Meteorological Endeavors with Michael Ehrenberg

In this episode, Kyle David converses with Michael Ehrenberg, a seasoned broadcast meteorologist with nearly 30 years of experience. Michael shares his journey into weather from a young fascination with winter storms in upstate New York, to his educational pursuits at SUNY Albany and Rutgers University. They discuss his career trajectory from the National Weather Service to broadcast meteorology in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he currently works. Michael also offers valuable advice for aspiring meteorologists and his thoughts on the future of weather broadcasting.

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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 & Introduction

SPEAKER_02 0:06

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 Michael Ehrenberg. Michael is a certified broadcast meteorologist with almost 30 years of experience telling the weather story and covering a wide array of weather events. He currently works for CBS 12 News and West Palm Beach, Florida. Hi, Michael, and welcome to the Everything Weather Podcast. Well, hello, Kyle, and uh good afternoon, everybody. Glad to be here. Glad to be asked to do a podcast. Absolutely. It's gonna be a fun experience. And before we get into our interview, I have a fun game for you. Guess the top five hottest cities in the U.S. This is based off of average annual temperatures. And for uh note, this is major cities or somewhat major cities. So places like Del Death Valley are not on the list. These are notable locations. I'm gonna choose Phoenix. Phoenix is number one on this list. Okay, right. I know they made the list a lot. How about El Paso, Texas? El Paso is not in the top five. I feel like it'd be close though.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Uh yeah, it would be close. You're right. Um Miami.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Miami is number three on the list.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Um what else we got going on? Um let me think of somewhere else. Dallas?

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Dallas is not on this list. Not on the list. Let's see. Las Vegas. Las Vegas is number five on this list. You have number two and number four on this list.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

I got two and four. Amarillo, Texas?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Amarillo is not on this list. I feel like that, again, is another one that's very close. I'll give you a hit with number two. It is in a state that we already gave one of the locations for.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Oh, okay. I know it's not gonna be Flagstaff. They're way up there at high elevation. You got Tucson, Phoenix, Tucson. I'm just trying to think of those cities in Arizona. How about Albuquerque, New Mexico? No, Albuquerque is not on the top five. Um, so you got Tucson, we got Phoenix, Tempe, Arizona.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Tempe, I feel like again, would be a close one, but it is not on the top five. Okay. I'll give you number two, Yuma, Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Oh, Yuma. Usually, yeah, they come up with the hottest city in the nation every once in a while.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Yeah, and it's like in the middle to the west, right? Just near the California-Arizona border, I believe. Gotcha, okay. And then you have number four. The hint with this one is it is part of the western extent of the United States.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Well, I know we have we like you said, we can't do Death Valley. That's too small. Merced, California.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

I feel like that would probably be in one of those, but when I have this number. Palm Springs is not there. I'll just give it to you. Honolulu, Hawaii. Well, of course, I I okay. People don't think about Hawaii because it it's so comfortable there, but like year-round, it's consistently like in the 70s or higher.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

You're right, there's no coal there. There's probably no such thing as a coal fuck over there. Probably no. That's true on the big island, yeah.

Michael's Weather Story

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

All right. With that said, let's get into the interview. I always like to ask people on the podcast to tell me about your weather story. So let me ask you, Michael, what is your weather story and what got you interested in everything weather?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Well, I think like a lot of folks that are in the field of meteorology as an adult, it's started at a very young age. I've come to realize that a lot of people have a weather event that kind of perhaps kickstarted their interest and passion in meteorology. And if we go way back, I just remember when I was a kid, I grew up and I was born and raised in upstate New York in Albany. And I loved the snow. We went snow skiing, and I believe there was a Thanksgiving Day snowstorm way back. It was remarkably well forecasted for how far back it was. And it was a lot of anticipation for it to come in. Our family was supposed to go down to some relatives about an hour south of the area and to take the New York State fruitway down. Well, guess what? We woke up in the morning and there was that snow coming down. It was pouring out of the sky. The fruitway was closed. We decided, yeah, not a good idea to take the back road down there. So we postponed that trip. Well, my father's like, well, we'll go out to eat because we weren't prepared. We didn't have any food already and you have to prepare at the house where my mom did. So we went to a restaurant and was snowing when we got in, snowing when we got out, and we get in the car. My father starts a car up and he turns to leave. The car started doing these spins and donuts. I thought that was the coolest thing, and I just I had to know everything about letter.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Yeah, I'll admit I have a guilty pleasure of when it does snow up here in New Jersey to go out into an unpaid parking lot and just do like slow donuts.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Oh, my brother and I, we we go out and do donuts. We do backward spin arounds in a front-wheel drive car. And hey, there were probably some cars somewhere in the uh back corner of the parking lot, but yeah, not the smartest thing to do, but snow is very fun. That's one of my passions is snow in winter weather.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yeah, absolutely. And you got caught off guard by this, and then you discovered, hey, I want to learn more about the weather. At what point did you realize, hey, I can make a career out of this?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

I guess what my interest in weather just kept growing and growing when I was a kid. My brother uh was nice enough to build me a little uh makeshift weather station in the backyard. I took weather observations, watched all the TV weather captures on TV. And I guess maybe somewhere in my earlier mid-teens, I'm like, yeah, this is what I want to do with the weather. I want to do something weather related. So probably somewhere in the teens. And I do remember when it was time to pick out of college when I was in high school, I met with a guidance counselor and we picked out some schools. Not a lot of schools as have meteorology, just about every school has humanities or a business program or a science. But you really have to be careful about picking a school that has meteorology and applying to those schools. So that's what I did. And in your search, what schools did you find that interest you? I would grew up in Morris County, North Jersey, a little town of Momendum. I was trying to find schools that were geographically close and had a good weather program. The guidance counselor and I would picked out a bunch. There were a lot of the SUNY schools, State University in New York. I applied to Albany, Oswego, and Oneonta. And I probably, I'm trying to think, probably we probably to Penn State, Rutgers University. Yeah, that's what I remember for applying to schools. So we went around, toured the different schools. So I eventually decided on SUNY Albany as my first school.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

I mean, naturally, as a snow lever, that's probably one of the best colleges to go to. What was your experience like up there?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

