMZ-TV Channel 69 meteorologist Ed Hanna.
On the air, Hanna is as pleasant as a 70-
degree day with low humidity as he excitedly describes the weather, any kind of weather.
Off the air, the upbeat weatherman makes Mister Rogers look like Oscar the Grouch.
“Ed is every bit what he seems to be on the air,” said WFMZ anchorman Rob Vaughn. “He is a fanatic for the weather. He is constantly studying it, even during off hours.”
“Ed is a genuine guy,” said WFMZ General Manager Barry Fisher. “He is fun to work with. He has lot of enthusiasm for weather and a lot of enthusiasm for his work in general.”
Hanna has more time than ever to talk about the weather now that WFMZ has teamed with AccuWeather to form a 24-hour local weather station on Channel 96 (RCN Cable) and Channel 74 (Service Electric).
Hanna will likely have a busy week. He and other meteorologists are expecting heavy snowfall beginning today.
With the exception of Vaughn, homegrown Hanna, who grew up on Allentown’s South Side, might these days have more “face time” than any Lehigh Valley television personality.
To get a glimpse into the off-air personality of Hanna, one needs to listen to the story of a rude anchorman he met in New York City in 1980.
Hanna, then 16, was with his parents and sister at the Democratic National Convention when they saw an anchorman they recognized.
His sister, then 14, asked the anchorman for his autograph.
“I’ll never forget it,” Ed Hanna recalled. “He said, “I don’t have time for you right now, just move along.’ I’m telling you, it was so crushing to my sister. My mom was so disappointed, she never watches that news again the same way. No one ought to be in this business if they don’t like talking to people, if they don’t enjoy people.”
Remembering how his sister was treated more than two decades ago, Hanna said he tries to treat every person he meets like a best friend.
Hanna’s route to become a meteorologist was not a straight path.
As a youngster, he would run to the television when his hero, folksy Philadelphia weatherman Jim O’Brien, was on the air.
But Hanna thought he would attend law school after graduating from Allen High School and Messiah College, where he studied communications.
He began working in the state House and Senate offices. He covered human interest stories for WINK 104 radio in Harrisburg.
During what he thought would be a brief hiatus until he went to law school, he returned to the Lehigh Valley to sell real estate.
His mother, Brenda, was looking for a location to move her growing puppet business in 1986. Hanna found a place on Hamilton Boulevard, and country gifts were added to the store.
Business was greater than Brenda Hanna could handle alone, so, as Hanna remembered, “The next thing I know, I’m a partner with her in the gift shop industry.”
All the while, he maintained a passion for weather and the media.
Wanting to save “Barney” the dinosaur from going off the air and disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm he saw during the pledge drive, Hanna volunteered to appear on WLVT-39 and urge people to send in donations.
His on-air personality honed, he auditioned at Channel 69, where news director Brad Rinehart was looking to hire the station’s first full-time weather personality.
Hanna was hired in March 1996.
Five years later, he can’t imagine doing anything else.
“I wasn’t even doing the weather for two months that I thought, “I love this so much,’ ” Hanna said. “This is my life. I’ve always loved weather. This is where I belong.”
Hanna in 1999 received his certificate in broadcast meteorology from Mississippi State University. For on-air reporters the school offers a comprehensive three-year certification program that involves the Internet and home study.
The Morning Call recently caught up with the 36-year-old weatherman at the studio on a snowy day and at Sacred Heart Elementary School in Bath on a clear day. At Sacred Heart, one of nearly 200 schools Hanna has visited in the last three years, the married father of two gave pupils an “Ed-ucation” in the weather, the inner workings of a TV station and the importance of reading.
During the snowy day, Hanna filed live and taped reports, answered pages and telephones, replied to e-mail messages, communicated with cameramen through an earpiece and constantly checked the weather radar.
Nary a dark cloud of temperament could be found.
A winter weather advisory was in effect, meaning there could be about 2 to 4 inches of snow. But Hanna was concerned about a drop in temperature that he said could lead to higher snowfall amounts. Some parts of Allentown would go on that night to see 10 inches.
During broadcasts, Hanna stands in front of a plain green screen called a ChromaKey. Television viewers see graphics and maps where Hanna sees green.
On the radar, green signifies rain, blue signifies snow and pink signifies ice or sleet. Blue was the color this day.
Hanna said storms often bring communities together. He said he gets 1,500 to 2,000 e-mails during storm days.
In his sock are audio connectors that allow him to hook up both his microphone and a device that lets him hear the television program and communicate with the technical people.
In person, he looks younger and thinner. Visitors to the studio during the snowy day were struck by how calmly and seamlessly Hanna went from a conversation to, 30 seconds later, addressing thousands of viewers in a live report.
Hanna’s 20-foot “leash,” a mesh tube that holds wires in place, prevents him from straying too far from the screen.
Occasionally, he will trip over the tube, sending Vaughn and Hanna into laughing fits.
“My leash will get stuck and I’ll be trying to get loose,” Hanna said. “And all of a sudden it will give way, and I’ll like fall almost on his lap. People can’t see that. As I’m sitting back up, we’ll just keep going and we’re just in hysterics. A lot of stuff like that happens. It’s live TV, and you’ve just got to keep going.”
Yet when weather is serious, Hanna is, too.
Farmers have told him they make $100,000 harvesting decisions based on his forecasts.
The worst weather disaster Hanna can recall in the region was the 1998 tornado that served as a wrecking ball for many homes in Lyons, Berks County.
Much of Hanna’s fascination with weather stems from its power and variability. Trying to monitor atmospheric conditions, he said, can be more complicated than trying to throw a bowling ball that is changing shape, size and weight down a moving lane with moving pins.
Hanna said he would be rich if he had a nickel for every time he heard this good-natured jab: “You have the only job where you can be wrong most of the time and still keep your job.”
When he is wrong, Hanna admits it on the air.
“It’s arrogant, I think, when I see a forecaster that just basically ignores it,” he said.
Nonetheless, he said, three-day forecasts are accurate 90 percent of the time and five- to seven-day forecasts are accurate 70 percent to 75 percent of the time.
Hanna much prefers Allentown’s weather to the 100-plus degree days in, say, Fresno, Calif.
“In the weather business, I honestly think that any day is a perfect day,” he said. “I just love every kind of weather. We take our area for granted, the fact that we have four seasons.”
Reporter Mike Frassinelli
610-820-6595
mike.frassinelli@mcall.com
