COLUMBIA, S.C. — Erin Walker gave a behind-the-scenes look at how our meteorologists do weather every day here at the WLTX studio.
The view you are used to seeing at home is our meteorologists in front of the weather wall showing a map. What the meteorologists see is entirely different.
It’s a green screen! At WLTX, it’s actually a wall that’s painted green and a green floor. The technical name is a chroma key wall.
Anywhere our studio cameras see a shade of green will be replaced with the weather graphics our meteorologists use.
You may be thinking "how do the meteorologists know what they're looking at then?" Thanks to TV screens on either side, our meteorologists see exactly what you see at home.
If our meteorologists wear green, they disappear! If Erin wore a green dress or our other meteorologists wore green ties, that part of their bodies would disappear. While this seems like a good magic trick and certainly gives you a good view of the map, it’s not very helpful for pointing things out.
So, don’t pitch a meteorologist on St. Patrick's Day if you don’t see them wearing green.