WRUF-TV now showing 24/7 weather

June 1, 2011

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida’s WRUF-TV – Cox Cable Channel 6 in Gainesville and over-the-air on digital channel 10.1 – launched North Central Florida’s first weather channel today.

WRUF-TV, formerly WLUF-TV, features city specific weather conditions, forecasts, and severe storm watches and warnings updated in real time 24-hours-a-day. The weather forecast models – exclusive to WRUF-TV- offer accurate hyper-local forecasts for cities within the broadcast viewing area as well as both coasts including tide information, water temperatures, beach conditions, storm forecasts and tropical storm updates.

WRUF-TV has a network of three “skycams” that provide live and time lapse views. These steerable cameras, controlled in-house, can tilt and zoom 360 degrees to track weather conditions as they occur.

“We’re thrilled with the new WRUF-TV and know the viewers of North Central Florida will agree that this is a channel and website that they’ll come to live with everyday of their lives,” said Randy Wright, executive director of the Division of Multimedia Properties at the College of Journalism and Communications.

WRUF-TV is powered by 11 computers based at the UF College of Journalism and Communications and features a composite of data from three National Weather Service NEXRAD Doppler radars providing a unique and valuable capability to take viewers into the heart of the thunderstorms with three-dimensional graphic depictions. Quadruple redundant data streams protect the public and ensure weather data is always updated and reliable during all weather conditions.

The system will provide severe weather watches and warnings to all of the stations in the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Division of Multimedia Properties: Florida’s 5 WUFT-TV, Florida’s 89.1 WUFT-FM, WRUF Sportsradio 850 and Country 103.7 The Gator.

WRUF-TV will also broadcast exclusive Florida Gator athletics content from Gatorvision and GatorZone.com, the online media component of University of Florida Gator athletics. In addition Gainesville and Alachua County news from WUFT-FM and WUFT-TV, and North Florida sports from WRUF Sportsradio 850 will be featured on the channel.

The partner website for WRUF-TV is in the final stages of development and an announcement will follow within the next 10 days regarding the launch of that product. The online version of WRUF-TV will feature North Central Florida’s most in depth and user-friendly weather information and thunderstorm and tropical weather tracking capabilities.