Crafting Engaging & Educational Weather & Climate Media with Tom Di Liberto

In this episode of the Everything Weather podcast, we talk with Tom Di Liberto, an Emmy-nominated climate scientist, meteorologist, and science communicator. They discuss Tom’s journey into the weather world, including his experiences at NOAA, where he contributes to strategic communications on climate and weather topics like El Niño and La Niña. They play fun games guessing top hosts on Saturday Night Live and the coldest states by recorded temperatures. Tom also shares his experiences with international weather forecasting, the importance of community in weather events, and his work on NOAA’s first-ever animated series, 'Teak and Tom Explore Planet Earth.'

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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

Kyle David 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Everything Weather 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 excited to have Tom DiLiberto. Tom is an MA nominated climate scientist, meteorologist, and science communicator with extensive experience in weather and climate communications. He has worked as a public affairs specialist and climate scientist at NOAA, where he contributed to strategic communications, media relations, and public outreach on climate and weather-related topics such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. Hey there, Tom, and welcome to the Everything Weather Podcast. Hey, thanks for having me. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to talking more about your experiences, all the stuff that you've worked on, and the work that you got Emmy nominated for. But first, I've got a fun game for you. Well, two fun games for you. Both of these will be guess these related. So I've got a weather-themed one and another non-weather-themed one. Okay. We'll start with the non-weather themed one first. Guess the top five hosts who have hosted the most times on Saturday Night Live.

Tom Di Liberto 1:20

Oh, what a good question.

Kyle David 1:23

Tom Hanks? Tom Hanks is number five on the list, and he's tied with the number four spot. Oh, um, Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin is number one. He was hosted SNL 17 times. So I got the first and the last one in the top five. Let's see if we can think about the middle ones.

Tom Di Liberto 1:39

Who else has been who else is hosted so many times? Oh, goodness gracious.

Kyle David 1:49

Um, it would it be like Martin Short? Martin Short is not in the top five, but a friend of his, I'll give you a hint, a friend of his is in that top five. Steve Martin? Steve Martin is number two on the list. So you've got the number three and four left.

Tom Di Liberto 2:06

I'm sure Martin Short would have really loved the fact that I said him before Steve Martin, just knowing their personalities with each other. Who has hosted a whole bunch since uh are the people on the list like current? Are they still in movies now?

Kyle David 2:19

One is definitely active in movies. The other one I'm not sure of because I've not heard of him. Oh that makes it more fun. Let me just the other is not currently active. So one is active, one is not active. He's it's probably not Paul Redd, although I know he's hosted a bunch. He is part of the Five Timers Club, but he's not in the top five for most appearances as the host of Saturday Night Live. John Goodman. John Goodman is number three on the list, so you've got one more spot, the number four spot to guess.

Tom Di Liberto 2:54

The number four spot. Who it's it probably it's not just in Timberlake, because he would have been putting junk no. It's gotta be someone from like way back in like the 70s and 80s, and I have no idea who it is. Is that a good guess?

Kyle David 3:12

You're close. You're close, I'll give you that.

Tom Di Liberto 3:15

I probably have no idea who this person is.

Kyle David 3:18

If it helps you, I don't know who he was either. So Oh, I might give up on this one. Who is this last one? So the last one is Buck Henry, who had hosted ten times in the span of in the span of one year, almost one and a half years, he managed to get into the Five Timers Club. So he had hosted quite a few times during his run as a host. Well, good good for you, Buck.

Tom Di Liberto 3:41

Look you up on Wikipedia, because I've never heard of you. You're probably before my time.

Kyle David 3:47

Definitely way before my time. And now we've got one more, and it's the weather-themed one. This one is going to be, I think, very interesting. So this is guess the top ten coldest states by all time coldest temperatures recorded. So I've got the 50 United States on a list. Your job is to guess the top ten coldest by all time lowest temperature ever recorded in them. That is such a great question. I'll go with Alaska.

Tom Di Liberto 4:19

Number one spot is Alaska. Whew! I'm assuming it's gonna be places with elevation. Would Maine be on the list? Maine, let's see, dude.

Kyle David 4:32

Maine is not in the top top top ten, but it's close. It's close. I will gladly take close. Uh Colorado. Colorado is number five on the list. Okay. Okay. We've got number one and number five.

Tom Di Liberto 4:49

Once again, I got the first and the last one.

Kyle David 4:51

Well, the middle one.

Tom Di Liberto 4:52

The middle one, yes, right.

Kyle David 4:53

We got ten.

Tom Di Liberto 4:54

I'm gonna go with the northern plains here. Would it be like North Dakota?

Kyle David 5:03

North Dakota is number eight on the list.

Tom Di Liberto 5:06

What about Montana?

Kyle David 5:08

Montana is number two on the list. I knew it.

Tom Di Liberto 5:11

So when those cold air outbreaks come down those planes, it gets freezing. Um it wouldn't be Idaho then either, if we just go along the Canadian border.

Kyle David 5:22

Is that a guess? Yeah, let's go. Let's do Idaho. Idaho is number six on this list. So close. So you've got Alaska, Montana, Colorado, Idaho, and North Dakota. So you've got five. You know, let's stay in the same region. Let's go Wyoming. Wyoming is number four on the list. You're on a streak so far.

Tom Di Liberto 5:42

Okay, I think I know the last one. So I said Colorado, I said Wyoming. There's another state right over there. I'm gonna say Utah.

Kyle David 5:50

Utah is number three on the list. So you've got one through was it six? You got the seventh spot, the ninth spot, and the tenth spot left. Oh. South Dakota? South Dakota is number nine on the list. Okay. So now I'm missing just what, the number seven spot? The number Yeah, the number seven, the number ten. Seven and ten. Sounds like I'm ordering something for Burger King. I'll have the number seven, number ten.

Tom Di Liberto 6:16

Supersize it. Uh spicy, please. Oh, what is another if I was a cold state. I mean I can just keep going down. Let's keep going down the mountains.

Kyle David 6:28

How about New Mexico? New Mexico is the tenth spot for all-time coldest temperature recorded. And so that leaves the number seven spot left. You know what? I'm from New York. Let's say New York. New York is not on the list, but it's close. Close. I figure plateau fall outside. It gets real cold. Would Vermont? Vermont is not in the top ten. It's a quite a little bit of a ways away. Huh. But not too far.

Tom Di Liberto 6:57

So then is it California?

Kyle David 7:00

California is not in the top ten. All time coldest temperatures recorded. Oh, this is not gonna kill me. What is this last one? Is it you out of New Hampshire? You're thinking a little too far east. New Hampshire's not in the top ten. Oh, I'm thinking too far east. Is it like Minnesota? You got it. Minnesota's the last one. That's the number seventh spot. But that that is the top ten we've got.

Tom Di Liberto 7:24

I want to apologize to Minnesota because I've said pretty much every other state in the plains kind of area, except for Minnesota, and I don't know why. I think I threw the Dakotas and I just stopped.

