Wpmt’s Amy Lutz Is Back In The News

She's back. Amy Lutz returned to WPMT-TV Fox 43 as evening and late-night news anchor Monday.

She was off for six weeks adjusting to a new addition to her household.

She and her husband welcomed Addison Danielle, a 7-pound, 6- ounce baby girl, to their family. Addison was born May 30 by a surrogate.

Would she recommend this method for having a child?

"Every mom wants the chance to experience carrying her own child, feeling her baby kick and move around, but it just wasn't in the cards for us," Lutz says. "It was definitely difficult, but in the end, the happiness I feel when I look at her outweighs any sadness I felt along the way."

Lutz covered the Long's Park fireworks that Fox 43 aired live July 6. It was the first event she's covered since the baby's arrival.

"I was pretty nervous, actually," she says, "and happy at the end of the night to come home to see my little nugget."

Where's Dr. John? Even before I updated readers on the whereabouts of Drew Anderson (he's everywhere), fans of Dr. John Scala's work were asking where he has been.

Scala, of Lancaster, is a meteorologist who works part time at WGAL-TV 8. After Doug Allen retired at WGAL, Scala filled in a lot at the station.

Now News 8 has its four-person weather team in place and Scala's hours at the station have decreased, but he still has his foot in the door.

His fingerprints are on several other weather-related jobs. The past-president of the National Weather Association also is a private weather consultant.

So what is a weather consultant?

Insurance companies and the legal industry hire him to testify or give expert analysis about weather.

He might determine how strong the wind was when storm damage occurred. He'll study road conditions during the time an accident happened. Or, if someone is suing after a fall on a slippery sidewalk, he'll determine how much snow was on the ground at the time of the incident.

A former weather professor at Millersville University (one of his students was current WGAL morning meteorologist Christine Ferreira), Scala worked at the Weather Channel from 1998-2002.

He was the station's first on-air storm analyst, he says, on a show called "Your Weather Today," which aired 7-10 a.m. His job was looking for the big events.

"I enjoy the big guys," he says, talking about significant storms. "My role was to look at national weather for potential big threats, adding insights and value to weather."

He hopes to carve out the same niche with WGAL, in a role of expert analysis when the big storms arrive.

He and WGAL weatherman Matt Moore did an in-depth piece that aired on WGAL's July 14 newscast looking back on the 10-year anniversary of the tornado that went through Campbelltown, Lebanon County.

They used some of Scala's photos from the site 10 years ago; he participated with the National Weather Service on a damage survey as an unpaid consultant.

You also can catch him at 9:30 p.m. Mondays on WeatherBrains at live.bigbrainsmedia.com.

"It's a bunch of weather geeks online," Scala says, "but it is always varied and always entertaining."

The show attracts between 20,000 and 25,000 viewers a week, he says.

Hall is out: Arsenio Hall's comeback to late-night TV lasted one year. His talk show will be replaced on WPMT-TV Fox 43 this fall with "Two and Half Men" at 11 p.m. and "Seinfeld" at 11:30 p.m., a Fox 43 official says.

Staff writer Eric Stark discusses trends and tidbits in broadcast media each week in the Sunday News. He can be reached at estark@lnpnews.com.

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