The Art of Visualizing the Weather with Tyler Case

In this episode of the Everything Weather podcast, we talk with Tyler Case, the content development manager at Baron Weather. We discuss Tyler's journey from a weather enthusiast in sunny California to a professional in the meteorology field. Tyler shares his experiences in Rutgers' Weather Watcher program, his brief stint as an on-camera meteorologist in Wyoming, and his transition to content development at Baron Weather. We also delve into the challenges of visual weather storytelling, the importance of clear and captivating graphics, and the exciting future of weather technology. 

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About the Everything Weather Podcast

A weekly podcast where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather and the many things that connect to it, and have a little fun along the way. The podcast is hosted and produced by Kyle David, a meteorologist and digital science content producer based in New Jersey.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Everything Weather Podcast

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Everything Weather Podcast, the podcast where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather, and have a little fun along the way. I'm your host, Kyle David, and today on the podcast, we're very excited to have Tyler Case. He's the content development manager at Barren Weather. We're going to be talking a little bit about what he does there and about his weather story and what he thinks is going to be the future for visual weather storytelling. Hi, Tyler. Welcome to the Everything Weather podcast. Thank you. Great to be here. Absolutely. Before we get into the interview, I've got a fun game for you. So this is going to be the first of a couple on the podcast. So our first one, keep four cup five of something weather related. So for this, I've got a couple of weather themed parts of the day. You get to keep four. You got a cup five, though, unfortunately. So on the list we have snowy winter days, crisp fall days, rainy spring mornings, summer night thunderstorms, windy autumn days, sunny summer afternoons, mild spring days, blustery winter nights, and dewy fall mornings.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

I gotta keep the winter one. I'm a snow person, so which is funny as someone who now lives in the south, but I gotta keep the winter, the the snowy day. I think I gotta keep the crisp fall day. Because something about just fall and football and I don't know that that screams me. So I gotta keep those two for sure. But I think I like the Dewey. Is it Paul? Was it Dewey Fall or Dewey Spring?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Dewey fall morning.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Dewey fall, I'll keep two because I'm a big fall person. And then what were the spring ones? I gotta throw in a spring one.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

So we have mild spring days, and then we have rainy spring mornings.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

I gotta keep the mild spring day. Let's keep it cool. I'm a Californian in heart, so I gotta keep the mild in there.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

So I'm curious, what's your definition of mild?

SPEAKER_02 2:00

I say mild is like anywhere in the 60s. And honestly, you could I I would argue you could go all the way up to 75 and still consider that mild. I think once you get up into the upper 70s, lower 80s, you start talking about warm. So I mean, not that I would be warm at 78, but I classify mild, probably 60 to 75. I know it's a large range, but no, that's a fair range.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I'm comfortable at that range too. So you've got snowy winter days, you said crisp fall days, you said dewy fall mornings, and you're going with mild spring days. Mild spring days. Alright, so on the list you are cutting uh rain rainy spring mornings, summer night thunderstorms, which uh that is a good one.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

It's just here, especially it's just so humid that I'm like, if I had to if I had to pick between listening to a thunderstorm and having actual comfortable temperatures, I think I'll take the comfortable temperatures at this point. If you'd asked me several years ago, I probably would give you a different answer.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

That's fair. I'll give you that. Also cutting windy autumn days, which to be honest, we've been seeing for the last few weeks now, and all the leaves are everywhere. I I'm comfortable with getting rid of that too. And we're also getting rid of sunny summer afternoons, which as a California native, I'm kind of surprised you cut that one.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I mean, every day is a sunny summer afternoon in California, but it's especially and and when I was there too, because I left at 18 to go to Ruckers and then really never moved back. So I was there during peak drought period. Like they've since snapped out of that. So I always told people like the concept of rain in the summer was so foreign to me as a young adult because I grew up, you just didn't see rain like May through September. That was very normal. Like it never rained. I can count the number of times I saw it rain in the summer on one hand in my hometown. It was nuts. I think that's probably why you just get bored of it.

Tyler's Weather Story: From California to Meteorology

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Uh yeah, I feel like it would just be repetitive day in and day out, like at least sneak in a couple clouds. But that's just my opinion on it. But yeah, that's a solid, that's a solid list there, Tyler. I will give you kudos for weeding out the good ones and getting rid of some of the less desirable ones, but prioritizing those good weather parts of the day. With that said, thank you for coming onto the podcast. And we're gonna get into talking about you, what got you into the weather. And I always ask everybody on the podcast, what is your weather story? So I'll ask you, Tyler, what is your weather story and what got you interested in everything weather?

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Funny because you talk to any meteorologist, and that you'll get different variations of the same story, but so there's always that one trigger, right? And it's like a lot of my colleagues going through school, and even my coworkers now, they can all point to, okay, it was insert hurricane here or snowstorm here and stuff like that. Mine is unique because I don't have really any of that. Like I said, I grew up in California. I'm from Silicon Valley, so Sunnyvale is my hometown. It's a stones throw away from Cupertino, which is home famously to Apple, and Mountain View, which is home to Google. Right in the heart of Silicon Valley, about 45 minutes south of San Francisco. That's where I grew up. There's not a whole lot of weather there. So sunny and mild is the climate. That's what we saw. Growing up, I didn't see a whole bunch of that. And I remember just occasionally you'd get a rogue thunderstorm would pop up. And to me, that was such a I was scared of it as first as a kid. And it was just such a foreign concept because, like I said, it barely rained to begin with, let alone a thunderstorm popping up. First time I saw lightning, I was terrified. And then it was just like, what was that? I want to learn more about that. And it just grew from there. So I would flip through and watch the weather channel, and then I would see storm stories and I'd watch that, and it just grew from that part. My brother at the time wanted to be a sports reporter, so I would always do the weather and he would do the sports. So every morning my poor parents would wake up and they just listen to my brother and I talk to them nonstop about random things. If there was ever an active weather outbreak going on at the same time of a major sporting event, it was World War III for our one uh TV household over who won and got to watch it. And they would he would be like, but it's the and like insert whenever this major sporting event is. And I'm like, but there's a tornado outbreak. That would turn into a fight. So I have fond memories of that. But I started at a young age, maybe five, six, writing to local TV meteorologists, talking about what I liked to do. I was interested in that, and I I had one of them respond to me, came to my school, answered my questions, gave me a tour of the station, like all that stuff. And I think that was the tipping point where it's like, okay, I'm heart set on this now. So it was Spencer Christian, who actually worked on Good Morning America for a while, and then at the time was the chief meteorologist at the ABC station in San Francisco. So uh got to go up there, see the play with the green screen, everything that a 10-year-old would want to play with. And yeah, then grew grew into it in middle school, high school, slipping through the channels and stumbled upon a very good Ruckers football team, knocking off a very good Louisville football team. Uh, just accidentally stumbled upon that and asking my parents, because at the time growing up on the West Coast, I had never heard of Ruckers. And so I was like, Well, where is that even? Because that's cool. Like, it looks like they're an underdog, right? And my mom, being from New Jersey, originally spent the first eight to ten years of her life in a Monmouth County and then relocated to my hometown when her dad, my grandfather, got a new job, was telling me, Oh, yeah, it's in New Jersey. And so I was like, Oh, well, I wonder if they have like a Met program. And so I started looking at it, and that was really it. So it was, I I loved the Weather Watcher program. It had everything I wanted to do. I love that it was student run. That was it.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

So you found out about Ruckers because of the Rutgers football team, and then from there you went route down the rabbit hole and found, oh, they have a meteorology program. I might end up going there. Yep. That just that's pretty much what happened. Yeah. Just out of curiosity, what made you want to go across the country as opposed to like staying on the west coast or even like a little bit closer with like the central part of the United States?