Kyle David 7:33

I don't know why. Some people say it's a flyover state. I personally have not been to Minnesota, so I cannot say it's a flyover state or not. Yeah. I've heard some decent things about it. I know they they and what is it, Wisconsin drink a lot on a side note. So I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Like, do you guys have good things up there? If somebody from Minnesota is listening, let me know. Let us know. So yeah, that's our guest these games. So let's get into the conversation about your weather story, Tom. So everybody I've had on the podcast, I talk with them about their weather story, how they got interested into the weather and the experiences that they've experienced along the way to get them into the weather. So, Tom, tell me your weather story and what got you interested in everything weather.

Tom Di Liberto 8:20

Yeah, it's a great question. I always love hearing stories from other folks who are into weather because I always have really fascinating kind of stories about why they got into it. There's a family story in my family about how when I was like two years old, there's a thunderstorm. I grew up on Long Island. It was like a thummer, summer thunderstorm, and I was crawling or walking at that point. I was two. My parents had to stop me from walking outside. Like I just wanted to walk out into the thunderstorm. And I always had this fascination with kind of turbulent weather, whether it was snow or heavy rain or thunderstorm, whatever you want to call it. I loved it. I loved being outside in the rain. I would just like literally walk outside when I was older and just get wet. I thought that was fun. And I was just kind of really always fascinated with how the atmosphere worked. And I remember in third grade, and this kept like my entire life, my third grade, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I said a meteorologist. I'd say a weather person. I didn't see what I said a meteorologist, a full I just by the only time I knew how to spell that word, I figured out how to spell that word in third grade. I couldn't spell anything else, but I could spell a meteorologist. And I just released wanted to study the weather. I was a kid, you don't know, you have lots of things. At some point I wanted to be a professional soccer player or a whole bunch of other stuff. And I remember it really locked in for me when I was in middle school. I was in sixth grade when the blizzard of 96 happened on Long Island. It dropped like 20 some odd inches of snow. We were off of school for two days, which back then was crazy. We only usually got one day off of school for a storm. Like only the really rare storms had it for two days. And I remember the first day of that snow day. I remember just going outside and I laid down after inch 12, and I didn't get back up until inch 14. Uh and I was just laying in the snow. And I distinctly remember like looking at the different snow, the snow types that was falling, the different types of crystals. And I distinctly remember, too, at the end of the storm having the snow change into sleet and realizing, oh, this might be the end of this storm. I was pulling out. We had a little bit of sleep mixed in because of the the coastal warmth coming into Long Island. And like that was it. I was like, this is what I want. That sounds fascinating. So then after that, I became the kid, everyone asked when there would be a snow day. Because I'd be paying attention to the forecast. I listened to the weather channel nonstop back in the day, got really into smooth jazz. I would be playing with that. And then I still kept doing it. I feel like every single time I had a doubt that this is what I wanted to do, the atmosphere remind me. So I got older and then I started going on vacation to the Outer Banks. And for three consecutive summers in a row, we were evacuated due to a hurricane at different times of the summer. And I was like, every single time I was like, maybe I'll do something else. The atmosphere's like, no, I think you should get more obsessed with all of these things. I always joke that every single science fair experiment I did from like middle school through high school always involved the weather, even if it made absolutely no sense. Like for biology experiments, I would still somehow make it about the weather. And it was just kind of ingrained in me, which is uh it's a weird thing. It just seems like uh for whatever reason the atmosphere wouldn't let me go.

Kyle David 11:21

Another way to put it, every time you try to turn to something else, the weather was like, No, you're gonna give me your attention. You're you're you're mine now.

Tom Di Liberto 11:30

Exactly right. That's what Mother Nature wants, Mother Nature gets.

Kyle David 11:35

I love that story. Do you remember the particular storms that you would evacuate from in the outer banks? Oh my goodness.

Tom Di Liberto 11:42

I remember one because it was Bertha, and I remember there was a shirt when I was a kid. I thought it was really fun. It said Bertha blows, and it was just a really funny shirt when you were like a little boy. I don't remember the other two names. They were not strong storms. A couple of them like didn't even make landfall in the outer banks. They kind of like tracked up the coast, but they came close enough to where they like issued an evacuation. But man, I remember being stuck in traffic for like four hours getting over the one bridge in the outer banks. My brother was in high school and he had a friend with him at that time, so they literally got out and just walked, and we caught up with them at the bridge, like a mile down the road, like two hours later. But I think it was Bertha and there was an F name. I think there was an F and a G. I'm guessing.

Kyle David 12:23

F and G. I'm not sure I forget the names. Maybe somebody who's very fluent with the historical weather events. I know people who can recall a specific event from like 20 years before they were born. I'm like, whoa, how do you know about this? Like, what are you reading there?

Tom Di Liberto 12:40

More power to him. All the events as I got older just kind of smooshed together. Like, it's hard. I don't remember what like what music was on the radio at the time that gave me any of the years, but after that, it's just like, yeah, I just remember being really chaotic or that event.

Kyle David 12:52

Yeah, definitely. But to go back to your earlier comment about making your science fair projects revolve around the weather, what was your favorite science fair project that you did that was related to the weather? Oh, I did an acid rain thing.

Tom Di Liberto 13:10

This is this is how I did the biology one. How different levels of acidic water impact plants. And that was pretty cool. That was like in fifth grade, I think I did that one. Another one I did, funny enough, I did an El Nino La Nina science fair experiment, which is funny because I I grew up and I forecasted it. I was one of the forecasters of it. And I did this right after the 1998 El Nino. We were in the midst of the really strong 99 La Nina, and I did like an experiment explaining the mechanics and the physics behind El Nino and La Nina. I think I still have the poster board somewhere at my parents' house. I should bring it back and show my kids or at least show it online and be like, see, I was meant to forecast El Nino.

Kyle David 13:50

That honestly, that's just impressive that you still have the board for that science fair project. Parents don't throw anything out. That yeah, that's true. My parents keep a bunch of stuff around. I don't know if they've kept my Science Fair project because at the time it was not weather related. This is a quick like side note. I think my fourth grade or fifth grade project was on popcorn, like which popcorn brand is the most effective in popping in a microwave. Oh, interesting. I like that. Why why I remember that still, I can't tell you. But, anyways, that that's honestly a very cool science project that you did. You involved acid rain, and you even talked about El Nino and Enso, the one size for project. Do you remember what grade that was in? You did that one? I did that one in ninth grade. That's actually really impressive that you did that in ninth grade. And you're you did work for relating to Enso and the El Nino phase of the La Nina. Before we get into how you get to forecast that, let's just take a moment and look back. You're in high school, you're graduating. Where did you go from high school to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration or NOAA?