I'm gonna be honest with you. I originally got admitted to, I think it was either Oneonta or Suego. And then my dad's like, we grew up in Albany, we were living in New Jersey at the time, and like Albany wasn't that much better of a school as I think it was called very competitive in that way in the rankings. And I don't think I originally uh was admitted, but there is a special talented students program, and one of them was in the atmospheric science department. And I just sent all my weather records that I had amassed as a kid from the weather station and everything I can think of, all these newspaper clippings, sent them into the atmospheric science department. I guess I wrote the right thing, and I got in through the back door through this special talented students program. And I thought that was very cool. All good. You're in a very competitive school. Well, I just was not prepared for the curriculum and how hard and difficult the atmospheric science program was up at SUNY Albany. I was taking physics and chemistry and calculus in my first semester. And frankly, I found it overwhelming. And I wasn't doing well in physics. So basically, I dropped out of physics and I dropped the major. But I was doing very well in my calculus courses. I love the math. I had a great calculus professor. So after a year, I guess by default, I became a math major. And I was there for two years. There are other issues. I rentually transferred to Rutheard University and uh got a bachelor's degree in mathematics. And then when I got out, I got into unrelated professions. I worked for an insurance company and a brokerage company. And I said to myself, I really need to go back to school for what I really love, what my passion is, which is weather and meteorology. So while working at Prudential Insurance in Newark in the extra rural department, where I was born, it was a long commute. I decided, I remember physics was a challenge. I dropped physics because I wasn't doing well. Then before I actually go in, let me see if I can't get that physics course under my belt to make sure to have confidence because it was a lot of math and science. So I commuted down to Rutgers and took physics, got a good grade in it, and then the rest is history. Then I had applied, and so I started the meteorology program at Rutgers and the master's program. So in some ways, it took a little longer, but in the end, I ended up getting a master's degree from Rutgers out of it in meteorology.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

That makes one of us because my experience at Rutgers and just with studying meteorology, the math always got me. I hate now good calculus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

It's a big weed out. A lot of people want to do weather even more so nowadays, and a lot of people find they can't hack it. The mathematics, and not everybody's wired to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

And going back to your experience with SUNY and then eventually transferring to Rutgers, did you know at that point you wanted to go into broadcasting?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

I think so, yes. So yeah, I guess I still wanted to get into broadcasting. I don't know whether I knew or I didn't know about not having broadcasting there. So you had to go outside the university to get your broadcasting experience. I know, like we've talked about, they have since changed that, and there are avenues within Rutgers to get some broadcast and chroma key uh training.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Absolutely. And in your experiences, who were your role models that you looked up to in terms of broadcast meteorology?

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I always tell people growing up when you're a kid, you're a young boy, you're a young man, a lot of people have they have idols, they have sports idols and sports heroes. That wasn't the case for me. I had weather idols and weather heroes. Back then there wasn't a lot of cable TV, and I would cling to watching all the meteorologists and weather forecasters. Alan Casper was a broadcast meteorologist in that area. He was on WCBS, he was on Channel 5 in New York. He uh was on New Jersey 101.5 for a long time. I think he retired about five or 10 years ago. Great meteorologist, youth science. He came to Rutgers once or twice to talk one day on the entire meteorology class, went into his Box Five studios in New York, and he gave us a tour of the studio. And then there were even people up in the Albany area that were really good, as I recall. This it back then they had long-form weather radio broadcasts. This guy, Ray Falconer, he'd get on, and when I was really young, and he would go on like at 5:35 in the afternoon at 7.35 in the morning, and it was a 10-minute weathercast, observations, synoptic meteorology, forecasts for different regions. It was great just listening to it. And then let's talk about Acuweather, my favorite Acuweather meteorologist. They were on 1010 wins and KYW News Radio down in Philadelphia. And so Joel Myers, even Joe Bastardi, he was good. And we still we I'm sure you know him. He's still wear that that weather belt. So, yeah, very influenced by media, TV, and radio broadcast meteorologists. Yeah, and I'm familiar with a couple of those names that you mentioned at fond memories of listening to them growing up as a youth. Dr. Bob Harris. Do you know that name?

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Again, I feel like I know that name. If I've seen him before, then I could be like, oh yeah, I've I've heard of that guy.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Well, so Bob Harris, he's infamous because he had it, he was called he called himself Dr. Bob Harris. Very good personality. He really sounded like he knew his stuff. Very technical. He was on News Radio 8, WCBS in New York, which now I just understand went over to sports radio after 57 years of all news. And he was also on WOR uh 7-10 a.m. And great meteorologist, he'd be on all the time. And then one day they he wasn't on for two weeks, and they get on. The anchors were terse. We have departed. Our uh we don't we no longer have him here. Dr. But he he never got a degree in meteorology, he wasn't even a PhD, didn't even graduate college. Really? Isn't that interesting? Huh. Well, he fooled everybody, and he was so good. After that revelation, believe it or not, this launched his television career. Then he appeared on WPAX and Channel 11 and got a contract with the New York Sanitation Department and did weather for the New York Times. So it it's interesting how it didn't matter that he was not a degree meteorologist, he just knew his stuff. But it was self-taught in meteorology.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

It's interesting, and there's a lot of cases these days where there's people who aren't degreed meteorologists yet. They can do just as an effective job in communicating about the weather as a degree meteorologist. So going back to Rutgers, you knew that you wanted to go into weather. You had some idea you wanted to go into broadcasting, you got the master's degree. What was next for you?

SPEAKER_01 13:39

So I got the master's degree back then, and I was working through part-time work at IM Weather, which is at the Morristown Airport, New Jersey. I think you're still around. And then I became full-time there as the meteorologist there left to go to weather service. And so I was getting some broadcast experience, at least the radio part, the voice, and coaching my voice or whatnot, but there was no opportunity for any TV experience. So I mean, a friend of mine there, we tried to go to some studios and get some broadcast comment. I was started applying to the National Weather Service because there was no upward mobility. It's a very small company. It was just the owner and maybe one of the person with doing radio sales. So I started putting my applications out and uh I was a little bit selective. Eventually I went down to Miami and in South Florida, the National Weather Service. Everybody was rotating shift work, and it wasn't my thing. I couldn't see doing rotating shifts as I got older. Unfortunately, we were co-located with the National Hurricane Center at the time. This was in Carl Gables, right near U of M. And all the TV broadcasters would be rushing by my front desk, interview the director of the National Hurricane Center, Dr. Bob Sheets, and all these people rushing by. I was able to talk to some of them. And one day I saw one of them at the gym I work at. They they were able to bring me in. They needed a meteorologist, but the news director didn't really want to hire somebody. So he's like, Well, why don't you come on in and see what you got? Have you had any experience of the TV? I said, No, but I've done radio. And he said, Well, why don't you come in and see how you do in front of the chroma key wall? Right. This guy was really nice. His name is Roland Stedham. And so I went in and practiced on a weekend and he coached me a little bit. And he's like, All right, well, I'm not going to show the news director the TPL. Why don't you work on this and this? And then he let me come in for like four or five weeks and hone my skate. We were all of it. And then he showed it to the news director. And she said, okay, well, he could use some work on the chroma key wall, but you know, we could use them on Saturday mornings or do weather. It was a conflict of interest with the weather service. I couldn't do that. But I had a lot of air checks from those things, and I was able to find an editor and cobble together a resume tape and start sending it out. And that's how I got my first job in TV. And where was that first job for you? Well, the first job I took was in West Palm Beach at the basically our comp competitor up in Palm Beach Gardens right now. So I I've been doing TV uh only at West Palm Beach my whole life. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Unusual.

