KFSM Installs Two Skycams

KFSM, Channel 5 has installed two Skycam cameras to constantly monitor weather in Fayetteville and Fort Smith. The station began using the cameras April 21, the anniversary of the tornado that hit Fort Smith in 1996.

One camera is perched on a three-story tall tower above the station’s office in Fayetteville’s Northwest Arkansas Mall. The other is atop a five-story studio tower in Fort Smith.

“They’re 45-pound cameras that have windshield wipers and heating elements to keep them from freezing up,” says Gene Graham, general manager for KFSM.

The cameras remain on at all times and can be controlled from the respective studios. Employees can pivot the cameras and use zoom lenses to get different shots from around the area.

Graham says he got the idea for the cameras after watching one on television in Nashville, Tenn. With that camera, he says, the Nashville station was able to warn viewers in outlying areas of severe weather that was heading their direction.