SPEAKER_02 8:04

And I did look at a couple schools in the central U.S. too, but I knew I wanted to leave the state. There were primarily there was there were some issues with the local schools and the schools in UC have being so overpopulated that people weren't graduating on time because they couldn't get into the classes that they needed. So there was some of that going on at some of the schools that I like, and a lot of the schools in California didn't have a Met program or at least one that focused on broadcasting, which is what at the time I really was interested in. And then so that was part of it. The other part of it was I was always independent. My parents just raised me to be adventurous and be able to take on the world on my own. I I had all the support in the world I could have ever asked for, but I was blessed enough to have the skill set to be like, I'm ready to do this, and I want to rip the band-aid off and move away. And that I think, and my brother ended up doing the same thing. And I think both of us would tell you, I certainly would, and I'm pretty sure he would do the same thing. That was one of the better decisions we ever made because it really made it after we graduated, it was so much easier to be independent and take on the real world, not having that crutch of being so close to home. I was already used to bending for myself at that point. So that was another part of it. And then the third part of it I'd also kind of other talked about, but I wanted to go somewhere where there was weather. I wanted to see it, I wanted to experience it. And growing up in sunny California, I didn't touch snow until I was probably 11 or 12. Uh, I was close to being a teenager for the first time I ever touched snow. And so I was like fascinated by it. And I was like, I want to walk in snow, I want to live in snow. And so I ended up obviously at Ruckers and I used to walk, I would walk like in the fields and stuff, the unplowed sidewalks, solely because at home I never got to do that. So they'd have these nice salted and plowed sidewalks, and like for my underclassmen years, walk through the grass, everybody would be walking on the sidewalk, and I would just be trudging through the snow because I could. That was it. The funny thing was I had looked at some schools in Florida and didn't really want to deal with hurricanes. Ironically, I ended up at Rutgers during the what ended up being the middle of the dry spell of Florida, not seeing any landfalling systems for whatever it was, eight, ten years or something like that. My first night in the dorms was tropical storm Irene. That was the the first night I spent in the dorm, and then Sandy came the following year. So it was funny because I was like, I don't want to deal with hurricanes. Let's go to New Jersey. You don't see that there, and I got two, and Florida got zero. So it was kind of funny. I guess it technically wasn't two hurricanes, it was what drop two tropical systems, the better way of putting it. But yeah, still funny.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

That kind of ironic, too. And then the fact that you said you didn't touch snow until you were 11, 12, that's big. Because for me, I've lived in New Jersey all my life, and I remember snow from a young kid all the way up to now, although it's not really much snow these days. But what was that adjustment like going from sunny and mild in your case dry for California to very active weather? You had snow, you had Irene, you had sandy, a whole bunch of stuff that year, and then going forward.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yeah, it was definitely an adjustment because, like I said, in yeah, in California, you don't have to worry about, especially in the summer, any outdoor event, like barring some sort of wildfire or a major event like that or excessive heat, you're not gonna get anything postponed or canceled due to rain. It just doesn't happen in the summer, especially, which is when most of your outdoor activities, right, are happening. And so that took some adjustments coming there, like, oh, it actually rains here in the fall. Baseball games don't happen, things like that would go on. So that took some getting into and having to like actually pay attention, like, oh, I gotta monitor this because this might impact my love. In California, it rains. Sometimes you have to be aware of excessive rain, but at least in my part of California, other than that and wildfires, that was really it. So it was like, okay, how much is it gonna rain? Oh, just a little bit. All right, I bring a raincoat to school and I'm fine. And in New Jersey, you had a lot more like, oh, I gotta worry about thunderstorms, where it might rain sideways for a solid like couple minutes. And so it's like, yeah, I should probably stay inside now, or snow. And it's like, is class going to be canceled? Maybe it is, maybe it's not. I don't know. And ice storms, all that stuff. Most of the collegiate time is spent there in the winter, so you're spending more time dealing with that than anything else. It was nice, I think. It was refreshing in a way to have that kind of variety.

College Days: Rutgers and WeatherWatcher Program

SPEAKER_01 12:21

You get to get a taste of everything with the weather and fuel your passion even more. You had mentioned the Weather Watcher program. Tell a little bit more about your experience with that and some of the other experiences that you took advantage of at your time at Rutgers.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Yeah, so I do Weather Watcher all four years. I was in the living learning community for two years. I led it the second year. That was one of the things that I had noticed when I was initially researching the school. And I love the fact that it was mostly there were faculty advisors, obviously, but I love the fact that it was student run. And as I was looking at it, I'm like, oh wow, these guys actually they have a green screen. But there was just something about it where I was seeing underclassmen and I was reading about it, and they're like, it's not policed or anything like that. Like you just they give you the ropes and they give you the tools you need to learn how to properly develop your skills there. And then it's just up to you. Do you want to be just behind the scenes? Do you want to jump all in and be on camera? Do you want to be part of the leadership team? And I ultimately decided I wanted to be a major part of that. So I took the next step and uh led the living learning community in my sophomore year, which meant living in the dorms again. But I willingly did that because I loved it so much my first year. I met some of my best friends. I still talked to them. Several of them were in my wedding. It was just a great way of getting involved with people with several interests. I always told people you don't have to be a meteorology major to be in this. If if it's just something you're interested in, you just like television, or we had a couple of theater kids who were just like, I just really like presenting, and this is what I did. And so several different people did it who had no background and no interest in going into TV weather at all. And I thought it was awesome. You could all learn from each other in a little bit. Everybody did things their different way. So that was nice. And then I managed it for two years. Uh, managed the transition from PowerPoint to a professional broadcast system. And that was my first taste into graphical production, which is what I do now. So that was a lot of fun. I got to work with that for two years, came really involved with the student chapter as well, was on the executive board of that for two years, vice president my junior year, president my senior year, got to go to AMS conferences because of that, and got to set up all the events for that, and learned planning for the AMS conference and making phone calls to airlines and hotels and all that, trying to get tickets for at the time. I think it was like 40 or 45 people or something like that, trying to get all that set up. My fond memories of doing that. My freshman year, I was very involved with the marching band there, which was a blast. I loved it. That was a part of a big part of my youth, like all the way through elementary school up into high school. I was in band and music, marched all four years of my high school career, and then did him one year at Ruckers. Ultimately decided that just the time commitment was too much. I wanted to do more with the learning community and the Weather Watcher and the Met Club and student chapter. So kind of switched gears from that, did a little bit less of that, more kind of work stuff, which was a hard decision to make, but I I do think it was the right decision for me at the time, especially. Met my wife there too. So she was at the performing dance company, and one of her friends from the PDC happened to live two doors down, and that was how we met. So that was uh obviously a good positive side experience from that too. But yeah, it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah, it sounds like an awesome story that you met your wife or your current wife at Ruckers. That's a really cool story. I know a few people who have had similar experiences, not just at Rutgers, but in their college experience as well. And for our listeners who are listening who are wondering about the Weather Watcher program, the Believe and Learning community, I'll just briefly say it's an on-camera program. It allows students to get in front of the camera, talk about the weather. And I was heavily involved with it as well. Great program there. It's similar to if I had to compare it. Go Unitly has the Oklahoma School has a program like that, Pennsylvania State, it's the campus weather service. So it allows students to get involved with broadcasting about the weather and telling the weather story, which is what you still do to this day. So I want to talk a little bit more about that. What are some other experiences that you got at Ruckers during your tail end of your collegiate experience?

