70 years of weathering the storm: KOMO-TV's legacy in tracking Seattle's most impactful we

SEATTLE — From the very start, KOMO News has answered a question we all have, every day. What's the weather going to be like?

The answer comes from forecasters who feel like family, including Ray Ramsey, Steve Pool, and KOMO News' Chief Meteorologist today, Shannon O'Donnell.

"Even though we're known for it being kind of gray and pretty mild around here, we definitely get some interesting weather from time to time," Shannon said.

That "interesting" weather? That's the city stopping severe weather bringing ice coated hills, punishing winds, and school canceling snow.

KOMO News was on the air in 1955 when western Washington endured damaging flooding. Right on the heels of those floods, snow coated Seattle.

KOMO-TV's anchor reflected on the storm, and made it feel charming. Our archives include film of a voice over showing people carefully inching along downtown sidewalks as he described, "In November, the stooped figure of old man winter... exhaled an angry stream of polar breath that chilled the northwest from British Columbia to Oregon."

The very first tornado ever recorded in Seattle was in 1962. KOMO-TV footage showed the damage as the anchor said, "what you see here is the result of a meteorological rarity in the northwest. A genuine tornado."

Just a couple weeks later, the Pacific Northwest endured the storm of the century. It was Oct. 12, Columbus Day.

KOMO-TV's footage includes the anchor describing, "On Lake Washington, absolute havoc and mounting reports of death, injury, and almost unbelievable property damage."

The Columbus Day storm is remembered as the most powerful to hit the Pacific Northwest in all of the 20th Century.

The historic snow storm of1996 got reporter Joe Furia his job. His wife, Sabrina Register, was anchoring and called him at home.

"She said, 'a lot of reporters can’t make it in, so if you can make it here, they’ll put you on air,'" Joe remembered. "So I got in the car, made it to the station and they put me on the roof of the station and I started working."

He was officially hired later that day.

And who could forget last year's December 23 ice storm. Holiday travel was at a standstill and social media was filled with videos of people crawling from one spot to the next.

Our own Kelly Koopmans couldn't drive - or even walk out of her neighborhood - to get to the morning show.

"So I lower myself on all fours in the middle of the road and slowly and shamefully crawl across the road," Kelly said. She was five months pregnant and had to inch her way three quarters of a mile to a place where a photographer could pick her up. She remembers thinking, "Is this really happening in this moment and what extent will I go to to get to work?" She made it to the studio just minutes before airtime.

That same morning, Barnett Parker needed to get to his job on our assignment desk.

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"I took about 10 steps just teetering along and realized, I’m going to have to get down on my butt and scootch along here," Barnett said. He "scooched along" for half a mile, and started his shift on time.

"It’s my job to get here and get things going and deal with the coverage," Barnett said. "It’s a bad storm, we’re going to cover this, and we need everybody."

"It is your job and it's your duty to share this information with people, keep them safe," Shannon said. "So it's something we take seriously and something we want to deliver to our viewers."

Watch all of our KOMO 70th Anniversary coverage on YouTube

Watch special stories dedicated to KOMO TV's 70th Anniversary every Thursday at 6 p.m. now through Dec. 10, 2023. See them all online here.