Covering Major Weather Events & Memorable Experiences

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yeah, you don't often find people sticking within one area for such a long time. I know. You ended up filing into broadcast meteorology. Can you tell us what that life is like? What do you do for your current station?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

I've been well with uh my current station that's just past 25-year anniversary back in July. There's five of us, and we have a three o'clock show Monday through Friday, Tuesday through Friday. I do the 3 p.m. show. It's an hour newscast. And then at 5 o'clock through 6:30, me and the chief will split up some of the tasks, the chief meteorologists. He might toss to me with a special thing. Hey, Michael, it's been dry out here. What's the situation with wildfires? And I'll break out what's causing the fires, the dry air, the precipitation departure, the winds or what, whatever, what have you. Um, he's frequently off on vacation, so I'll fill in for him. And then on Fridays and Saturdays, I'll do all the broadcasts, the afternoon and evening broadcasts that I do. That's pretty much my shift. So broadcasting is just a part of the job. We do some radio broadcasts. So I'll go in and a several radio stations use our broadcasts. We'll go in the booth and record it, and they'll upload the file or I'll put them into a Dropbox or whatnot. We also have, we do weather for a newspaper. Most importantly, digital. We have usually a couple weather stories running on our website, which I'll either initiate a story and do a story, make graphics for it or update the story that was done in the morning. Um, social media is big. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and so free those things have to have requirements to do posts on there. Whether it's a picture of me out there at the local fair, whether it's uh a hurricane update with a track, Facebook Lives, love doing those. This way you can get somebody viewers and they can get to know you. We also have recordings uh that we do for a Gainesville station, which is owned by our company. So we do recordings for them as well. So a lot of different tasks and some occasional live weather out too. So you also do weather for Gainesville as well. Interesting. Our company is owned by some career broadcast group, and for about four or five years, I was the chief meteorologist, or I still am in a reduced fashion now. But basically, we have a second studio next door, and they decided to use us. It was me and also a news anchor, which would go over there. We did a six and eleven o'clock newscast for the Monday through Friday. Reporters were live on the ground at the station physically up there, doing live hits and packages, but the news and the weather was anchored at our studio in West Palm Beach. Well, you'll see a lot of small markets do that. There's been somewhat of a researchers are trying to do that. It's a way to cut costs and save money.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Yeah, definitely. If you keep it all concise in one location, you save money. Right. Just curious, which do you prefer covering, Gainesville or West Palm Beach?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

I think West Palm Beach, there's really no substitute for being physically in a TV station in your markets. There's always issues of being far away. West Palm Beach, I mean, there's uh it's a better place to live. South Florida, you want to be in South Florida, not North Florida. The weather's warm year-round. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

And we'd mentioned earlier, both in the introduction and in our conversation, you've been doing this for quite a while, almost 30 years. How do you manage to keep your weather presentations fresh and engaging for your audience over such a long period? And how has that changed with new technologies becoming available to you?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

That's a very good question. Fortunately, the weather company and their subset WSI, they're the leader of what a graphics. So if you have to tell a weather story, maybe once in a while, the promotional creative service department will help us slap new banners on there. Yeah, the technology just gets better and better. I like to create graphics. You have to think with Mediagrams, you have satellite radar, but you have 3D radio uh augmented reality presentations that you can use. So there's always something new to learn. And also the weather company, they have people there that generate hundreds of graphics that are put on this weather community bulletin board. And you can download all these and customize them to your station. There's so many of them. The graphics which show community events. This time of year in Florida where we have a lot of outdoor events, whether it's a green market, an Oktoberfest, a golf tournament, a concert, you name it, graphics which have a community picture and people enjoying themselves, little icons that you can put on there on an hour by hour forecast or a day-by-day forecast showing that community event.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

And since you mentioned those local community events, can you tell me a memorable local event that you covered that wasn't necessarily related to the weather?

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Well, the the last one we did was our station sponsored. They have a big Oktoberfest down here every year. Uh, a lot of people come to it, and we uh our station had a booth outside, and you'll see this to get out in the community. So they had a booth where you have the you have all the people showing up, and people come up and they ask questions, you meet and greet them, those are fun. And we all the on-air people were the judging of the beer stein holding contest where you have a line up a bunch of people and they hold a big beer stein with water in it, like this, straight out. It weighs a lot, and everybody's sitting there, and you have to make sure that they're doing the right thing and not bending forward or backwards or leaning, and then basically people start dropping them one by one to drop their arms, and the last one's standing wins. So I thought that was a lot of fun. It was a lot around a lot of people. They would hold the stein full of water and see if they can hold it up the longest. Who can hold it up the longest? You might have a line of 10 or 12 people, and you're holding it straight out. It's got to be parallel to the grounds, and your arm has to be exactly perpendicular to your torso. And you and we were the we had to basically police them say no, bring it up, bring it down. We would have to disqualify people if they were repeated offenders. A little bit unusual. And then I went down there on a Saturday night with live weather broadcast. In there too, and it was raining and everything. It was crowded, so it was fun.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

It sounds like fun for sure. And since you had mentioned going out into the field and stuff, what's your most memorable weather experience out in the field?