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Yeah, once you get to a certain point, at least at Ruckers, you have to pick a track, right? So they give you at the time it was climate, climatology, environmental, and operational were the tracks you had to pick. And I knew I wanted to do broadcasting. I was in a class of there were 14 of us. It was really nice to be in that small, tight-knit group of people. I always told people when I was giving them tours and stuff, 14 seems small, but especially when you get to an upper class when you're spending all your time together, right? So because you're to the point where you've done all your GE stuff, all the math is done, all the English is done. So you're just taking out hardcore Met classes now in any what any of your minor stuff. So you're pretty much spending maybe close to 20 to 30 hours a week with these people, and then then they become some of your closest friends for several years, and then and even leading outside of school because you're spending so much time with them. But you have this close-knit community, and then the the resources of a major university, too. Any pretty much anything you wanted to do was at your disposal. And we had some great professors who pushed me to apply to a variety of different internships. I was focused on broadcasting. So I smeared towards those. I originally was going to intern at uh a station in my hometown, the CBS affiliate there, and for a variety of reasons that ended up following through, they couldn't offer that internship anymore. I thought that was it. I was going into my spring semester already. It was like December of my junior year. So I was getting ready to start the new semester in January when I got that email that unfortunately you're not going to be able to intern here now this summer. And so I had stopped looking because I had that lined up. So I felt a little lost at the time. And then we went to the AMS conference that year was in Atlanta. And we went, and ironically, it was if you ever saw the Walking Dead posters with all the cars that were like stopped on the interstate. They had that ice storm in 2014, and someone did a before and after with the Walking Dead poster on one side, and then the other side was the actual picture of all the cars stopped in the ice. The AMS conference in Atlanta was right after that. So it was really funny because we had this major weather event. All the meteorologists came to town for this giant annual conference, and it was sunny and 70 the entire time. And then we all left, and another ice storm came through. So I always laugh about that because it was like we had that one week of nice weather when all the Mets came in, and then everybody left and it all broke loose again. But, anyways, so I ended up in Atlanta, which is home to the Weather Channel. Met a Rutgers alum there, Mark Elliott, who's no longer there, but I think he still has some freelancing there. But at the time, he was one of their prominent broadcasters. Talked to him a little bit. He encouraged me to apply to an internship at the weather presentation department. He says, I'll vouch for you. You're from Ruckers, I know I've talked to you, and I'll bouge for you. Just list me as a reference, but I'll see what I can do. End up getting that internship, moved to Atlanta briefly for two months, spent some time there, learned a lot, got a very extensive taste of what the production life was like. So that was outside of broadcasting. If you asked me going into that, I was like, I have no interest in doing producing. That is part of why I didn't really apply to those kinds of things. I was like, it's just producing. I don't want to just produce. I want to be on air. I want to be that guy that's uh providing this information. And then the more I did that at the Weather Channel and even at Rutgers to a degree, the more I realized these producers do a lot. And it was a lot of fun at the same time. So I was like, I actually like this better than I thought I was going to. Um, and so I learned from some of their best. I did end up getting a reel put together while I was there. Mark Elliott helped me set that up. So I'll be forever grateful for him basically getting me my job in TV outside of college. But it was an interesting transition for me because when I went back to Ruckers, I started applying some of what I learned there. And I realized I have a knack for this. I'm developing skills in this area, but I'm developing a love for it, is what it is. So I really enjoy sitting here and building this content. And then now I get to do that all the time. And it's a blessing, really, because it's just so much fun. It sometimes it feels a little thankless. The people who are on the air get all the credit, and they do a lot too. Do not get me wrong. Those people are very talented and very good at what they do. But the producers, especially that behind the scenes, I have nothing but the utmost respect for, in addition to all the on-camera meteorologists out there.

From On-Camera to Behind the Scenes

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yeah, and that's a very cool full circle moment from being able to watch the weather channel to interning with them. Shut up, Mark Elliott. He's a very awesome guy. Got the pleasure of meeting him at the AMS conference back in Baltimore this year at 2024. For those that don't know about the AMS conference, basically it's the biggest collection of weather weenies, meteorologists, anybody who is associated with the weather in some way, whether it's a hobby or a profession, everybody is at that huge conference. Very fun, very educational. But I'm just curious because you mentioned you wanted to go into on camera, but not you mentioned that you got a taste behind the scenes, and that's basically your job now. And we'll get into that a little bit more. But what made you want to change that avenue, that career track for you?

Life as a Content Development Manager at Baron Weather

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Yeah, so I did end up on camera for a year. I was at the ABC station in Casper, Wyoming. I loved my time in Wyoming. Sometimes it was really hard, especially with the schedule. So it took a lot of for me adapting. And anyone who works in TV knows this, where it's when you first start doing mornings, then that alarm goes off at 2 30 in the morning. It sometimes takes a while for you to train your brain to be like, I have to shift my schedule a little bit and almost be nocturnal. So there was a big learning curve there for me. But Wyoming itself is just so pretty, it was a really great place to live. I had a lot of fun. I got to go to Yellowstone in February, which I highly recommend anybody who, if that situation ever presents itself to you, jump on it because it is just gorgeous and nobody is there. So if you're a nature lover, that's the time to go because there's only one entran to get into the park because that's the only one they plow because of all the snow there. And you're at such elevation that snow just stays. So we saw wolves, we saw a moose, we saw more bison than I could count. So I highly recommend that. But you know, that gave me a lot of opportunity there. But while I was at that station, we actually transitioned weather systems while I was there. And I had a trainer come out and work with us. And I got to do that at Rucker's as well. And both of them told me how awesome it was to be able to travel for work and do the production. And of course, me coming from this background producing, I was like, this is very intriguing to me. I'd always been, I'm an aviation nerd too. So I've always been super fond of flying and traveling and playing and all of that. So I'm like, something about that just sounds appealing to me. So situation presented itself at the end of that one year. Where I work now was hiring a trainer. I applied. I get they offered me the job and I took it that same day. And that's how I got started. So I was a trainer. I went around upgrading computers. So I got to do a lot of like technical stuff, which I'm I'm really technically inclined. My dad's a software engineer, so I got that side of my brain from him. So I got to do a lot of that and I got to travel around the United States. I grew up in California, I moved to New Jersey for four years. I moved to Wyoming for a year, and now I live in Alabama. So I've lived in all four time zones in the continental United States, which is cool. Not a lot of people get to say they've done that. And I went to so many different stations and met so many great meteorologists from all over the country. And it's cool to watch them grow and see people. I see some people at the Weather Channel now that you'll just look through the channels and you're like, I remember when I trained you, you were in Idaho when I went. So it's all about moving on up. And you see, some people have left the business entirely, and it's cool to see what they're up to as well. But I also got to go to so many different places that I otherwise never would have been able to visit. It's just like you get to go to cities in the Midwest and what a lot of people think on is flyover country, but there's a lot that those states have to offer and those cities have to offer. So it's really neat to just be able to go there for work and be like get to see and experience things like that. So I've got to go all over and that was great. And then transitioned over as part of that, I was doing a lot of graphical prep, obviously, because I would before the installation would begin, we would build out a whole bunch of stuff. So we'd come prepared with all that. And so really fell in love with that, got even more in love with it, and then ended up being promoted to my current position as content development manager. So I oversee a graphics team. I have a team of very talented artists who help us build anything from lifestyle graphics, so like you gotta make new Christmas icons or Hanukkah icons or Thanksgiving icons and stuff like that. So oversee some of that, but also a lot of phenomena-based stuff. So how does a tornado form? What is wind shear? How does a radar work? We have a meteorologist who's also an artist, which is a rare combination to find. I have a really great team there, and I also do a lot of the mapping stuff. I've recently more gotten acquainted with GIS-based platforms and things like that. So that's really cool. So get to do stuff like finding raised regions or making border sets for different areas and fire zones and all that kind of stuff. And I get to work with television stations all across the country and see all the cool things they're doing and the ideas they come up with and help them make it easier on them as much as I can to do their daily workflow.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yeah, and before we get into a little more about your specific role right now, some listeners may not actually know what barren weather is. So for those listeners that are listening in, tell them a little bit more about barren weather and what you guys do there.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