Tom Di Liberto 14:59

Yeah. So I remember not trusting myself as like a 17-year-old going to college. So I applied to schools that like had atmospheric science programs, but also have a lot of other things. So like I applied to a lot of big schools because I didn't trust myself. And I was like, well, if I decide I don't want to be a meteorologist or a climate scientist, I want to have options. I don't want to end up like a smaller school. So I went to, I applied a whole bunch. I got into Cornell. I went to Cornell University for my undergraduate degree. And then I went to grad school at Studybrook University on Long Island, which is right next to where I grew up. I remember I was in the PhD program, and I remember the first day of taking classes again. I was like, oh no, I'm burnt out. I cannot stick around for the PhD. I'm not going to survive this. I feel like that's what a lot of PhD is. It's surviving the PhD. And I was like, I can't. I had an early real realization I couldn't do it anymore. So I got out, I got a master's degree instead. But I worked on some cool stuff. Stony Brook University runs its own kind of ensemble forecasting system. And they ran one coupled with an ocean model that helped forecast storm search. And I was the first one to verify their storm surge real-time forecasting system. And then I also got to make hurricanes in a computer model and have them hit Long Island and see what happened to the Storm Surge. That was fun. Really good way of getting out stress is creating like a make-believe category five and just having it slam into Long Island where you were currently living. And then I got all that and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to be a TV weather person. I didn't exactly know, I didn't want to be a shift worker as a forecaster. I didn't want to work shifts. I don't think I could handle it. I don't think more power to those folks who can do those changing times. And then I found his contract position at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, which is the National Weather Service, that was working at their international desk. And I applied and I got the job. And it was a nine to five, and it was perfect for me as my first way of getting into NOAA. I was forecasting weather and climate across the developing world. So like Africa, Central America, Hispaniola, Central Asia. And I was the worst meteorologist to know in person because I wouldn't know what was going on where I lived, but I could tell you, like, oh, well, the rainy season, the Great Horn of Africa, is two weeks late. But I'd be like, oh, it's raining. I had no idea. Outside. And that was my first foray into this interface between like weather and climate timescales. So I was wishing like weather forecasts, but having to think about things like what's the seasonal forecast for the rainy season in Eastern Africa and West Africa and Southern Africa. I got to do some really neat things like I got to go to Africa and help lead a workshop on severe weather forecasting. I got to go to other places and lead like these other workshops and how to use GIS to help create products and give them like tools for them to be able to use, which is really neat. And it was the first time as someone growing up in the United States, I really only focused and cared about United States weather all the time. And that was like the first time I thought of it as an international weather community. And this idea of the whole world is together in all of these things. And that NOAA, where I worked, was such like a key thing and a key component to the global weather community and how everything works, which was a neat experience.

Kyle David 18:17

That sounds very neat. And I'm going to ask you to talk a little bit more about that because that sounds like a really cool experience, not just forecasting for international locations, but also going to international locations to help them forecast and observe the weather. So can you elaborate a little more on that and talk about your different experiences with that?

Tom Di Liberto 18:34

Yeah, I always say this that the people, it's a capacity building where like the same thing happened in the United States. Like I'm not from, let's say, the West Coast. I could forecast the weather for you if you live in Seattle, but you'd be much better off someone who lives in Seattle, experiences the weather all the time, forecasting who's a meteorologist forecasting the weather for you than me a thousand miles away with no experience of that. And similar kind of goes like, no, we have the tools, we can forecast these things for people, but we also want to build capacity of the meteorological community across Africa to have the best tools and the best experience because they know the areas better than we do. They lived that experience. So, and this is also with like the European Union as well. We have these tools that we provide for free to the world to basically provide like they can have their own forecast. So, this one thing I did, I got to travel to Rwanda, which is something I never thought I would ever do in my entire life. And it was basically all these meteorologists representing countries from the entirety of Eastern or the Greater Horn of Africa. So there were scientists from like Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Ethiopia. And then the crazy one is that this was about a year or so after South Sudan became a country. And there was one meteorologist there from South Sudan. And he told me, and he told everyone at the time, that he was the only meteorologist in South Sudan. So the fact that he was like at this workshop learning about how to use these tools to better forecast severe weather for the Greater Horn meant there was really no one forecasting the weather for the entire country. And that blew my mind. And it was cool seeing in action all people like these countries be like, oh, if you ever got to go somewhere, we can help fill in and give you some of the important forecasts. And it really just nailed home for me how important the weather is and then how important it is to collaborate and help people. But I was leading, we had these new tools that would help them predict heavy rainfall, like thunderstorms and heavy rainfall events. And I was kind of walking them through what these tools meant and how to use them. And then they would be able to take that information and then be able to use it in forecasts. And then we still keep in touch with they had any questions about the tools that we had if anything broke down, we would help them out with it. But it was an unbelievably rewarding experience. Some of them so scientists came over to the United States for a training program at NOAA several years after that. So I got to go see them again, and it was just a really neat experience. And it like as someone who's like never had to worry about getting weather information in the United States, or imagine issuing a forecast of severe weather without a radar. That's what they're doing. They don't have radars. So it was just like a it's such a fascinating experience, but also me really appreciate like what we have and how important it is that we share some of this expertise with the world.

Kyle David 21:23

It's all about that collaboration, as you said. The weather doesn't stop at one country, it's a global activity in a way. And to broaden things out, you could connect it to your weather forecasting, your experiences down in South Africa, or it could be another location. What was your most exciting place to forecast for? And then what was the most challenging place to forecast for?

Tom Di Liberto 21:45

Oh, excellent question. Excellent, excellent question. It's funny, in Africa, it's not that hard to forecast because it's so seasonal, it's monsoonal. Like the ITCZ with a it moves up and down, and you can basically follow things as it goes in that region. The most difficult places to forecast in Africa were places where we didn't have a lot of observations. It would be like South Sudan. It would be like places in Ethiopia and getting into other like Sudan as well, but also places that border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Like that country is about the size if you go from the Canadian border to the Mexican border, from about like, let's say, Illinois to the east coast, like it's about that big. It's huge. There are three weather stations in the entire country. And about sometimes maybe one or two of them would report. So it's imagine like just having a huge dearth of observations in the middle of the country. And that if you look about weather models, you need to have the initial condition that goes into it. You're not getting a huge chunk of Africa's information into the model. And that is a huge moisture source for a lot of places in Africa. So Africa can be really hard to forecast, even though it's monsoonal, because we just don't have a lot of information getting into the model, which is going to exacerbate any of the initial errors that get into the model. So it makes it harder to forecast for those areas. I forecasted for Afghanistan, and the military tended to use it as well about seasonality and how things were going. And that was just really hard because again, we just didn't have a lot of information. And sometimes we would miss a forecast, but we wouldn't know about a heavy rain event until you'd see it in the news. A similar story goes for Central America, where I forecasted. The issue we always had is that the rainfall is, it tends to be warm rain processes, is warm, and it can rain a lot and be missed easily by our models. And even missed by the data sets that we have that show the observations, because we're using satellite-derived rainfall amounts. So if you don't have, which have their problems, and if you don't have observations certain places, you end up missing some of these really high rainfall events that don't show up because they don't have really cold cloud tops. But they're just so wet, they just are so efficient at producing rain. So there are multiple times where, like on the north coast of Honduras, where we'd find rain like five or six inches, and our observations said it rained like a half an inch. And that could be a big difference. So it was each area has its own specialty about what makes it difficult. But it's good, it keeps you on your toes, and it really makes you understand the global a little bit more appreciation for how the weather can be so different and similar in so many different places across the globe.