SPEAKER_01 22:12

The most memorable experience out in the field probably would have to be uh one of the hurricanes. Was it maybe it was Irma? I can't remember. Yeah, I think it was Irma. We have a storm trapper truck with all the bells and whistles on it, instrumentation, big tires, some cool wrappings around it. So just going out reporting in the middle of a hurricane. Or over near the intercoastal waterway with the winds blowing and whipping. I think while on the way over there, we we basically ran over like this big pom frond, and all of a sudden we heard this grinding and chewing underneath the truck. So we had to stop and we had to pull the whole thing out before we could be on our way again. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Since you had mentioned hurricanes recently, Florida got hit by Hurricane Milton. What was that experience like covering Hurricane Milton for your area?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Oh, yeah, Hurricane Milton. I mean, my goodness, this was like an unprecedented tornado, a widespread tornado outbreak in South Florida. We had thought that typically when you're in the northeast quadrant of a hurricane, you're getting the most spin far away that there would be the potential for some isolated spin-up tornadoes. But nobody really expected, I think there were 127 tornado warnings put out in the state of Florida that day. This is back in October. And I think we had something like 18 confirmed tornadoes in our viewing area. So that was, and bear in mind, this is when Milton was still out in the Gulf of Mexico, more than 200 miles from us. This is where we were getting all the tornado warnings well in advance of the storm center moving on to the coast of Florida. Nine hours straight of wall-to-wall tornado warnings, one after the other in rapid succession, being on the area. And then just so many visual confirmations of the tornadoes, clearly from traffic cameras, association cameras, and from viewers sending in the viewers and photos. Very interesting. How clear and vivid some of these tornadoes showed up on the Florida Turnpike has a network of cameras that are looking out to the west. I-75 Alligator Alley had these tornadoes, uh, had these cameras as well. Just seeing that. And then other people said really a fatness of the tornado, the stovepipe look, the look of an Oklahoma or Texas or Tornado Alley tornado, which you just don't see in South Florida. They're usually weak, they're usually EF zeros and EF1s. They don't look anything like what we saw.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Yeah, and as you said earlier, Milton was a few hundred miles away from land and the Gulf of Mexico, and it was bringing all these widespread impacts. Walk us a little through like how you felt covering the ongoing weather with Hurricane Milton, even though it was, as you said, several hundred miles away.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Whenever any part of a viewing area is put under a hurricane warning, it's all hands on deck and it's wall-to-mall continuous coverage. We knew the day before, okay, my shift is going to be 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. And then the morning shifts at 2 a.m. to 2 p.m. So I did figure I'd be talking about the hurricane coming in, and maybe there's been some severe weather, but I got up in the morning and I turned on the TV and all of a sudden there's the first tornado warrant at 9:30 a.m. And I'm watching our morning crew talk about the tornadoes, showing the video footage. And then it just wouldn't stop. And I got in an hour or two earlier before my ship to start making weather graphics in another studio. The tornado warnings just kept coming in on my phone and on NWF chat. And our chief came down and we're talking about it. And oh, it'll end there. No, it just keeps going. We're looking at more ominous velocity signatures. And I'm like, well, we're going to be walking right into tornado warnings once we go on when our ship starts at 2 p.m. And that's what happened. We just kept going on and on. It's very challenging because you have to always think about things to say. Sometimes you got to repeat what you've just said, and you just have to go with the flow. Luckily, we had our news anchors in there. At that point, we're going to go wall-to-wall anyway because we're under hurricane warning. So fortunately, we had people in the production booth ready to call up pictures from sources where people had sent it in because we have our weather graphics which you have to make and you have to talk over. And we have the news anchors on the desk. So we could throw to them every once in a while, and also the reporters out in the field. One of our Mets was in the storm tractor truck following the tornadoes and showing the damage. So yeah, I would say the most challenging and hardest thing about a broadcast meteorologist's job is the tornado warning. Because you have to be on the air constantly. You have to be talking. You have to be clear-minded. You have to, in many cases, you have to be running the weather graphics on the computer, changing them out while talking at the same time, multitasking, looking over at chat for the weather service to see what they're saying, hearing things in your ear from the producer. Hey, we're going to toss out to Charlotte out in the field now, or they'll throw up some video and they're like, where is this from? And they'll tell you there's a lot of uh extemporaneous talking off the top of your head. And this goes on for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah, it is definitely challenging to try and find fresh ways to say the same thing over again.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

I probably lost 10 pounds that day. I was sweating through all that.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Definitely. And just out of curiosity, since it's your home area for almost 20 plus years, how did it feel covering such an extensive event for not only your market, but also your home area as well?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Well, I didn't really think much about it. I used to want to get through it and serve the public. In this case, depending on where people were, it was a life or death situation. So you'd have to tell people how serious a situation is. And there's always a satisfaction after you've gotten off. You really couldn't really think about it until maybe a few days later when people would start coming up to me in the grocery store or wherever I was. Hey, by the way, you guys did a great job. I appreciate your effort. I was here, I was experiencing. It makes you feel like, hey, you know what? People relied on us. I was able to give them the message and I serve the public. So in some ways, it makes you feel good that you're doing it and you're helping other people, helping people in the community. So it is, it's rewarding and gratifying. But not just for this case, but all the other hurricanes that we've done in the past.

This Day in Weather History

You have $15 to build a broadcast team

SPEAKER_02 28:08

For sure, yeah. We're gonna take a quick break. So don't go anywhere. We still got more interview left. From January 6th to the 8th of 1996, a severe nor'easter paralyzed the east coast of the United States. The nor'easter began to take shape in the Gulf of Mexico on the morning of January 6th. The system moved northeast, passing through Florida and eventually reaching the Georgia coast the next morning. By this point, the storm was bringing light flurries, cold temperatures, and breezy conditions across the southeast United States. By the evening of the 7th, the system was beginning to track parallels of the East Coast and had reached Cape Patras, North Carolina. With the aid of plenty of moisture from the south and Arctic air dragged from the north, the Nor'easter began to bring heavy snow, high wind gusts, and impactful coastal flooding for the mid-Atlantic. The storm continued tracking northeast and was eventually off the coast of southern New England by the evening of the 8th. It continued to bring its wintry furry to the northeast. By the 9th, the Nor'easter began to weaken as it moved out to sea. By the time the snow settled and people began to dig themselves out, they soon realized that this was a storm from the history books. At least a foot of snow fell across the east coast of the United States, with upwards of three to four feet of snow falling in the higher elevations of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Towards the Interstate 95 corridor, many cities were blanketed with 1 to 3 feet of snow, but the strong wind gusts created snow drifts up to 8 feet in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., and many other major cities across the Northeast. The storm caused$3 billion in damages and claimed 154 lives during the storm. Unfortunately, another 33 lives were lost after temperatures quickly warmed up after the storm, causing flooding due to rapid snow melt. Even though only a few locations saw blizzard conditions from the storm, the name Blizzard of 96 stuck because of the wide swath of blizzard warnings issued ahead of the Nor'easter. It is only one of three snowstorms to receive the top rating of five or extreme on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, a scale created to measure the impact of snowstorms across the northeast United States. The other two storms to receive the extreme rating on this scale were the March 1993 Storm of the Century and the January 2016 U.S. Blizzard. Even though these locations have since seen bigger snowfall, the Blizzard of 96 is still considered to be the big one in the modern history of snowstorms over the eastern United States. We've got a lot more questions to ask him. But before we get back into the interview, I've got another fun game for you, Michael.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

