''It Could Happen Tomorrow'' is a television series that premiered on January 15, 2006 on

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather foreca ...

. It explored the possibilities of various weather and other natural phenomena severely damaging or destroying America's cities. This included: a Category 3

hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Dep ...

hitting

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, an F4

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, alt ...

destroying Washington, D.C.,

dormant volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

Mount Rainier Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a ...

re-activating and destroying towns in the surrounding valleys, a tsunami flooding the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...

coast, an intraplate earthquake impacting

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mo ...

, wildfires spreading into the heart of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

, a huge earthquake leveling

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, a

flash flood A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice or snow flowing ...

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Colora ...

, and a flood in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

. More recent episodes included an

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

, an F5 tornado ripping its way through

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

, and more. So far, the only scenario that has come true is the Colorado floods, which started on September 9, 2013. Because

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...

was only a category 1 and not a 3 when New York was hit, the first episode technically hasn't come true ― although Sandy was the closest call since the series was ended.

Plot

Each episode was broken into several segments: "It Did Happen", a segment that talked about similar disasters happening in other parts of America (or even earlier in the target city featured); "When It Happens/How It Would Happen", which talked about how the disaster would unfold; and a third segment about how to prepare for the disaster, and interviews with residents in the threatened areas about what they think of the disaster threat. Sometimes there is a segment called "Before It Happens", which shows what is being done to prepare for the disaster.

Production

"It Could Happen Tomorrow" was produced by

Atlas Media Corporation Atlas Media Corp. is a New York-based independent production company of non-fiction entertainment. The company was founded in 1989 by Bruce David Klein and produces television series and specials, theatrical documentaries, and digital web ...

. The program's executive producer was Bruce David Klein and supervising producer was Cheryl Houser.

Episode list

Season 1: 2006

†Hour long special, see Katrina episode section below

Season 2: 2007

Katrina episode

Coincidentally, the original Category 5

episode was to involve

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

. It was conceived and scripted months before

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

ever struck New Orleans. After Katrina, the debut episode was changed to instead show such a storm striking

(reducing the storm to a Category 3, as it is believed that is the strongest such storm that would strike the city; such a storm in 1938 missed New York City by just 75 miles, and historical records also show that a similar storm directly hit the city in 1821). On June 4, 2006 The Weather Channel aired this episode, titled "Katrina: The Lost Episode." Unlike most episodes, this episode was one hour in length and combined clips of the "lost" episode with a ''

Storm Stories ''Storm Stories'' is an American non-fiction television series that airs on The Weather Channel (TWC) and Zone Reality. It is hosted and narrated by meteorologist and storm tracker Jim Cantore. ''Storm Stories'' showcases various types of severe ...

''-style retelling of Katrina's effects.

Schedule

''It Could Happen Tomorrow'' continued running on TWC until April 2010, when The Weather Channel began airing many other new weather shows; it was replaced by

and

Full Force Nature ''Full Force Nature'' is an American documentary television series that is narrated by Bill Ratner and ran on The Weather Channel from January 15, 2006 until 2011. Premise ''Full Force Nature'' focuses on extreme weather and weird weather e ...

. On March 12, 2011, ''It Could Happen Tomorrow'' was brought back to the schedule. As of July 2013, two episodes aired Fridays at 4–5 pm, but as of October 2013, it is no longer on TWC's schedule.

References

{{The Weather Channel The Weather Channel original programming Documentary films about disasters 2006 American television series debuts 2007 American television series endings 2000s American documentary television series English-language television shows