Weatherman Upset Suburban Tornado Warning Didn't Put Him on the Map

By Tanya Kornilovich

DeKalb, IL - Weatherman Billy Bigsby, who covered the tornado which touched down in the Chicagoland area last night, failed to turn the devastating natural disasters into his “big break.”

“Nobody could’ve seen the twister coming, but Billy said he felt something in the air,” said Joe Henricci, Bigsby’s manager. “I said ‘Billy, put on that navy suit I got you at Brooks Brothers. And a serious tie--stripes but no dots. And that Scrolex we got in the park--you’re gonna want the gravitas. This is gonna be your Kronkite announces Kennedy’s death moment.’”

The tornado warning went into effect at 7:04 PM Monday night, pre-empting a rerun of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine doesn’t want to see The English Patient, and with it came the highest numbers of Bigsby’s career: 7,171 viewers.

“It’s like he was feeding off that energy,” said camera operator Stacey Schuster. “He really brought his A-Game. You could see his radar updates getting more confident, and his hand motions were firm but reassuring. We all thought this was his shot at the big leagues. He was like Tonya Harding at the 1991 US Championships.”

The day after the tornado coverage, as crews cleared fallen trees from the roads, Billy Bigsby waited for his phone to ring. He was expecting calls from affiliate stations in America’s weather capitals--New York, Los Angeles and Dubuque, Iowa. But the calls never came. When the phone finally rang, it was his manager.

“I had been on the phone all day, and finally I had to give up and tell him. The word had come down from the big wigs--they were impressed, but they didn’t think he was ready. It’s never easy to hear.”

While Bigsby drowned his sorrows in Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Travis Scott’s latest seltzer while crying to clips of legendary weatherman John Coleman, at press time Bigsby said, “I was really hoping this one would break through Chicago like the one a couple of months ago. Trees falling, branches flying across Western Avenue, that would have been perfect!”

However, he remained hopeful, noting, “I mean with global warming, that certainly won’t be the last once-in-a-generation weather event for Chicago.”