All right.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

So you have$15 to create the best weather broadcast team. So you are an executive weather producer overseeing the creation of a new weather team for either your current area or a different area of your choice. And we've got four categories. Got$15 to spend across those four categories. That said, are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

All right. So first up, you have your chief meteorologist. At$1, you get an AI weather bot. At no at$2, you get your current chief meteorologist at your station.$3 you get James Spann.$4 Ginger Z, and$5 Dr. Greg Forbes.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

So I have to choose one of them?

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Yes. So keep in mind you have only$15 to spend across these four categories. If you ball out with$5 for the three categories, you won't have anything left for the last one.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

So it's a weather bot, the chief of MyStation, Ginger Z, James Span, or what was the other one? Dr. Greg Forbes. Oh, Dr. Greg Forbes. I'm gonna have to choose the game span.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Alright, so three dollars we got James Span for your chief meteorologist. Next up, you have another meteorologist on your team.$1, you have a random graduating meteorology student who's just fresh out of college.$2, you have David Spritz from The Weatherman. You have$3, Lauren Olesky, which is one of your meteorologists at your current station.$4, Stephanie Abrams, and$5 is your choice, excluding anybody who I just mentioned, and a couple of people I'll mention in just a minute.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Uh I'm gonna choose Lauren Olasky.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Alright, three dollars, Lauren Lasky. Next up you have your storm chaser and field meteorologist.$1 you get a weather intern, two dollars you get Phil Connors from Groundhog Day,$3 you get Ryan Hall,$4 you get Reed Timmer, and$5 you get Jim Cantori. Ah, that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

I think I'm gonna go with Reed Timmer.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

He's a and so that means you have five dollars left for the spend in this last category, which is special segments. Every so often your team gets to do a special segment. Okay, so number for one dollar you get weather pun of the day, two dollars you get wacky weather themed costume during some broadcasts, three dollars you get interactive viewer call-in segments, four dollars you got live animal mascots, so like you have a dog or a cat or bird in the studio helping you do the weather forecast, and for five dollars, you can get a bi-weekly celebrity guest forecaster.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Uh interactive call-in segments for three dollars.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

Okay, and you have two dollars left to spend. You can add another meteorologist, another field chaser, another special segment to your weather team.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Maybe if it way to add a special segment like social media.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

So for the special segment, you could either do like a wacky weather themed costume during the broadcast.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

What were the other meteorologists that we had that could get for the two dollars?

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Let's see. For second meteorology, you have David Spritz from the Weatherman, you have a random graduating meteorology student for a dollar. For the Storm Chaser, you have Phil Connors from Groundhog Day or Weather Intern for one dollar. So you got some choices there.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Oh, I guess I'll do a random college student.

Diverse Experiences in Meteorology

SPEAKER_02 35:00

All right, there we go. We got a weather team. So let's get back into our conversation about your experiences. Uh, you actually didn't even go right into broadcasting to start. You went into some other work with Ion Energy and also the National Weather Service. Out of all of these prior experiences, which are quite diverse, how would you say that has made you a better or I hopefully not worse broadcast meteorologist?

SPEAKER_01 35:28

My job at Ion Weather at the Morristown Municipal Airport was probably a job that gave me a lot of different weather experience. First of all, it gave me really one half of my broadcasting experience, which is radio. We had two dozen radio stations all spread around in Rabis. So I was able to get some voice coaching with that and do a lot of radio broadcasts. We also did a lot of weather forecasting. Back then it was DIFAX charts being printed off a printer, no internet back then. So a lot of analyzation of the weather maps, coming up with forecasting, fielding calls from the clients. We had storm alert service and also dabbling a little bit in forensic meteorology. We had people needing reports, lawyers, attorneys, insurance companies. And I would research the data from the National Climate Data Center or State Climate Center and come up with a report of a specific weather event during a specific time. So a lot of experience for that weather. I think that was very valuable.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

How about the National Weather Service? Since you worked there for a little bit, what are some experiences that you've brought over from the National Weather Service that have made it easier for you or harder for you as a broadcast meteorologist?

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Well, then it was there, I was only there for a couple years, but uh I was sent to uh the forecaster development training course in Kansas City for a couple weeks. So there was a lot of uh coursework and you know, for learning more about meteorology science. And also back then, where there were human voices on there, no weather radio. You go in a little room and and you record uh little segments on no weather radio before it became computer generated. So that also aided and continued to refine my skills as a broadcaster, at least the audio part.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

So you got a little bit of experience with doing the NOAA weather radio as well?

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Uh yes. Radio was big back then. Everybody would listen to that. Uh, you'd have to go and everything was updated, and it was a human voice back then. And so you'd record all these segments. The hourly observations, the synopsis, the forecast, the marine forecasts, any tropical updates would all be recorded by a human. I think it it's been a computer generated for like 15 or 20 years now, I think.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Well, and how often were these put out on the NOAA weather radio network? Like how often would they be recorded?