Kyle David 24:28

Yeah, and that number doesn't sound like a huge difference, but like you said, it does make all of the difference in the world with things that are weather and climate related.

Tom Di Liberto 24:39

I also had to learn how to convert millimeters into inches because we were talking so much internationally that I was doing lots. Now I know 25 millimeters is roughly an inch, so I got that down pat. The other thing I never thought I'd forecast is locusts. Because that was a lot stuff that was affecting food security is my main focus. So I had to forecast like locusts and like how they were spreading across the West Africa at times. Luckily, we had a lot of experts on the ground telling us like they're moving in this direction, you could look at the prevailing winds and see where they were going. But also something I didn't remember ever learning in college was like checking out that local locust forecast model about where animals are moving across different parts of the world.

Kyle David 25:19

Forecasting for locusts. I think that's a first time I've heard that. I think that's the first. Biblical is that it's such interest that's an interesting word to describe that. I mean, between forecasting for locusts and then also your forecasts being used for the military, these sound like somewhat surprising things, but I'm curious, are there any other surprising uses of your forecasts that you've found and it really took you back a little bit? Yeah, yeah.

Tom Di Liberto 25:49

I remember I was early on in my career forecasting with the International Desk, and we produced these products that are looking at current conditions, but then the forecast for the next week. We're saying, like, oh, these areas are in drought, these areas are experiencing flash flooding and whatnot, or river flooding, whatever it may be. And I remember being told through a colleague who was on the ground that I believe the president of Guatemala or Honduras, I forget which one had actually looked at our forecast and literally had a photo of like just a printout of the forecast that was going to the president's desk. And I was like, whoa, that's that's big. That's crazy to think about. At the time I was like in my 20s, and I was like, that's a lot of one of my many things I was like, that's a lot of responsibility. But again, I think sometimes the things that come from that have the NOAA seal on it, I mean, that's like can be really trustworthy. That just again made you just want to work harder to make sure that you're making the best forecast you possibly can. Because especially places in Central America and Hispaniola and generally the Caribbean, they really look to the United States for a lot of the products and whatnot to let them know what's going on.

Kyle David 26:51

Wow, that's a huge amount of responsibility, and especially at 20, that I couldn't wrap my head around something like that reaching the president's desk. That's just crazy.

Tom Di Liberto 27:01

I sure, I sure I made that forecast. It just seemed like a really weird difference between what I was doing and what I was actually living like that time.

Kyle David 27:10

Chicken nuggets or chicken tenders is the dinner of championship. It's still good. It's still good. It's a try-to-true classic. But you brought up something interesting. Your forecasts and your communications go into a number of different applications from locust forecasting to military use to the president's desk. I'm curious, what are some of the challenges that you've had to navigate in not only forecasting the weather and climate, but also communicating these complex topics to a wide range of audiences? Yeah.

Tom Di Liberto 27:40

We often talk about communicating to the public, but there is no public, right? It's just a bunch of different groups of people. And you can't have there's no one way you can communicate to everybody. So one thing that's always been a challenge when I'm communicating with the weather and climate forecast, and I'm getting into things like climate and climate change and impacts, as well as tools and resources for building resilience, is understanding who I'm trying to talk to, what their goals, what their hopes are, what their with their biases. Like I'm not gonna go to Boston and talk about how I'm a Yankees fan. Understanding like what their concerns are. And each audience is so different from who you're trying to talk with. If I'm talking to somebody in, let's say Nebraska, I'm not gonna talk about sea level rise necessarily. I'm not gonna talk about some of the ocean impacts. I'm gonna talk about things that might impact them: drought, wildfire, heavy rainfall, things that could affect crops if they're from a farming community. And it was lots of just thinking about that. I feel like most of the time I, as in my career as communicated, as communications and communicating to people, most of my time was spent thinking about how to communicate, less so actually doing it. I feel like the good communications is almost when you're actually doing the either the product, the article, the interview, the workshop you're doing, almost the aspect of the actual part of the communication is the easy thing. Like the most of the work comes in beforehand and setting up things how to actually create the communication product, let alone the implementation of it. And it's a fascinating, really hard problem. And I always tend to think it's less a science problem, more like a human problem. I always tend to think of it that way, like what are ways I like to receive information? Or what are the times that I remember telling a good story to somebody of a friend of mine? And I feel like everyone in the world has told a good story in their life at some point. So if we can think about what are the things that we did that worked really well, we can just replicate that in a lot of different ways in how you communicate and just going with a lot of information about who you're talking to.

Kyle David 29:33

Of all the people I've talked to on the podcast, they've compared it to telling a story. But for the case of you, I think you're the first person that kind of tells the story of connect back to our intro, the El Nino Southern Oscillation and El Nino and La Niña, which people probably know a little bit more about than just the term Enso or the El Nino Southern Oscillation. So, in short, like how do you communicate that story with Enso, El Nino, La Niña to a wide ray of audiences?