We have a couple of different tiers uh of the business. So we're based at a Huntsville, Alabama. That's where our main office is. Huntsville is referred to as Rocket City USA. That's where all the Saturn V rocket was developed and built. And that's what the rocket that did all the Apollo missions back in the 60s and 70s. That's the Huntsville claim to fame. So I think the stat was more PhDs per capita in Huntsville, Alabama than any other city in the United States. It's something along those lines. I've heard that stat thrown around, which is cool to be like I live here. And I always joke with the whenever somebody says, well, it's not rocket science, and it's like here that has a different meaning because it's this is a town filled with rocket scientists. Anyways, it's not a fun being here, but we do have a digital side of the business. So we have a product where we can transmit weather data to aircraft and boats. They can get like a receiver and we can help send them weather information for boat captains and private pilots. Um, we have a program called ThreatNet, which a lot of storm chasers will buy. It's essentially an online digital weather display platform they can use to look at radar. We also had some when universities and places like that purchase that and use it for sporting events or university safety in general. We have a mobile app that we sell to television stations and other entities as well. They can use it for weather-based alerting. So we have some proprietary alerts that we send out. We can provide early warning for lightning or thunderstorms or rotating storms. And then we have a radar side of our business as well, where we'll sell to governments, but also television stations domestically and abroad to give them weather radars they can use, just helping fill radar holes throughout the country. And the side of the business that I work on is the broadcast side. We have a broadcast display platform called Barren Links that goes out to different entities, mostly television stations, but we have several universities that have it. Obviously, you mentioned OU Nightly, they use Baron Links out there at the University of Oklahoma, a couple entities, power companies, stuff like that. Um, any anybody really who needs a broadcast display platform, they can use it for briefings. It could be a um your actual broadcast display platform that's going on on a green screen or a or a monitor wall or something like that. And even some smaller entities of guys just doing weather or or women doing weather on their own. Just they may have a social media following or something like that, and they'll grab a barren links and throw it up on Facebook or whatever your social media platform is of choice. Several of them will have apps too. And it's really cool to see it be used so ubiquitously. But I get to do uh a lot of work with the graphics for that. Everybody needs a seven day, everybody needs those maps and stuff like that. And so I get to work with a team and develop those. In some cases, we're the ones designing it and actually working with the end customer and getting that designed. Sometimes it's dealing with corporate entities and they send us the look and they're like, this is what we want the look to be, and we'll offer our input and give suggestions just based off of our experience because it's all about making sure everything's easy to read. Got to get that information out there. And so we'll weigh all that together and come up with a look and then we execute that and deliver it.

On This Day in Weather History: December Tropical Storms

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Excellent. And before we get too deep into that, we're gonna take a quick break. And after the break, we'll get into a little bit more about what you do and what you see for the future of visual weather storytelling.

Kyle David 29:12

On this day in weather history, we go back to the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. On December 4th, tropical storm Odette formed in the southwest Caribbean Sea, becoming the second December tropical storm on record to form the Caribbean Sea after a hurricane in 1822. Odette tracked northeast and eventually made landfall near Cabo Delso in the Dominican Republic on December 6th. A day later, Odette dissipated and dissolved into a cold front passing through. At the same time, another tropical cyclone was beginning to develop further east in the Atlantic Ocean, in between the Cabo Verde Islands and the Azores. A couple of days later, on December 9th, the second developing system would eventually be classified as Tropical Storm Peter. While it was not expected to strengthen or impact land, Peter quickly gained organization and briefly showcased an eye feature as it trekked northward into open waters. By December 10th, Peter weakened into a tropical depression and was dissolved in the same cold front that absorbed Odette a few days prior. While Peter did not pose any threat to land, Odette brought moderate rainfall to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. Eight deaths were attributed in the Dominican Republic due to flash flooding and mudslides from the rain. The country's banana export business also took a big hit, with 35% of the Dominican Republic's banana crop being destroyed by Odette. While not record-breaking or catastrophic, Odette and Peter marked the first time since 1887 that two tropical storms formed in the month of December.

Weather Fast Money

SPEAKER_01 30:53

We've been talking a little bit about his weather story from a California person to New Jersey person as he ventured into the world of meteorology and the weather and how he eventually ended up in his current role at Barren Weather. We've been talking a little bit about that. We're going to get into that back again. But first, I got another fun game for you, Tyler. We've got Weather Fast Money. So in the style of Family Feud, I've got five survey questions that people have answered. And you're going to give your best guess on what the top answers for each survey question are. And I don't have the sound effects board. I may keep that in the future, but I'll improvise with my own sort of sound effects for the time. So with that said, are you ready, Tyler? I'm ready. Alright. We're not keeping a timer going, but we're just gonna get these in as quick as possible. And it's gonna start with name a weather condition that would be a good name for a wrestler.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

A weather condition that would be a good name for a wrestler. Okay, a hurricane. That's what I'm gonna say first.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Name something people take inside during bad weather. Weather pets. Name a U.S. city known for having great weather.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Name something you do when it's snowing. And name a smell you associate with fall.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Apples.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Okay, alright, we've got our answers locked in. And that last one's gonna be very interesting when we get into that. So the first one was name a weather condition that would be a good name for a wrestler. You said hurricane. Survey says number four answer. So 12 people said hurricane is the best name for a wrestler. Tornado was the number one answer.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Next one was name something people take inside during bad weather. You said pets. Survey says number two answer. 36 people said take in their pets. Clothes is the number one answer. In my opinion, I feel like pets should be the number one.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

It should be the number one. Most people don't hang their clothes outside anymore. Everyone has dryers, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

I I guess some people still hang their clothes outside. Next one was name a U.S. city known for having great weather. You said Los Angeles survey says 13 people said Los Angeles. Miami is the number one answer.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Well, yeah, maybe I just overthink it as a met. I'm just like Miami's got too many other tropical issues and thunderstorms. It's like LA has sunny and warm every day.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

That's true. And I'll give you the number two and number three that I have here. So people said San Diego. That was number two. San Diego is really nice. Phoenix is number three, which I was that's I'm kind of surprised that. Yeah, I'm I I guess some people like the the hot, but hey, you know what? People said for some reason Phoenix, or four more people said Phoenix is better than Los Angeles. Hey, people have their different weather preferences. But something that people do share. Next one is name something you do when it's snowing. You said build a snowman. Survey says number one answer. 31 people if you include on it from Frozen. And then the last one, this one got I thought this was interesting. Name a smell you associate with Fawn. You said Apple survey says number five answer. I gotta this number one answer is leaves. Leaves is the number one answer. I mean, that was my I didn't know I didn't know leaves had a smell.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Because that was my first like when you said that my initial thought is leaves, because that's what I associate with fall. When you say fall, you hear leaves, but I you said scent, and I'm like say I had the same reaction. I was like, I don't associate a scent with leaves. You said scent, I think like cinnamon or apple. So apple popped into my head first.

Kyle David 35:04

Yeah, I I I even know it. Does it have a scent?

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Leaves? I don't know. I'm sure there's candles that are like fall leaves scented. I don't know if there's a scientific scent for it.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Yeah, the other ones make sense. Number two answer is rain, number three, campfire, number four, pumpkin pie, number five apples. But leaves that's just that's crazy. I whoever put leaves as a scent, I wonder what your leaves smell like. Because they don't smell like anything here uh in New Jersey. I don't think they smell like anything in in Huntsville for you.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

But yeah, I'd have to smell them. I don't know. Like, I'm not gonna go around my streets sniffing leaves.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

So I think you would get a lot of curious eyes to wonder, like, what what are you doing? All right. Well, that was our weather fast money. Let us know what you think each answer should have been. And with that, let's get back into our conversation about what you do at Barron. So we talked a little bit about you are involved with the weather graphics, the display of weather information over at Barron. I'm curious, what is your day-to-day look like with that role?

