Music on The Weather Channel

The Weather Channel has featured a variety of music on its local forecast segments and on its programs since its founding in 1982.

History

Before November 12, 2013, the network largely featured vocal pop music or jazz. After November 12 2013 production music was created for the channel. The Weather Channel released its own Smooth Jazz CD in 2007, The Weather Channel Presents: The Best of Smooth Jazz, based on collections of popular music played during the "Local On the 8s" segments. It peaked at #1 on Billboard's Top Contemporary Jazz charts that year. In 2008, a second compilation CD containing the channel's most requested music was released, titled The Weather Channel Presents: Smooth Jazz II. Stock music, classic rock, film soundtracks, and electronica have also been featured over the years. Other songs containing lyrics from artists (often referred to in the community as "vocal music") have been rotated into the local forecast cycle since then, though the inclusion of lyrical songs poses a problem as the ducking feature of the IntelliStar's Vocal Local function causes both the music and lyrics to be nearly muted (this is not the case with the IntelliStar 2) as the narration track is played in a nearly continuous manner until the end of the 24- to 48-hour forecast segment. This is in addition to the fact that the songs will not be played in their entirety due to the variable and often limited local forecast lengths.

The Weather Channel suspends the music playlist regularly used during the forecast segments at other times (which is rotated on a seasonal basis) when a tropical storm or hurricane approaches coastal areas of the United States, during which time it is substituted with the "Storm Alert" music. For many years during the holiday season, the normal music would be replaced with appropriately-themed music such as instrumental versions of popular Christmas carols and music from various holiday soundtracks. On July 7, 2009, into the early morning of July 8, The Weather Channel played the hit Michael Jackson song "Billie Jean", to commemorate the memorial service held in honor of Jackson that day in Los Angeles, two weeks after his June 25 death. It was also played during the Wake Up with Al playlists in the months that followed among other

Since November 12, 2013, a new music package introduced to The Weather Channel which replaced smooth jazz tracks with specially composed production tracks that fit TWC's sonic brand. Three songs from that package were used for the local forecasts, with a fourth being used during the segments when the channel's "Red Alert" mode (which replaced the "Storm Alert" mode in 2012) is in effect, which also suspends all music during very frequent weather situations. TWC also experimented with vocal music again from February to May 2014 along with the music package. In September 2014, a new song was added to the package; with seven more songs added in November 2014. The channel returned Christmas songs in December 2014. Smooth jazz music returned in 2016 on select days, usually four or five days per month. These smooth jazz tracks were music already licensed as part of TWC's smooth jazz albums from the previous decade. In September 2016, four new Storm Alert songs were added during coverage of Hurricane Hermine.

In March 2017, during coverage of Winter Storm Stella, another new storm alert theme was added. On July 4, 2017, and again on August 18, 2017, Weezer's newest song "Feels Like Summer" was played. On the day of the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, music containing the words "sun", "sunshine" or "eclipse" in the songs' title were played, including "Ain't No Sunshine", "Walking on the Sun", "Let the Sunshine In"; "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" by Stevie Wonder, "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles, and "Eclipse" by Pink Floyd. Three new songs from Extreme Music were added to the package in August 2018. Vocal music was played on new years eve 2018 and again in 2019. Vocal music was played on certain occasions in 2019 notable instances including February 14th Independence day and more.

Trammell Starks

Trammell Starks wrote the music for the 1996 playlist and Weatherscan his music was played on the emgercy feed until 2012.

See also

• Local on the 8s#Music on Local on the 8s
• Music playlists
• The Weather Channel Presents: The Best of Smooth Jazz
• The Weather Channel Presents: Smooth Jazz II