Tom Di Liberto 30:03

Yeah, it's hard. One of the things I did at NOAA was I wrote for the Enso blog at climate.gov. After I was at the Climate Friction Center, I actually moved and became the climate scientist for climate.gov. I handed those social media and I wrote a bajillion articles for them, and I was one of the folks who wrote the Enso blog. And we created the Enso blog because one of the main reasons is after in El Nino, we felt like there was a lot of misunderstanding about what was being said, too confident remarks about impacts, or getting things a little bit confused. We thought, you know what? While we have a discussion when we release the next forecast of Enso and El Nino and La Niña, it's a weather service like discussion. We know it's not the most easily understandable thing for someone who's not like a nerd like all of us who's interested in those things. We thought, what if we created something where we could actually explain in more plain language what the heck is going on? And it became, shockingly to us, incredibly popular. Who knew that everyone cared about El Nino and La Niña? I blame the Chris Farley sketch from SNL. But like it became a huge way of being able to communicate the topic. And what we one thing that we thought was really useful is that we often then saw, as opposed to let's say me or a colleague of mine doing an interview with 30 different journalists, we would see our number of interviews go down, but the number of times an article we wrote on the Enso blog increase in terms of like they should just pull quotes and be like, this is from Tom DiLiberno at the Enso blog. And that was helpful because the journalists in the end are really telling the story to a lot more people than we can possibly tell that story to. So we can necessarily control, but at least have a better understanding of how we want to frame things that are a little bit more understandable. Because again, mentioning El Nino and La Niña doesn't mean anything to anybody. People tend to think of it like a storm almost, like oh, make landfall, which is not a thing, it's a climate pattern. So trying to break it down in simple words help provide an access point where people can go in if they want to learn more. And then when it comes to El Nino and La Niña, I often talk about it impacts first. Because in the end, that's what people care about, besides maybe having a cool thing to talk about when you're with friends, like, oh, El Nino's here. So I would tend to focus on like what does this mean for the United States? What does it mean for our winter weather? Does it mean wetter, drier conditions, warmer than average conditions, and start from there and then kind of go back into the impacts from El Nino and then just talk about the awe of it that this thing in the Pacific Ocean can literally change with a jet stream sets up and can literally like mess up the entire global circulation. It's just like a crazy cool thing. And I tend to like, once I get them in, I'll try and have them use it as a gateway into having people appreciate just how crazy cool the atmosphere can be. And the fact that we're like living on this planet and somebody's happening like 3,000 miles away is impacting like whether I'm getting rain today. It's just really neat. And then over the years, we've done that pod, we've done that blog for over a decade now. Over the years, we've seen an increase in understanding of El Nino, the next El Nino. There's less sort of confusion. The better questions are being asked of us by the public in our comments section and also by interviewers. So it seemed like it's something that when it comes to communications, it's not something that's gonna work tomorrow. It's something you have to put time in year after year and consistent effort in. And then you'll see the results be positive once folks get comfortable with it and they keep hearing and learning about these terms over and over again.

Kyle David 33:21

Yeah, and I'll also link the blog in our show notes as well for people to go and read a little bit more about El Nino. We're gonna link that into the show notes for people to go and check that out more and learn more about Enso and El Nino. And rather than ask you point blank what is El Nina, La Niña, and Enso, I'll ask you an interesting question. What's your favorite way to explain what Enso, El Nino, and La Nina is to somebody who may not have the meteorology and climatology background.

Tom Di Liberto 33:54

What is the best way?

Kyle David 33:57

Your favorite way.

Tom Di Liberto 33:59

My favorite way of doing it. So one of the ways I like to talk about it is like imagine El Niño La Nina is like a toddler in the Pacific Ocean. Like little kids. They got hands everywhere, right? They pull and grab things, right? They're similar, El Niño La Niña, but they're different. And what El Niño and La Niña is doing is it takes a jet stream, which is think of it like a storm highway, right? It's where storms go. And it grabs it in its fitfulness of being a little toddler and grabs it and moves it around. And they move it differently, different places. But by their toddler instincts and histrionics, they can move the jet stream in a way where it might point towards you more often than not, which means you might get more storms than you otherwise would be. But you can't expect it to ever be the same. No two toddlers are alike. There could be a bunch of El Nino toddlers, they could be a bunch of La Nina toddlers, but they're still not alike. So depending on how they reach out and grab that jet stream means that every single El Nino event's gonna be different than the other one. But more often than not, you'll see similar connections between all these El Nino kids and all these La Nina kids playing around with the atmosphere. And I usually think El Nino's, we talk about it really simply. It's just like how warm or warmer than average or below average, colder than average waters are in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. But it's so complicated. It's such a complicated thing because there are so many different aspects which control like whether an event's gonna happen or not. And I always get asked about like climate change and its impacts on El Nino and La Niña, and I say like I always use the analogy, like, imagine a room full of dimmer switches. And like the light in the room is what happens to El Nino or La Niña. Like climate change is like someone who goes in and like slightly changes all of these dimmer switches, and you're asking us to tell us what how strong or not as strong the light in the room is. And you're like, I don't know, there's a thousand dimmer switches in here. Like, do we have an idea of how each of these dimmer switches is being touched? Not exactly right now. So it's such a cool thing to talk about because there's so many different ways you could talk about it.

Kyle David 35:56

Those are really good ways to explain. I love the toddler analogy, especially considering for those that don't know, El Niño and La Niña are actually Spanish for little boy and little girl. El Niño is little boy, La Niña is little girl, or the little girl, the little boy. Is that the reason why you thought of the toddler analogy, or is it something else that made you think of it?

Tom Di Liberto 36:17

I think that's probably it because I'm just so used to talking about El Niño La Niña, and I always like love the fact that like the history of El Nino and La Niña is so fascinating to me because there's Peruvian fishermen who noticed something happening about two to seven years off the coast of South America, and then you go across the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, and meanwhile, there are meteorologists in India who noticed something else going on in that side of the Pacific Ocean, and it took until the middle part of the 20th century for them to realize it was the same thing. And it's like, oh, it blows my mind, and that's why it's called El Nino, which is like the Peruvian fisherman, and then the Southern Oscillation, which was coined by those meteorologists in India, from the I believe they're British meteorologists in India, and that's why it's combined. But they didn't realize they were talking about the same thing. The Peruvians were talking about the ocean, and then Southern Oscillation was talking about the atmosphere, and then La Nina wasn't coined until the 1980s. So it's for something that's like, I feel as ingrained into popular culture as El Niño and La Niña is, it is really current compared to like other things that we know of that can influence like how things happen on this planet. So it's just a really neat phenomenon that has like this really interesting socio-political sort of background associated with it.

Kyle David 37:35

There's a lot of connections to it, and it's being brought up a lot more in pop culture, as you said, and the media, and you had mentioned earlier that the Chris Farley skit with El Nino was may have added a bad rap or bad misinformation on El Nino, La Niña, and Enso. If let's say hypothetically you were design a SNL skit that educates the people on the climate, Enso, or another weather climate-related topic, what would you do and what would be that SNL skit?

Tom Di Liberto 38:07

Oh, it would be like a Kool-Aid man sort of sketch with someone being El Nino and the him just like popping in, like everyone's like, who caused this? And it would just be like El Nino, and like it would be El Nino's fault for everything. It would just like, and no matter what it was, it'd start with the weather being like, oh, it's influenced by El Nino, and he's like, You have to call it, but then it'd be like, oh, someone like dropped, like, oh, they lost something, El Nino's fault, or they got to a car accident, El Nino's fault, or then it would just get ramped up even higher to like to the point where like, oh, who's causing these this freighter to get lost, or oh, this spaceship exploded? Like, oh, it's El Nino's fault. And it would just kind of get ramped up in absurdity because that's how it's so funny how it's like always constantly like that. Or maybe a fight between El Nino and La Nina, an epic battle between all the climate phenomena that exist, and then the end the blob shows up and smothers them all. Fun idea. I should think about that. That's a cool one. So El Nino would be Kool-Aid Man, maybe La Nino would be a Kool-Aid man. But blue, exactly. Exactly. And then it combines like blue, it's purple, and it's like that's the neutral, that's neither of them, and it comes, makes things easy between them, negotiates, moderates.