Continuous Development of Weather Content

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Yeah, so usually I get in around eight in the morning. It's looking at the schedule and seeing what upcoming installations we have coming up. So that's the first thing is just reminding, okay, what are our deadlines that we're trying to make? A variety of meetings obviously thrown in there, just updating various stakeholders or my team as well, checking in with each of them individually, making sure they all have what they need, all that kind of stuff. But then it's a lot of content build out. A lot of just okay, I gotta get some maps put together, put some cities on there, do that kind of thing, get that set, and then send samples of those to the television stations to make sure that everything's accounted for, have them throw it up and do air checks with it, make sure everything's what they want. Because our goal with any of these installations is we try and make it as easy as possible on them. So we'll get all those graphics built out, all those decisions like we need to have this city and remove this one, but add this county and those kind of things. Get all that done early. And then when we show up on site for training, we can focus solely on making sure you can use the software the best ability. And that's just worked wonders from for us. We've been able to do so much it during our installation period and get stations launched while we're there, and really help them out. So that's what a lot of it is on the on the front side, is just getting all those quality control checks done and getting all the graphics prepped. But the other side of that is we're always trying to move forward and grow. So there's continuous development going on and how we can be better and how we can add new features to make our users better and make their jobs and daily lives easier. A large part of that is testing and development. Some of it is from a design perspective. We have this new feature we want to add. We're gonna pull various people in and see what's the best way of accomplishing X, Y, and Z with a lot of designing features and thinking, okay, I think it should work this way. We should make it this setting and you put it in this menu, that kind of stuff. But then a lot of, okay, we have a development team that knocks that out. They give us a piece of software and now we have to kick the tires on it. I work with a couple of different ex broadcasters, and we'll all do that as well because we can use the software and know how it's going to be used. Because oftentimes the developers don't necessarily know how what they're developing is going to be used. So they can test it from a I'm not going to destroy your computer perspective. It goes into our hands internally to look at it, kick the tires on it, use it on a daily basis, and make sure that we're not introducing anything into the field when we release it so we can make sure it's working as intended. And then, of course, it ultimately goes into beta testing where it goes to customer hands and then ultimately is delivered to the masses. But the first blind of defense there is us kicking the tires on that. What are we trying to develop? Are there new features that we think will really help us get to that next level? Are there things that customers are telling us that they're like, hey, um, we really could use XYZ? So a lot of that's prioritizing. And okay, what do we think is is is the best course of action for us to do this? How are we going to make more people happy? And I think that's the other thing I really like about working here is it's a company at Baronweather that actually listens to their customers. They are receptive to that feedback that we get, and we're continuously trying to get better.

Meteorology Expertise in Non-Weather Tasks

SPEAKER_01 39:28

And it sounds like you do a lot of different things there. You're doing designing, you're doing creating, troubleshooting, you're working with clientele. So you got a little bit of like marketing business in there. How do you work in your meteorology expertise into all of those non-weather related things? Because on a day-to-day basis, it's for weather, it's forecasting, it's science stuff, but you do a lot of non-science stuff. So how do you work that expertise into those things?

Balancing Science and Art in Visual Storytelling

SPEAKER_02 39:52

I do a lot of that. And we have several full, we have many meteorologists who work with us, and some of them are doing primarily forecasting because we have that side of the business as well. So there are a lot of those that I work with. It's a balancing act for me. It's a little bit of infusing the meteorology into there. A lot of times it's with the phenomena explainers. So a customer will call us up and something's going on. I think of a recent example of it. Maybe it's an omega block or something, something's happening. It's meteorological that's relevant to the news, to the story. And so it's hey, I'd really like some graphics we could use to help tell this story. Like this is what's happening. Because that was something I was brought up on as a college student, as an intern, as someone who shadowed was just the most important thing a lot of broadcasters will do is the why. Sometimes there's some shifts away from that, but that's a value add, I think, that a meteorologist brings to the table that a mobile app by itself can't do. Is I can offer insight into why it's happening and I can talk to you about why it matters to you. I can have that conversation. So that's one big thing. The explainers are a large part of that. And so I get to infuse some of my background into those, making sure that whatever we're designing is scientifically accurate, leading the way to a group of talented artists who can help me visually tell the story. So we're going to talk about this and this, the points we want to make. Then it's just going to the team and saying, okay, we need visuals for this. How would you visually show this? We'll get some sketches and we go from there. It's interesting for me because I get to manage a diverse team. I'm very scientific, you know, meteorology background, that kind of mindset. And then working with a bunch of people who are very artistically inclined and good at drawing and bringing things to life. And so I get to work with both those groups of people. And it's a challenge sometimes to translate through some of that, but it's a lot of fun too. And I've learned a lot from both sides, from the artists that I work with. They teach me more every day. I learn about how to more visually tell a story and what's important to have on the screen. And how do you make things pop and easy to see and easy to read? I gotta be able to glance at this image and care about it. I was always taught as an intern the mom and baby test, which is whatever you show on the screen, you have to be able to grab the attention of a mom walking through the living room holding the baby. That was just what we were always taught. And it's the you whatever whatever you get on there, you have to be able to make grab their attention and to get those eyes. And sometimes that's on the digital side, sometimes that's on the broadcast side. It can all depend. But I think that's a big part of it. It's infusing that weather knowledge in there and knowing the information that's important to convey, and then trying to figure out ways to convey it. And I think an understated part of my job is just the visual side of it and just everything I've learned from the artists that I work with and how to clearly tell a story. It's important work to get all that done and get everything on there so it's clear, crisp, and legible and all that. And sometimes that doesn't involve as much meteorology, but I learn a lot and I've grown a passion for what I do.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

And you got a lot of different people with different backgrounds too. That's got to be a challenge in its own. How are you able to navigate that challenge?

SPEAKER_02 42:57

You learn as you go a little bit, I think. And so some of it is just asking, what do you need? How can I help you? That kind of thing. And just I think as I grow as a leader, as a manager, and and as they grow as artists and individuals and professionals and meteorologists and all that, we learn how better to work with one another. And it's just learning what everyone's communication style is and and how everything goes. Sometimes you need to do things differently depending on who you're talking to, because just they receive information differently. I'm a very visual person, like when I was learning in school and all that, it helped me to write it down and to see it and to draw myself a picture and figure it out, whether that was a mathematical equation or something, anything like that. I need to see it. My brother is a good example of someone who's very auditory. He wants it explained to him, he wants to hear it and and not necessarily see it. And so it's just about recognizing that and learning okay, I can help you, and you can help me by doing X, Y, and Z. So I always talk about this when I was in college. I remember I learned by seeing, and I could talk. It out to myself. I need to talk things out. I'm very verbal like that. I would remind myself and study by like teaching things. So when we were studying a concept or something, I would stand up at the chalkboard and write up whatever it was and would explain it to people. And then some of my classmates benefited from that because they were like, I need it explained to me. I need to hear it. And so I need to read it and speak it and see it. And you need to hear it. So it's like a win if I just stand up here and do that.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Yeah. And just out of curiosity, has there been a moment where somebody asked you a question or somebody to explain something to them? And maybe it wasn't as easy. Like it's not as straightforward.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Yeah, I'm sure it's happened. It gets difficult, but it's just realizing what each person needs and going from there and being receptive to that feedback. One of the most important things I was taught was just to listen, just sit there and and listen. If someone comes up to you and needs something and make sure you're responding to that accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

What's the best question that you've been asked in your experience?