SPEAKER_01 37:39

It depended on what it was. Hourly observations, you'd have to go into the booth every hour. Basically, you had a list of all the obs in the area, the statewide weather roundup, and you go in and you start basically you rally them off one at a time. Here's some trick hot weather observations. Miami 86 went southwest at seven, homestead 85 went north at nine. So a whole bunch of weather observations for that. If there was any kind of severe weather warning, a tornado warning or uh whatever it is, everything was recorded by a human, these tapes, believe it or not, then you put them into this bank and you put them on or put them off before or after you record it on them. The zone forecasts, the marine forecasts, everything was recorded by a human being. It depends on who was on ship. It was fun. And then when you let's say our observation, you basically turn it off, it would update with the new observations, and you had this bulk eraser, which was a magnetic thing, which you'd run over the tape and it would erase it because it's magnetic, stick it in, and then record on it. And these would actually run. These were actually physical tapes that ran. The world has changed. It's amazing. The technology, everything's a lot easier. Everything's digitized, there's no physical tape. And we had that at my TV station up until probably 2005, where all the packages were run on these big beta tapes.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Wow, as as late as 2005.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Well, even that look, that's going back almost 20 years, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:10

For sure, yeah. The technology has been a marvel how it's changed and how I enjoy keeping up with it. You really need to be at ease with technology and computers and new technology and software and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Yeah, and you said we're going really back with the tapes, even though it's a different kind of technology, but I'm curious because you've had experiences with many different technologies, career spanning 30 plus years. Weather apps are a very new thing and they're becoming a little more popular. What do you think is the best and worst aspects of these weather apps, public weather information tools, and how do you balance their convenience with the potential misinterpretation by the general public of this weather information?

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Oh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Weather apps are great. I've got weather apps on my phone. We have a station app, we have a couple of station apps. I use them all the time. I think the best advantages of these things are people can have weather in their pocket anytime, anywhere. I'm an outdoors guy, I like to do a lot of things. And by the way, thunderstorms pop up in Florida. I remember a time where there were no apps. You look at the forecast before you left, you'd see things starting to develop overhead. You have no idea what to expect. Radar sculpt, any weather app. You can basically know exactly when to start and stop an activity, how long it's going to be before it rains and stops. The forecasts have become a lot better. So, yeah, the convenience and keeping people informed are great. And the weather apps also alert people to dangers. You can customize them programming to have any kind of alerts on there, tornado warning, or whatnot. So a lot of people are more weather aware. I think the downside is people take those error by air forecasts too literally. They rely on them too often, and people still have to realize that meteorology is still an inexact science. It's not 100% things can be inaccurate. One of the other downsides, I think, is it has led to a reduction in viewership of TV meteorologists in general. More and more people are just watching the weather on their phone, and they're not getting like a true explanation from a local meteorologist. A lot of these, most of the forecast on these weather apps was automated. It's a computer model, and it's best to have local experience. And I hope that people, when there's a tornado warning or hurricane warning issue for an area, that they're going to be turning on their TV for the trusted meteorological local meteorologist.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Absolutely. You get that personal touch from an actual human being. And since you had mentioned you've covered thunderstorms in Florida, I want to take this moment as well because you've been in the same area for quite a long time. What are some significant changes that you've noticed with the weather in not only your area of Florida, but in Florida in general?

SPEAKER_01 41:46

It's gotten hotter. We have these long-term averages from 1991 to 2020, and that they change every 10 years. This just about all the time our temperatures are running hotter than average here in Florida, especially in South Florida. The overnight minimums have gotten higher because the water temperatures are hotter offshore with a flow off the water, it just is not able to drop as much. The last 10 or 12 winters, I think every winter has been warmer than average. Last winter is actually near normal. Everybody's saying, Oh, I can't believe how polismant. Oh, it's so chilly this winter. I'm like, no, actually, this is just a lot closer to normal. And also hurricanes of this is a pretty scary happen this hurricane season with these rapid intensifications of most notably Beryl and Milton, and I think Helene exploding to a category five. And that was not pressine. It just the warmer Atlantic, the warmer Gulf of Mexico, the record warm war temperatures makes it a little bit more unnerving to live in a hurricane crone area like Florida.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Absolutely. And you said with rapid intensification, there was that I forgot the name of it, but that one very quick storm that intensified in the middle of Atlantic. It was basically just a little blob, and then all of a sudden, Category One hurricane.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

You might be referring to the once down cube of Oscar. Yes, Oscar. Yeah, the probabilities of the Hurricane Center put out these probabilities that's going to become a tropical cyclone. It was at 60%, then they started lowering it to 30 to 20%. Then all of a sudden, within 24 hours of them lowering it to 20%, we had a category one hurricane. So intensity forecasting is still something that's a little bit problematic and needs more room to grow regarding the forecasting of tropical cyclone activity.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

For sure. And you since you mentioned it with the future and the growth of weather forecasting and also broadcasting as well. What are some exciting development trends that you've been seeing in your industry right now? What's some things that frustrate you?

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Well, I like the trends regarding the hurricane forecasting. The average track error continues to slowly go down. It really drops significantly all time periods 24, 48, 72 hours. Now lately it's clack toe of it. Drop is slowed down, but it's still going lower. So the good part about that is that the cone of uncertainty, the cone that the Hurricane Center puts out, can continue to gradually shrink. It gets smaller. So that means fewer and fewer people have to be unnecessarily warned or freaked out about a hurricane. So just better, faster supercomputers. It's amazing how we've got the resolution of these mesascale models down to a one kilometer or even less. So the more the resolution, the more grid points that are put out there, and the more accurate a weather forecast can be. And that's particularly important for the forecasting of these thunderstorms, which might still be developing within a grid box of less than a kilometer. So things are still challenging in Florida, but my goodness, the short range models have gotten so much better than they were just 10 years ago.