Kyle David 39:12

Cooking up some ideas on how to educate people about the climate and having some fun along the way, too. I love it. So, and we haven't even talked about your Emmy nominated work yet, and some more of the stuff that you've produced with Noah. We're gonna take a quick break right here, but don't go anywhere. We've still got more with Tom Di Liberto coming up in a little bit. The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 was a powerful extratropical cyclone that wreaked havoc across the eastern United States and parts of southeastern Canada from November 24th to 30th of 1950. This powerful storm formed along a cold front over North Carolina on the morning of November 24th and eventually began to track north along the Appalachian Mountains. The storm quickly developed as it moved through Washington, D.C. and reached its peak intensity with a central pressure of 978 millibars over the Ohio Valley. From November 24th to 27th, the storm caused widespread blizzard conditions across the western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, brought frigid cold for the southeast, heavy snowfall for the Great Lakes, and significant coastal flooding and winds from New Jersey northward. The impacts from the storm were widespread and severe. Many places in the southeast saw temperatures fall to record levels, with temperatures in Pensacola, Florida even falling to 22 degrees because of this storm. Ohio and West Virginia saw some of the heaviest snow from the storm, with up to 50 to 60 inches of snow falling across the region. In Canada, Ontario experienced significant snowfall, with Toronto setting a new daily record for snowfall for November. And across the Northeast, many locations saw hurricane-force wind gusts, with some locations even seeing wind gusts over 100 miles an hour, including Newark, New Jersey, Hartford, New Hampshire, and Hartford, Connecticut. The storm eventually dissipated on November 30th over eastern Canada, but its mark would forever remain. The storm caused 383 fatalities and $66.7 million in damages, equivalent to $845 million in 2023. The storm also disrupted power to more than 1 million customers and led to extensive property damage. It remains one of the most significant weather events of the 20th century. He's an experienced meteorologist, climate scientist, and communicator who has worked with NOAA in communicating and so the El Nino Southern Oscillation. He's also done work in forecasting internationally. We're going to get back into that conversation about all of his work and experiences. But first, I got another fun game for you, Tom, and it's going to be the debut of this game. This is going to be barometric brackets or weather brackets. So we've got the top eight seeds for a weather theme that will whittle down in a kind of playoff style. The theme of this bracket is clouds. So first up, our first matchup is going to be the number one seed Cumulanimbus Cloud against the eight-seed Stratus Cloud.

Tom Di Liberto 42:59

Oh, easy all day. Stratus shouldn't have even gotten out of the bus. Cumulonimbus crushes Stratus. Stratus is so boring, can't handle Cumulonimbus's height.

Kyle David 43:08

Cumulinimbus all the way. Alright, next up, we've got two seed lenticular clouds and seven-seed fog.

Tom Di Liberto 43:16

Oh, what a good matchup. Surprisingly, Fog had a really good year. It's such an interesting one because you have to experience it, right? We walk into it, but you can't beat how lenticular looks. How it looks like a UFO and looks like almost like a cap on top of a mountain.

Kyle David 43:29

I think lenticular wins this one. Lenticular goes on to the final four. Alright, so we've got the next matchup, we've got the number three seed Cirrus Clouds against the number six seed Alto Cumulus Clouds.

Tom Di Liberto 43:43

Ooh, I think we got some upsets, upset city here. Cirrus is cool. I just think they may be a bit too wispy. They're not taking this seriously enough. I think Alto Cumulus are so neat when they can find a form in those like streaks and like like trains and kind of things in the atmosphere. They most look like it ripples. I think Alto Cumulus. Takes this one an upset.

Kyle David 44:01

Oh, we've got an upset alert. Number six seed moves on to the final four. And the last matchup before we get to the final four is the number four seed nimbo stratus cloud against the number five seed cumulus clouds. Can't beat a cumulus.

Tom Di Liberto 44:16

I think we're gonna have another five upset over a four here. Cumulus clouds, are they kind of like those just little pop-ups things in the summertime looking like big old pillows in the sky? I think they beat those rainy nimbostratus gray clouds.

Kyle David 44:28

Just confirming cumulus clouds. Yes, cumulus clouds. We've got another upset, cumulus cloud number five seed moves on. We've got our final four left. So we've got in the first half the number one seed cumulonimbus cloud against the number two seed lenticular cloud. Huge matchup in clouds here. I'm gonna go one-two.

Tom Di Liberto 44:50

Okay. I'm gonna say lenticular takes it. Because people let to see cumulonimbus a lot, which is it's kind of the classic, but I think the rarity of lenticular, I feel like when you see it, it's more of a moment when you see a lenticular cloud.

Kyle David 45:06

Number two seed is the underdog so far. It moves on to the final matchup. And on the other half of the final four, we've got the number six upset alto cumulus cloud against the other upset number five seed cumulus cloud. With alto cumulus going into the finals.

Tom Di Liberto 45:24

I feel like if I'm thinking it's tough. I feel like if you look back and paint, if I look back at the sky one day and I think of the when I feel like it looks like a painting, I feel like I see alto cumulus clouds, more so than just kind of I feel like I drew cumulus clouds when I was a kid, but as I've gotten older, I feel like I like those.

Kyle David 45:42

My goodness, we've got upsets across the board, and that leaves us with our championship playoff bracket for clouds, the number two seed, lenticular clouds, very alien mothership looking like against the number six seed, alto cumulus clouds, where you can get those trains of clouds, those waves, as you said, on a decent day with a lot of wind and wind shear in the atmosphere.

Tom Di Liberto 46:09

Yeah, I think this is where Altocumulus's storybook ride ends. I think lenticular takes this comfortably here to win this bracket.

Kyle David 46:18

And the underdog story unfortunately ends for the number six seed, Alto Cumulus Clouds, which means the lenticular cloud wins the first edition of barometric brackets or weather brackets, whatever I eventually call this. So very good playoff run for all of these clouds. So give it up to lenticular clouds for taking the clean sweep all the way to the bank. So that is our barometric brackets, our weather brackets. That's our fun section. Now let's get back into our conversation. We've been talking with you about all of the forecasting work you've done with NOAA and the Climate Prediction Center. We've been talking about making a Saturday night live skit related around climate science and meteorology, but you've actually done your own Emmy nominated work as well. We've introduced that in the intro. Can you talk a little bit more about your work with that and how what got you the Emmy nomination? Yeah.