SPEAKER_02 45:00

Oh, I've had some funny ones. The favorite thing I've been asked, and you might have even run into, I'm sure every Mets run into this before. I was saying at Newark Airport, I'm on the air train, and I had just come back from some break or something like that. So I got my Rutgers sweatshirt on, my backpack, and I'm taking the air train so I can get the train station to go back to New Brunswick. And this guy sees my Rutgers shirt. He's like, Oh, do you go to Rutgers? I said, Yeah, I do. I actually am, I'm just back. He's like, Oh, well, what do you study? I said, Well, I'm studying meteorology. And I don't remember what year I was, but I was already declared at that point. So I'm like, I'm studying meteorology. And he's like, Oh, what do you think about this meteor that's coming next week? And of course, your reaction was perfect. It was just you'd kind of have that internal reaction, is what you're doing. And it's just like smile and nod, answer the guy's question, he gets off, and then somebody like comes to me and he's like, That's not what meteorology is it? And I'm like, no, it's not. But I was like, I just let that one go. And sometimes you just smile and nod. And it's okay. I don't know why I thought of that, but when you brought up like what's the your favorite question, that's the first thing that comes because that's the one that everybody gets. Like, oh, I'm a meteorologist. Let me ask about asteroids, that kind of thing. So I think that's one of them. But it's interesting too, living in Alabama, uh, we get a couple of questions just given off of the weather that we're having locally. So we do a briefing every morning where we talk about weather happening in our area specifically, but also around the country and what helped us see, okay, where is the severe weather gonna be over the next couple of days? We want to make sure we proactively reach out to clients we have in that area to make sure they're covered and all that kind of stuff. And then also our marketing team can learn about oh, how are our models doing with a tropical scenario or something like that, your tropic storm coming through, and we can talk about how the model has stayed really consistent. And they're like, okay, we want to learn about how do we write about that kind of stuff. So a lot of that going on, but we'll get questions about certain phenomena that we'll talk about. And it's neat for me to lean on my that background, right? And be that kind of station scientist where it's a lot of you're the person that these guys are going to, maybe they have families here and friends here, and they have events that they're doing over the weekend and they want to know like, do I need to cancel this outdoor event? We can give them guidance one way or another.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

So yeah, yeah, I'll just go back to the meteor question. For those that were wondering, my reaction was I kind of just rolled my okay, because I've experienced that as well. And in fact, one of my brothers pokes fun at me constantly and is like, so how about the meteors? And he knows it's weather related. Yeah, he's just yanking my chain for that. But yeah, there's been a lot of interesting questions out there in the weather world, and you communicate it in different ways, and specifically for your job, you do it visually. So just curious, like of all of your different experiences, what has been the most rewarding experience during your time at Barron?

SPEAKER_02 47:50

Oh that's a hard one. I think one of one of the most rewarding experiences is sometimes you go into stations where they're switching broadcast display platforms, and understandably so, that can be really scary because especially if you've grown up using one piece of software for forever, and then someone comes in and says, We're not gonna use that anymore. Like if you're gonna switch from Android to Apple and just um suddenly that's ripped from your hands, they tend to get hesitant. So I see that occasionally. And sometimes it's really hard for them. And I think the most rewarding part of what I do is going in and I can say, without a doubt, I am going to do everything in my power to make this as easy as humanly possible for you. We are going to take the brunt of this workload so that you don't have to worry about all that because you got to retrain your brain into doing things differently. And so I get to go in and this is back when I was a trainer, and I can tell them, look, trust me, you're not gonna have to worry about insert all this stuff here. And there was one time where I showed up and we delivered all this stuff, and this meteorologist who was hesitant at first was like, You have taken the weight completely off of my shoulders. You turned me into a lifelong fan. And hearing things like that, where it's like, we um, yeah, I've heard we our marketing team uses this quote frequently too, where they said, We don't have a vendor, we have a partner. Um, and that kind of really speaks to me. I think that's one of the most rewarding things is I know I've been in their shoes, I've felt that hesitancy in the past, and I now get to help make that easier for them. And I love doing it all the time. I think that's probably the most rewarding experience is it and it's happened a few times, but there's several different stations I've gone to that have all just said that gratification that they express is just something you can't put a price on. And knowing that you really helped make their lives easier and hopefully save some lives by making their lives easier because they can focus more on learning and how to use these tools that we are presenting to them to help convey serious weather information to their audiences.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

That's the cherry on top, right there, being able to help people help those people who are doing a really great job in helping others, the public, navigate the weather, make their job easier, make them feel more comfortable with the system. What's been the most important lesson that you've learned?

SPEAKER_02 50:24

I think the biggest thing, and this is gonna sound like everyone's heared this, but a picture really is worth a thousand words. What I mean by that is put the smartest person in the world up there on a green screen. But if they don't have the visuals to back up what they're telling you, it's almost fruitless. The most important thing I've learned is that it really matters what's behind you and how you convey it. It's gotta be easy to read, it's gotta be quick and clear and decisive, and it's gotta be relevant. It's gotta tell that story that you're trying to convey. And that may seem like super broad and generic, but that's one of the most important things I've learned is just that those little things, the aesthetics, sometimes they matter a lot. And it's just making sure that information is out there. You can't just throw up a radar and not put a timestamp on it. It's those kind of things which sometimes we take for granted, but you have to make sure that all that stuff is is legible and readable. And I think that's one of the big takeaways I've gotten.

Adapting to Technological Advances

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Pictures worth a thousand words. I never thought that would be applied to the weather, visual weather storytelling enterprise and practice. And speaking of visual weather storytelling, it's a very interesting world out there right now. Technology has been rapidly involving, not just over the past 10 years, but just the past five years. Social media, virtual, immersive reality, different ways of visualizing different weather things. Where do you see that going in the next year, five years, or if you're bold, say 10 years?

SPEAKER_02 51:54

It's it's tough to say because the climate, pun intended, is certainly changing. So the media climate is what I mean by that, is certainly changing. And it's just all about how do we adapt our storytelling to help reach more audiences as people start shifting how they're receiving information. So it's just staying on top of how are you getting weather information. That's one of the interesting things I learned from seeing talks at conferences and stuff like that is it's a common question I hear social scientists asking is like, where do you turn to for weather information? How are you receiving that? And I'll give a backstory. My parents just moved out here from California because my brother is here as well. So they now live in Alabama with us. And I had to tell them what a weather radio was because growing up in California, you don't need a weather radio. There's no reason for that, right? It's those kind of things and just figuring out everybody's learning to get information new ways. And I think it's about how is that changing in a digital landscape? Certainly, a lot of cell phones and streaming television. You see a lot more streaming platforms now, which I think is awesome because people who don't have access to cable and stuff like that that can help it out. And something like being able to pull up live television on your phone. Like, can you imagine what was it, before the iPhone and somebody's watching TV on the phone? Like you would look at them like they had four heads. It's like, this is nuts, right? Now it's normal. Like you're sitting at an event or something and you're checking the score of your favorite football game because you can just watch it live on television on your phone. And it's just that's crazy to me. But I certainly think there's some changes in that regard. And it's just with any industry, it's all about how do you adapt and and how do you get that information into more hands.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Yeah, there's a lot of different changes going on. And all the different things that you mentioned, maybe it's something that you're currently working on or you foresee happening. What most excites you about the future of weather visual storytelling?