Becoming a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist

SPEAKER_02 44:51

Definitely they have. And in terms of the broadcast world, I want to just mention this again. In the intro, we talked about that you're a certified broadcast meteorologist. Can you walk us through what that exactly is?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Yeah, certified broadcast meteorologists, it's a seal from the American Meteorological Society, which tells the public or anybody that you've gone through a rigorous testing process and that somebody that's watching someone with a CBM seal knows that this person is an accredited meteorologist. He's got a four-year degree from a college, atmospheric science, meteorology, or whatnot. Then once a person gets out of school, it takes a couple of years. You have to take a 100 questions exam, which has all different facets of meteorology. You have to pass that. Now that's when I took it. I took it in 2008. They first came out with this back in about 2007 or 2008. Before that, I had got my regular AMS C. A lot of people still have it. And I decided to get the upgrade because I had already submitted all my weather broadcasts and that was evaluated and grandfathered in. All I had to do is basically take that 100 question exam. But man, I had been out of school for a while and things were a little fuzzy in my brain. So there's this huge study guide that the AMS has for you to go through. And I must have studied for like 100 hours or something like that. And I studied for three months and I took the exam. And fortunately, I was able to pass it on the first attempt. Then once you pass that, then what you do is you start collecting your weather broadcasts, and you send a bunch of weather broadcasts in to the broadcast board of meteorology. And you have five people on that board, and five people watch your broadcasts, and they each kind of score you in various categories: scientific knowledge, creativity, presentation. There's a whole bunch of categories, and everybody has to pass your have to get a certain score. And once you get that certain score, maybe it's 80 or higher, and you've passed that exam, then you get that certified broadcast meteorology seal. And then to keep that seal valid, you have to, every five years, you have to basically resubmit points. And you have to have 30 points. In other words, you have to take continue education. You can go to broadcast conferences to get some points. Just being in the field of meteorology and being employed at a station, that gets you a big chunk of points. You can get points by teaching a class in meteorology, going to schools, conducting school talks, Hurricane Preparedness Talks. There's so many different ways that you can earn those points. And every five years you have to submit those points. And if you don't do that, if you don't have enough, then your seal is deemed invalid.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

And you still have it to this day.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Yeah, still submit the points. I love going to the broadcast conferences and meeting other meteorologists from around the nation. Anybody that wants to go into the field, I definitely strongly recommend you try to get to these conferences. It's a really great way to network. You got the celebrities there. Jim Cantori was at the last one, and James Spann has been there. So it's just a great way, I think, to re-energize your passion for weather. You get ideas bounced off one another. You come out of there feeling refreshed and rejuvenated about your career.

Engaging with the Community

SPEAKER_02 47:56

I actually do want to touch upon a little bit more of that with how aspiring broadcast meteorologists can get more involved with that and some advice. But I wanted to ask you since you had mentioned it, you've done a lot of work, emceeing hurricane preparedness seminars, getting people ready for the hurricane season, and helping them prep for tropical systems to doing school visits in your local community. Can you share a memorable experience from those public appearances and where you made a difference in how people see and react to the weather?

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Yeah, I'm just trying to think. There's been so many.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

I I would say one of my favorite activities is going to the schools. Every year, this teacher keeps asking me back, and I'm going to go back in February. It's some gifted students in the fifth grade. He gets together the entire school. We meet in an auditorium or the cafeteria or whatever. I bring a presentation, a PowerPoint presentation, I refresh it every year. I talk about the local weather, I broadcast meteorology. He shows some pictures behind the scenes at our station, talk about their 13 season, and then I open up the room for questions. And the kids raise their vans. They ask questions every little question. Sometimes they ask funny things. Sometimes there's things that you really can't answer. Last year I bought the storm tracker truck, and everybody went back in the back, and we took a big picture of that. I think you show them on the news, and then I'll put them on my social media site. So I would think that's very rewarding going to the community. It gives me a good feeling. And perhaps inspiring some budding young meteorologists like I was a long time ago as a child to go on and to do that as a profession. I think it helps them. If somebody's wanting to do it, they're not sure, then I I can tell them.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

And just out of curiosity, what's been your favorite question that you've been asked during one of those school visits?

SPEAKER_00 49:37

One of the favorite questions.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

Probably something like, Do you go out and report the weather outside? What's it like doing that? You yeah, I guess you'd ask me one of those questions. The one that's funny is especially if some of the real young kids are like, How much money do you make? You don't want to answer that. And the teacher, well, you're not, you should be answering, you should be asking that. Come on now. You know, I mean, the kids got some priority straighter. I always tell people, you're not going to get rich as a TV meteorologist. I'm sure you hear about these people way at the top, they make a lot of money, but most of us are just struggling. And if but you get I'm getting paid to do my hobby. So as long as you can make a living at it and do okay, I think it's good.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Absolutely. As long as you're doing what you love, you're never working a day in your life. Exactly. Right. And going back to what you had mentioned about aspiring meteorologists, as somebody who has that certified broadcast meteorology seal, how do you think aspiring broadcast meteorologists or meteorologists and weather communicators in general can set themselves apart as excellent weather communicators from average ones and even do better than weather apps and public weather information that's out there?

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Well, that's a good question. It's still a very competitive field. The hardest thing is to come out of college and get that first weather job. It goes back to going to really good, accredited college, do your research if you want to do that, and try to get into a college that has a lot of chroma key and weather graphic systems to get a head start. Just practice. A lot of it is creativity. Just be yourself, be your personable self. Try to tell a weather story, try to keep it interesting. And to set yourselves apart, whenever you can get weather internships while getting your degree, that's a good way to do it, whether it's at your local TV station or at the National Weather Service office or a regional center of the National Weather Service. Try to get experience. That way you get a head start from anybody that just gets out and gets a degree. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

Got a couple questions for you left. This one's kind of more related to the broadcast meteorology role. Where do you see that going and evolving with accessible weather tools, social digital media in the next year, five years, or if you want to be bold, 10 years?

SPEAKER_01 51:47

The profession of TV meteorology is ever evolving, it's ever changing. The emphasis is still to try to push to make more money out of the digital part of it apps, a website, podcasts. And the big challenge for TV meteorology, any news operation is there are fewer and fewer people watching local news. Most people that are watching it are over the age of 45 or even 50 or 60. How do you continue in that role? Fortunately, in the news department, there's actually more meteorologists at a station. It might be involving more to do more things online, doing more videos on an app, doing more social media, and less regular newscasts, television, putting it on all different platforms. You might come in one day and we don't have these newscasts anymore, but we're going to show our newscasts on our website. They're available to open up our app. You can just watch it on our app. And recently started putting them on YouTube. So you might be doing several different broadcasts, and they might have to be custom tailored to the different social media sites. The weather graphics might have to look different. You might have to make things bigger because people are watching them on a smaller screen rather than a big TV. There's always going to be a need for weather, but it might be more digital online social media and less on traditional broadcast television. Now, I don't see newscasts on TV going away. If it does happen, it might be more than five years from now. But yeah, let's take this business model. And for somebody who's got out of college, I have no idea what's going to happen. You want to take it to your for 40 years until you're retired, let's say at 65, it might exist in an entirely different way than it is now. So it's always good also to have a plan B. You know, a lot of the weather jobs are out there just in case.