Tom Di Liberto 47:17

So I Noah has a studio called the Ocean Today Studio that does products and communication sort of things that are for like school kids and educational purposes, but also just generalized videos about like cool things that are going on at Noah and whatnot. And I was nominated for a regional Emmy for this series I did called Climate Alive, where I talked about the basically what happened the previous year climate-wise. And I made it funny and silly while being serious because it's a serious topic. And we were trying something new. A lot of times you think of a video from the government, you're imagining like very boring. You're thinking maybe some b-roll footage of a cloud or a wave breaking and a pigeon flying. We want to do something different. And that was the first time trying something different. I got nominated for a regional Emmy. I lost. It's okay. It was an honor to be nominated. But I after that, there was a request to Noah from teachers all the time to ask us for more materials on how the ocean, weather, and climate work together. So we pitched Noah and we got it okay to let us make a cartoon. And this is Noah's first ever animated series. And it's called Teak and Tom Explore Planet Earth. I got it out like it came out last December. It's a five-part series where I, as Tom, serve as like the Noah scientist, and Teak is an extraterrestrial from another planet who has to understand how Earth works. And we go all over the place and we talk about sea breezes, we talk about atmospheric rivers, we talk about severe weather, we talk about hurricanes, we talk about all the cool technology that exists to us help us monitor our planet. And I still pitch myself to think we somehow convinced a government agency, any, let alone Noah, to make a cartoon. It's such a fun thing to do. And I always joke now, at least I'll always have a version of myself that never ages because I have a cartoon version of my face.

Kyle David 49:07

That's phenomenal. You not only got work that was Emmy nominated, but you also made Noah's first cartoon series. You're the first person I've talked with to make something of this scale and of this nature. What's that like creating something for educational purposes?

Tom Di Liberto 49:24

Yeah, so I've never been in a cartoon before, and I've never written a cartoon series. So it's scary when you're trying to do something you've never done before. But because we're all really passionate about the project, there were no animators within Noah either. We just knew somebody who had done animation on the side who worked at NOAA, and they were really interested in the project and they helped along and then people taught themselves how to animate. And then I wrote with a colleague of mine five scripts. The one thing I remember feeling is like scared about like, can we do this? And the one thing that got me through that is just doing it. Just tell myself, just do it. Just start writing stuff, just start getting, you'll figure this thing out. You have a lot of smart people doing it. And we were able to just keep working through and being flexible. Where if something fell apart, we were able to pick something up and make the best of it. And I feel like the one thing with projects like that is always to keep the energy up, but also like your positivity up. It's very easy in these things. Put yourself down. We're like, oh, we didn't do this. But I feel like some of these new projects, the risks sometimes rides on positivity. It was a wonderful experience. I always joke how funny it was to film some of these scenes at like Noah buildings where like people just walking into work and they saw me talking to an imaginary thing that wasn't there because I was talking to a cartoon. And that I find that very funny. And getting, but then being able to film scenes with some of these people too, as back character actors in the background, and just seeing how fun they had, it was just a cool thing to be able to experience with other folks at Noah.

Kyle David 50:44

That's cool to be able to not only be in a cartoon, but you get to be a cartoon in the cartoon show and help kids, people wanting to learn more about the weather and climate, educate them on these different topics. I'm curious what has been the most rewarding feedback that you've received from either that series or the earlier series that we were talking about?

Tom Di Liberto 51:07

Oh, I we had a the first time Noah did a Take Your Kids to Work Day after COVID calmed down, we got to premiere the first episode, and there was an entire room full of Noah Noah employees and their kids watching me on screen. And I'm not someone who gets stage fright or gets nervous about things. I have never been more nervous about anything in my entire life. And seeing everybody laugh at the points I wanted them to laugh at and cheer at the end was just like the great. And I got to experience that with my own kid, my own, my eight-year-old at the time. And he was so excited to see his dad as a cartoon character that it was like the best thing in the world. And then I keep hearing from people that it's being used in classrooms, which is all that we wanted. And a friend of mine told me that they live in Virginia. I live in Washington, DC, I live in Maryland. But he was saying that his daughter was in, I think, fourth grade and they watch a lot of Noah videos. And he asked, Oh, do you watch Teak and Tom? And she's like, Yeah, I love Teak and Tom. And when she told him that, like, oh, I know Tom, she got super excited about it. I was like, Oh, that is amazing. That is such a cool thing to see as much as I want parents to like it, it's for kids. And the fact that kids like it is like just everything to me. And it's just been really fun to see.

Kyle David 52:26

In a way, you become a celebrity amongst kids and people wind a lot more.

Tom Di Liberto 52:32

A very small niche, but it's who doesn't love cartoons? And I've always wanted to be involved in making a cartoon in my life, so it's fun to say I was able to actually do it.

Kyle David 52:41

That's phenomenal. And on another note to explore this a little more, because again, you're the first person that I've talked with who's made content like this that's also that's educational but also entertaining as well. As somebody who is experienced with the weather and climate, how do you strike the balance between being informational, being educational, and then also being entertaining as well, engaging to audiences?

Tom Di Liberto 53:10

It's tough balance to walk, especially in a topic like this where there could be really serious things, right? Like I'm not going to be joking about a hurricane making landfall or joking about a tornado. You have to recognize sometimes when you're walking that tightrope and how to communicate and to make it interesting. And one thing I think is always really important is authenticity. I'm a silly guy in general, and I feel like that silliness comes across as normal. I'm not putting on something, I'm just a normally silly guy. And I feel like that sometimes helps with the way I communicate and how these videos work as well. Is that like they know I'm not like lying. I'm just like, that's me, high energy Tom. And everyone has their way that they speak best, right? But you can always tell when someone's pretending to be someone they're not. I feel like we all know that. So I always try to be myself. And I tend to be really honest too when I'm giving these videos or even talking to people in public, where like I talk about things that scare me. Like tornadoes terrify me. Like, no thanks. And I'm very honest about those things. I feel like it also humanizes while I'm really interested in the weather and I really care about the climate and I really care about making sure people are safe. Like, yeah, this stuff scares me too. And I feel like those things can be like also give you then the latitude to then be funny because you're still acknowledging some of the fear. And yeah, I also tend to be self-deprecating a lot in my humor. I don't like to pick on anybody else, so I can pick on myself. So even if it's slapstick, I love physical comedy. So if I gotta fall down and make somebody laugh, I'll fall down and make somebody laugh. And it's even just little things like that where it's if I'm making a joke about something, usually it's at my own expense, it's not at the expense of anybody else. Or like when I was writing Teak and Tom, the jokes were Teak and Tom Teek and the spaceship are making fun of me. Like, and I wrote jokes making fun of myself. So also I feel like tense. So be funny, adds a bit of levity into something where you're talking about really intense topics, which really sometimes you need to have something that breaks up. No one can watch a 15-minute episode of something that's just hard, serious stuff the entire time. So it's important to break that up with some levity in some way.

Kyle David 55:14

Absolutely. There's a lot of good educational things out there, but unfortunately, it's very blunt. It gets right to it and lays out the facts, and sometimes the weather and the climate too can be a little bit distressing or stressful. On on that note, how do you help people navigate the stresses of the weather and climate? And whether it be extreme weather events or changing climate conditions, how do you help people navigate those stresses?