SPEAKER_02 53:46

I think it's technology. And it's just as we get more and more advanced in the digital age, there's more and more tools coming into our hands. So think about weather model upgrades as those get better and arm meteorologists with more information sooner and more accurate and higher resolution and all of that stuff. Where does AI come into play? How can we use that to our advantage? Sometimes that's scary to think about, but it's like, how do we use that to our advantage? And I'll give an example where I've used A AI on my own, like Chat GPT and that kind of stuff to help write scripts for various things that can do really cool things and automate stuff. So it's just such a powerful tool, right? And where does that come into play? So that's exciting, but the technology in general and the radars are we're getting clearer pictures from radars, they can see farther, that kind of stuff. Satellite, it goes 16. We've had it for a while now. And I can remember being in college and that just like the best we had were those, what were they, 15, maybe 30 minute increments uh of satellite. And now you look at what we have, and we've had what one-minute updates on on some of these higher resolution cuts. And it's like, how did we live with those 30-minute updates before? And that wasn't that long ago. That was only what five, maybe 10 years ago, certainly, that came out, and I can't remember when it was, but it's only getting better, and we're getting more and more data to use, and that data is power, is that's information we can use to help forecast. And I I talk about mesonet networks a lot, and I see a lot more prevalence with those and getting up-to-date information across various sites all the way across the United States and being able to probably bring some PTSD back a little bit, but like drawing fronts and finding where that front is. I always used to laugh when I did that. I'm like, I'm never gonna need to do this by hand. Why do I need to learn this? And now I'm so thankful that I did it because you can start to see those things, right? Like you could visualize where you're seeing it. So I think it's just as we get further into the technological age, it's exciting to me the different tools we're gonna have. And that's gonna be, I think, on the display side too. We're gonna have more, we call it 3D studio at Barren Weather, but an augmented reality, that kind of thing. And it's how do I make it look cool while telling information? And how do I relate more to viewers by that allows me to do things like I could go out in the field and I'm at this famous pumpkin festival and I'm giving you the weather, and it's just those how do you relate to people? How do you use that technology to like that? It's about getting that information in the hands of more people, and I think you do that by relating to them and going where they are and and showing that you that, like, look, I can give you all this information, I'm standing where you stood, and a lot a lot of people really get a kick out of that. So it's just it's exciting to me the future of this industry, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

And overall, the meteorology field, the future is very exciting. AI, social media, all the different technologies that you mentioned. It's gonna be a very interesting world in terms of weather communications going forward, not just five 10 years down the road, just one year down the road. And you had mentioned the immersive visual reality graphics and stuff. I wanted to pick your head a little bit with all the different graphics that you've worked on, all the projects that you've worked on. What's been your favorite graphic that you've created?

SPEAKER_02 57:02

Favorite graphic I've created. It's something we we do a lot of graphics there, so that's sometimes that's hard. But I think one of the one of the cooler ones we did, we did one on Aurora Borealis, so Northern Lights, and how that worked. I think what I like about that is that one was just super well received. And it's like you only meet it every once in a while, especially down south, right? And I'm not talking like Minnesota, North Dakota, like they they see that all the time, but not all the time, but much certainly much more frequently than you do in Alabama. But we've now had it, what was it, twice now in the past year that's seen it? Ironically, I missed it both times. I was unavailable and couldn't be outside. I was so sad. But anyway, it's exciting. It was exciting to see that reaction of how we explain that. And uh, I think it visually looked really cool in one of our explainers. So I think that's probably one of my favorites. We've done other ones where it's like tornado safety explained. So you get a push notification on your phone. What do you do? And we have this like figure that gets up and goes to the safe space, and you have all your helmet and your shoes and all that kind of stuff. I think what I like about that one is we reinvented a way of telling that same story, which everybody's heard a lot. And so it's all about how again, how do you not make it redundant? You kind of um liven it up a bit. So I think that was cool. And then it's since you mentioned like the immersive stuff, pretty much anything we do now, we're making versions that are compatible with that. And we can do super cool things like bring water up onto the floor and talk about how how much water it takes to knock a person off their feet, or maybe it's hurricanes and wind shear and bringing a hurricane and putting it on the floor and that that's spinning, and then the dry air comes in and all that kind of stuff. It just it look it looks cool, and it's all about how do we how you get eyes on on your screen. That's what it is. And I I think a lot of that is to go back to my previous point, is the visuals.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

Yeah, I mean, I'm a meteorologist, I've experienced weather producing and stuff, but the inner kid in me, whenever I see those immersive graphics, is just like, oh my gosh, that is so cool. There's nothing there when you're doing it, but when you play it back, you get to see all these cool things playing out and you get to visually tell it in new ways. And who knows, maybe we get uh an immersive virtual reality Aurora Borealis thing that allows you experience it. And on that note, uh, I will say it's the two events that happened recently, very hard to see, very faint in New Jersey. I don't think anything's gonna top those as is visuals that you would see up in Iceland or you know, farther up north. I got two questions for you. These are gonna be time travel related questions. So let's say you got a time machine, you go back to your younger self, have a conversation. Like if you can go back to your younger self, what would you say to him?

SPEAKER_03 59:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

I think the the advice I would give my younger self would be to don't limit yourself to certain tracks and be open. Because I think it took me a while to become open to this side of the business that I'm in now. And I talked about doing that while I was an intern. That was like a first step of that. So I think the best advice I would give to myself would be to keep all of your options open and you don't have to just narrow yourself. Because I think I went into school with the mindset of it is broadcast or bust, I am on camera, no other options. And I think I turned myself off from some other opportunities because of that. And it took a bit, and again, I was blessed enough to be at the Weather Channel and learn from some of the best there, and then also shadowing various other meteorologists and my time at Ruckers and my fellow classmates and all that, and learning stuff, and that kind of pushed me to where I am today. But yeah, I think that's probably what I would do is just say, give myself like be open to things. And there was stuff like classes that changed while I was a student there, where I was like, I don't need that, because there was a cool class on Python that you probably ended up taking that I was like that. I before there was a different class you could take. And that was actually before the different class was the only one you could take. And they added that other computational methods class while I was an undergrad. And I was like, I don't need that's just for grad school people, right? And then now, fast forward, a lot of what we do in our software, some of it involves some Python, and so I'm self-taught Python, which is a gift and a curse, really. But it's really remarkable some of the stuff that you can do with that coding background. So I think and I mean this goes to any young meteorologist listening to don't just shut yourself off from stuff because you never know the trajectory that your career is going to end up taking. And nonlinear trajectories are becoming the normal now. I have a really close friend who ironically ended up being our wedding photographer, was actually our trainer when I was at Ruckers. He did came in and installed the weather system while I was at Ruckers, who was a meteorologist turned wedding photographer. So it's you don't see that a lot either. But that's what I'm what I mean by you never know the trajectory that your career is gonna end up taking you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

That could be applied to everyday life, no matter the profession. Because I know a bunch of people that have gone, they thought they were going one way, but then life, circumstances, everything just steered them the other way as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:11

You never know, and you might just learn to love something that you didn't couldn't see yourself ever doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

Absolutely. And on the note of the time machine, you had mentioned earlier that you and your brother used to do simulcast weather and sports radio hits. Just out of curiosity, you have this time machine, you and your younger brother, you're doing these simulcasts weather and sports. What day would you go to cover a certain weather event and sports at the same time?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

So I'll say the first thing that came to mind, which was the World Series in 1989 when the earthquake hit. Not technically weather, but that would be a cool juncture between the two. That was the first thing that popped into my head. So I'll say that even though it's not technically weather. Weather and sports combined, I think the big one that comes into mind is the I was actually in the marching band when this happened, but that the Rutgers versus West Virginia football game, it was ironically exactly a year to the day before Hurricane Sandy. But it snowed sideways. It was like 30 degrees and snowing, and that is to this day the coldest I have ever been. But I think that's a funny memory because I'm looking back on it, it was a really funny experience because the Rutgers marching band was there and the West Virginia marching band was there, and pretty much the rest of the stadium was empty. Nobody else was watching this game because it was so cold and miserable. But neither band wanted to be the band that that called it quits, right? We're all staying there. Everybody, I knew I know I never talked to any of the West Virginia band, but I know they had to be equally as miserable as we were because we're standing there and we just wanted to go. We sent people to the hospital, it was bad. They had hypothermia, frostbite, like it was real getting to the point where it's dangerous to be out there because we're wearing cotton gloves, right? And that's just kidding. The snow is hitting that melting in the heat of your hand, and now you have soaking wet gloves. You can't feel your fingers. But I think that was that's one of the first weather sports memories that comes to mind, would be that one or the snow bowl, the snow super bowl. That one's obviously very famous too.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:19