SPEAKER_02 53:36

And that's almost advice for anybody, not just the weather field, but any other listener that's just has an interest in the weather.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Exactly. I'm right. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

I got one more question for you since you mentioned social media. I did a little bit of research on you and in your talks in social media. I've noticed that you like water skiing, you like tennis, going to the beach, reading. How do all these hobbies of yours influence your perspective as a meteorologist?

SPEAKER_00 54:04

A lot of those hobbies are weather dependent.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Like a lot of meteorologists you find are outdoorsy types. They've been out there in the middle of a snowstorm, they've been out there in the hurricanes. A lot of people, as a meteorologist, I want to be out in the weather. I don't care how bad the weather is. I want to be out there experiencing what's going on. So that it so I guess that kind of translates to my hobbies on my days off. Uh in fact, just today I went, I was out water skiing. And it was, okay, what's the wind gonna be? Should I, should I? Everybody's so sensitive. Everybody, most people think if the wind is um 15 miles an hour to 20 miles an hour or less, it's breezy. But for water skiers, it's windy. Gotta know what the weather is, what the wind is gotta be, what the wind direction is gonna be. So I'm always thinking about the weather. I want to go to the beach. I don't care too much if it's sunny all the time, but what are the seas gonna be? Are they gonna be rough? And then that's influenced by the wind and the wind direction and how strong it is. So yeah, my hobbies are basically weather dependent. And I like to snow ski also and get out of Florida once a year and do that. And that's a great way to go up and to try to get my winter on, basically, and get my fix of winter.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

And just real quick, what's your favorite place to ski?

SPEAKER_01 55:16

There's so many of them. I still have things on my bucket list. I grew up in the Northeast, and my parents took all of us on a very young age and forced us to go skiing. We skied in the Berkshires and Vermont. But then a buddy of mine moved out west. I knew him from writer school and Rutgers and visited every healing. This guy was in Salt Lake City, and we've gone to all the places out there, Alt City and Deer Valley and Alta. Back in March, I just took a trip up to Lake Louise and Banff in Alberta and went over to Rebel Stope, which is the highest vertical drama in North America. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

So again, up in Canada there.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Canada. Yeah, Whistler is fun. Lake Tahoe's good. There's so many great skiers out west. Uh, next on my buckle list, I think it's gonna be Big Sky Montana.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

Montana is very beautiful, and in fact, Montana is gonna be one of the subjects of our weather or not quiz. So, with that said, I think that's a good transition to get into weather or not. So it's a staple in all of our podcast episodes. I'll ask you a couple of weather-themed and non-weather-themed trivia questions, and like I said, one of those is Montana themed, or I'll explain it a little more as we get to.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

You think I know what you're talking about? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 56:24

Are you ready to go? I'm ready to go. All right. This is whether or not your first question is related to Bruce Springsteen. Which song has these lyrics down in the shadow of the penitentiary? Is it A, born in the USA, B, Cadillac Ranch, C, Born to Run, or D, 10th Avenue Freeze Out?

SPEAKER_00 56:48

Oh boy, that's a down.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

What is it, down in the penitentiary? Down in the shadow of the penitentiary. Give me the choice one more time. So it's A, born in the USA, B, Cadillac Ranch, C, born to run, or D, 10th Avenue Freeze Out. I would say A. Born in the USA?

SPEAKER_00 57:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

You are correct, it is born in the USA.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

This is whether or not your next question is New Jersey weather history. A hurricane man landfall on Atlantic City on September 16th, 1903. While it did not have an official name, it gained traction in the media as this name. Was it A, the Great Atlantic Hurricane, B, the Motley Cruise Storm, C, the Vagabond Hurricane, or D, the Atlantic City Troublemaker.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

The Atlantic City troublemaker. Final guess? Yeah, no. Actually, my first my first thought was A, the Great Atlantic Hurricane. Which one you want to lock in with? Uh, let's go with A.

Weather or Not Trivia

SPEAKER_02 57:57

You are incorrect. It was not the Great Atlantic Hurricane, but that wasn't the name of a hurricane that did impact New Jersey. The correct answer was the Vagabond Hurricane. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

That's going way back. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

A little bit, yes. Right. This is whether or not your next question is related to the show Yellowstone. Okay. What does Rip Wheeler say is his rule about fighting on the Yellowstone ranch? Is it A, there's no fighting on my ranch. B, no fighting till I've had my coffee. C, you're gonna fight, fight proper. Or D, if you want to fight somebody, you come fight me.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Oh, D.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

D. Yeah. If you want to fight somebody, you come fight me.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

Yeah, that rip, right? Yes. Yeah, that's great. That just started up by thinking the last couple weeks and after uh getting second part of season five.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

Yeah, as we're recording season five, part two is out. If you want to fight somebody, you come fight me.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Definitely is great. Alright, we've got one more for you. This is whether or not your next and final question is related to Florida weather history. What is the longest stretch of low temperatures below freezing for West Palm Beach? Is it A, 1, B, 2, C, 3, or D, 5?

SPEAKER_01 59:23

Like daily below temperature dropping below freezing?

SPEAKER_02 59:26

Yeah, so every morning the low temperature dropping below freezing.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

I'm gonna say, boy, it doesn't happen that often.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

I two locking in two?

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

You are incorrect, it is three, and it does not happen very often. I think the last time it happened, if don't quote me on this, uh, this was back quite a ways, at least 20 years ago. Uh that three-day stretch of below freezing low temperatures.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

I can't remember last time it's been below freezing here at West Pond, and we rarely get in the 30s anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

Yeah, maybe I should move to Florida. I don't like the cold.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:04

You don't like the cold, yeah, sure. They come come on down.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:07

All right, with that said, that brings us to the end of the episode. But before we go, how can people follow you and your work, Michael?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Uh, I've got a LinkedIn profile, even TikTok and YouTube. Just search that in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Uh, and then if you if you want to go to YouTube, type in uh Michael Ehrenbruhr, my full name. Yeah, just type in my full name. I've got a LinkedIn profile. That's for professional contacts or whatnot. So just put my name in. Yeah, you'll be able to find me some way, shape, or form. Please go in there and follow me or like me, whatnot, and send me an instant message. I would be glad to. I'm always welcoming new people, new followers, new likes.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

Absolutely. And we'll make sure to link those all down in the show notes for people to follow. Sounds good. With that said, thank you, Michael, for joining me on today's episode. And thank you to the listener for joining on this episode of Everything Weather. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

All right. Well, thank you, everybody. Thanks for joining in. Thank you.