But yeah, there's a lot of cases like that. But that story you just told me, that's a little hidden gem, and that I feel like you two would nail it with the talking about the weather and the game at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:31

I got so many texts from my band friends in in California that I I like got out of the game out of the bus and I pull up my phone, right? Which was in my garment bag. And it was just so many texts, and it was pictures of the TV screen because they saw it. They're like, Are you really there right now? Are you really performing? Like, yep, we're there. Now we didn't they had to plow the field, so we didn't do the field show, but we played the field show in the stands, and we were joking. We were like, There's no one here to listen to it anyway. It's just us. So gosh, it was fun. It wasn't fun at the time. I was like I said, that I think to this day is the coldest I have ever been. It was an interesting experience to say the least. And we lost the game, which made it even worse.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:11

Just to throw salt into the wood, you're out in the cold, and ruckers.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

Fun fact, the quarterback of that game for West Virginia, Geno Smith. Fun fact. Really? Yeah. Wow, okay. That was his Gino Smith.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:27

If you're listening somehow, I I doubt it, but if Geno Smith, you're listening, let us know how that game, if you remember it, and how that felt.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

Oh, under listening, go Niners.

"Weather or Not Trivia" and Closing

SPEAKER_01 1:05:38

And speaking of Niners, we've got one last game with you, and that is whether or not we're gonna test your weather and not weather related trivia. And one of those questions is actually 49ers, really. But we'll get into that when we get to that question. But that said, are you ready?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

All right, this is weather or not. Not your first question is related to marching bands. In 1907, the Purdue All-American Marching Band created the first marching band formation that tracked away from the traditional rank and file formation. What was the name of that marching band formation that was created? Was it A competition circle? B block, C, Counter March, or D, Indie Script.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:28

I'ma go block is a formation, but interesting. I'm gonna go with C countermarch. I'm gonna guess that's wrong though.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:37

Is that your final guess?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:38

Yeah, we'll call that my final guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

That is incorrect.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:42

Okay, so I remember the block. Anyways, it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

I had to actually look up some like formations and stuff. And the the last one, IndieScript, I just made up because it sounds like one. I'm not familiar at all with marching bands, so that is an actual marching formation.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:58

A block. So like a block and marching band is the if you're in a parade, like the formation that you're in as you do your parade is the block. And you also hear sets thrown around, and that's just if you're doing a field show, your set is like your checkpoint.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

Interesting. All right, got a little bit of insider info on marching band. All right. This is whether or not your next question is related to winter weather. The February 2013 North American Blizzard, also known as the Blizzard of 2013, brought major snow to the eastern United States and parts of Canada. It also went by this N name. Was it A, Nemo, B, Nico, C, Newton, or D, Niklaus?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:45

I think it was Nemo.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:47

Final guess? Yeah. You're correct. It was Nemo. I know not a lot of people agree with the naming thing. That was the one I came up with. I thought it was you were there. I I believe you were there at the time. So you I figured that would be.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

I don't remember it as a Nemo, but the minute you said 20 February 2013, I knew what you were talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

So I figured, yeah. Alright. This is whether or not your next question, actually, before I introduce it, you're actually a little bit of a Taylor Swift fan. So this question is Taylor Swift related. Taylor Swift made her acting debut in this crime TV show. Was it A, Criminal Minds, B, Bones, C, NCIS, or D, CSI Crime Scene Investigation?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

Oh. I never saw this. I seen her, she made it, she made Cameos and New Girl. I saw her cameo and new girl. She's also in Valentine's Day, the movie with Taylor Lautner, who's also in it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

I don't know that movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:53

It's a rom-com, but it's kind of cute. But anyway, it's really funny because at the time they were dating. But I'm gonna go with criminal minds.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

Criminal Minds, as you finally guess, yeah. You are incorrect. It is CSI Crime Scene Investigation. It's like a one, it was a one episode thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

The only one I watched out of those was NCIS, and so I was like, I knew it wasn't NCIS, and that was really it. So I'm like, I'm gonna guess criminal minds, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

Yeah, and that's funny because I've had watched not like from start to finish CSI, but I've seen episodes of crime scene investigation, and I didn't know Taylor Swift is actually in that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:32

Oh, I got to track that down.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:34

Yeah, I I'm gonna be doing the same after this.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:36

CSI Miami or which one was it?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

Oh no, the the original CSI, yeah, based out of Las Vegas. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we're gonna be looking at that after we're done here. But got two more for you. This is whether or not this question is related to thunderstorms. A 1995 thunderstorm, also known as the Mayfest storm, escalated dramatically and caused almost$2 billion of damage in Texas, where it deposited 18 inches of what type of precipitation on the citizens of Palo Pinto and Parker counties. Was it A, rain, B, hail, C, snow, or D, Grapple?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:22

It's gotta be rain or hail. 18 inches of hail is insane. So I'm gonna go with rain.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

Rain as your file gets? Yes. You are right that it's insane, but you're incorrect. It it was hail.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:36

I knew it had to be one of those two, and I was like, surely it wasn't hail. I have holy cow, that's a lot of hail.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

Yeah, not a lot of pictures of that out there, but of this the few that I saw, I was stunned.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:48

Like 18 inches of not that 18 inches of rain is any less nuts. That's also bonkers, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

Oh, for sure. I mean, like, if you if you think like 18 inches of snow, like, okay, that's a lot. But imagine that, like, as hailing.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:02

I mean, I guess the hail, I mean, kind of like snow, it's gonna pile up on top of each other. So I don't know. That helps.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

Yeah. And my question is like, how do they get rid of that? That's a lot of hail.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:14

Yeah, ultimately, I guess it would melt, especially in the heat.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:18

18 inches, though.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:19

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:20

All right, I've got one more for you, and this is the the one that we mentioned in the the intro of whether or not. This is whether or not your question is related to 49ers football. How many Super Bowls have the 49ers appeared in? Was it A, 4, B, 6, C, 8, or D, 10?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:42

They've won five. I'm gonna go with it's either 8 or 10. I'm gonna go with eight. I'm gonna go with eight. Well, yeah, I'm gonna go with eight. I'm gonna go with eight.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

Locking an eight is your final answer. Yeah. You are correct. It is eight Super Bowl appearances from the 49ers.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:02

Because they were unbeated until they played the Ravens. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:07

I'm a Ravens fan. Go Ravens.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:12

So with that said, that is the last whether or not trivia question and the end of the podcast. But before we go, how can people stay in touch with you and your work, Tyler?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:24

Yeah, best way is to follow on social media. So Baron Weather, several different social media handles, Twitter, I guess X now, but Facebook as well. So that's kind of just to stay up general with what the company is doing. But my personal social handle, Tyler Case WX, yeah, shoot me a message on Twitter for that kind of thing or email me.

unknown 1:12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:43

Tag the Baron Weather social media and say, hey, we want Tyler Case. I don't think we have that big of a following, but maybe we can use the Baron Weather inbox to blow up with Tyler Case requests.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:56

All right. With that said, thank you, Tyler, to for joining us on the podcast. And thank you to the listener for listening on this episode of Everything Weather. And we'll see you on the next episode.