Tom Di Liberto 55:45

Yeah, I this is where I really highlight the importance of community. And no one should be going at this alone, like whether it's climate change or severe weather, tornado, like you name it. Like I feel like there's a ton of power in community and to have a support network. So it could be someone online, doesn't have to be in person, it could be in person, it could be different groups that you have, whatever it is. Like, in order to deal with like extreme weather, it's important to just make sure you're checking up on people who may not be, who maybe, let's say there's a tornado outbreak and someone doesn't pay attention that much, but they're a friend and they're working somewhere, make it sure you're checking up on them. Making sure you're checking up on like, let's say, your elderly relatives or neighbors or whatever that may be. Because weather's always gonna happen. There's always gonna be extreme events. There's always there's no way you can avoid that. What we can avoid, or at least minimize, is like the risk to other people that we care about. And it's important, like it's it takes a community to do that. It's also a really great way of making sure we're all just connected. Like the atmosphere is connected across the planet, people are connected across the planet too. Well, in the United States, it impacts different states, different countries, whatever it may be. So usually when I'm talking about dealing with these topics, I could get into solutions, I could talk about the bajillion things that people could be doing. I do that, but usually the one thing I want to leave people with is this idea that we're all in it together. Because oftentimes you hear from people like they don't know what to do and they feel alone in it. And usually I ask like who here feels alone, and like a bunch of people raise their hand. Like, well, look, what's community than just a bunch of people who used to feel alone but together? So it's important. And especially with people like, let's say, people move into your community from somewhere else and they don't know the risks, it's important to be able to reach out to those folks.

Kyle David 57:27

I love how you say community is everything, not just with the weather, but everybody check up on your neighbors, check up on family, friends. That's the most important thing you can do in a weather event, a climate event, anything that's going on in the community. And to broaden things out, I want to continue talking a little bit more about your work with Noah. From you've made series, you've done articles, podcasts, you've done international forecasting. It seems like you've done all of these different things, Tom. What what on a funny note? What haven't you done during your time at Noah?

Tom Di Liberto 58:02

I've never danced. I've never been on stage dancing. I've never like done an interpretive dance of the weather. No, it's fun. And I think that's one cool thing I've been able to do at Noah is that they've let me be creative and I've got to do all these weird, cool, different things. And a lot of the times all I had to do is ask. And the way I live my life sometimes is like, you don't know what they're gonna say no to, so you might as well ask. If there's something you're interested in doing, ask if you can do it. What's the harm? They say no, well, it wasn't happening anyway, right? So no is not a bad answer.

Kyle David 58:32

There was an earlier guest I had on, Ashley Morris, who had said no doesn't mean no just means not yet. And she described having a post-it note or something with the words not yet and no circled. So no meaning not yet. So I I just it made me think of that. Oh, 100%. And to go back to your work with Noah, what's another project for you that still stands out to you this day and is still rewarding in a way?

Tom Di Liberto 59:03

Oh, that's a really good question. I've been lucky enough to the State Department has asked me multiple times to help them with communications at the big climate conferences, these climps. And last year in COP29, which was in a country I never thought I would ever go to, and if you asked me before November, I wouldn't be able to spell it. Azerbaijan. I was the lead for what's called the U.S. Center, which is the main public, premier public face of the US government during that conference. It's like where all the US events take place, the US government events. And I was in charge of it last year, and I ran it, and I had to choose the events. I had to work with all of these different speakers from every aspect of the government to the private sector to academia to the nonprofit world. And getting to interact with people from across the globe on this topic was always fascinating. I still love that I got to do these things and got to this. So that was my sixth cop back to cop 21. And it's just neat. I feel like you could probably it's neat being around people who are passionate about the same thing you are. And I feel like that's very true of the weather community too, right? Like a lot of us sometimes are the weather nerds at home by ourselves, and we get to college, we're like, there's more of us, we're all like this. It's amazing to feel like within like how fun it is to be within people who are passionate about the same topic you are. And I felt like that was a really good example of that.

Kyle David 1:00:26

So you got to lead things at COP29, you said, right? Yep. That's that's huge, because you have for those that don't know it, that's an international collection of scientists across the world. And I don't know if there's is there politicians in that kind of thing. Usually they're involved in some shape or form, yeah. Okay, I'll just mention that diplomatic leaders and stuff. So it's a collection of international scientists, experts, uh, diplomatic leaders. You have all of these different people collected in one room to talk about the weather, the climate, the the sciences of the world. On that note, being able to lead something so monumental and global. What were some of the key takeaways for you in in that experience, particularly in terms of fostering international collaboration? We've talked about national collaboration, but this is international collaboration.

Tom Di Liberto 1:01:21

Well, what I say, like we're all from different countries, but we're all people. I think that's one thing that's very clear. If you go talk to anyone from a different country about this topic, is that everyone is just really trying to help others, and that work is not stopping in any way, shape, or form on an international scale. And what I always love about going to those meetings is I always find new people who are doing really awesome things. And I get to follow up with them is what their new nonprofit is starting. And I always get to meet youth, Gen Z, even Gen Alpha, whatever they're being called nowadays, and see what they're doing at like at an age when like I was in my basement playing Mario Kart nonstop, whether actually like going to international conferences and actually like making change in the world. It's just amazing. And that's what kind of gives me hope and drive is I feed off of the energy of other people and getting to meet them in person and hear more about their stories and what they're working on is usually just like it supercharges me and kind of gives me hope for where things are going.

Kyle David 1:02:22

Yeah, I think at that age I was what doing Boy Scouts, playing baseball. I wasn't thinking about getting to international or regional conferences. It was phenomenal to hear that the next generation is taking charge with that. Oh yeah, absolutely. I was lazy. I don't think lazy is the right word. Probably just you weren't aware of the world and its oyster.

Tom Di Liberto 1:02:49

That's a nice way of putting it. I like that.

Kyle David 1:02:50

Yeah. Same for everybody at that age. They don't fully know what's going on with the world. But to go back to that conference and that international collection of scientists, experts, diplomatic leaders, was there one story that stuck out to you during that or one conversation that stuck out with you to this day?

Tom Di Liberto 1:03:10

Oh, yeah, that was one story. One thing I remember it stuck out to me. It wasn't this last one, but it was a previous cop. I was there with the US government. It had been multiple years since I had left the Climate Prediction Center. And I was there and one of the international scientists who had come to the training program at the Climate Prediction Center at the international desk walked up. I hadn't seen him in five years. And he goes, Hey, Tom. And I got to catch up with him at COP of all places. I forget this may have been in like Morocco, I think. I forget where it was. And I got to learn about like how things were going with him. Because I remember when he had left, he was working for his country's mineralogical services, and he had left he'd been, I think he was the deputy of the entire thing by the time he had gotten back. And I remember talking with him about projects, and we ended up working on some projects after that, coming back to help improve our early warning systems for his country, which is incredibly neat. I just remember meeting some like I always joke, like back in COP21, where I started at COP, which is in the Paris Agreement was signed, like there just weren't a lot of youth there. And nowadays it's like just overwhelming. So I just remember sitting sometimes sitting down with like just a whole bunch of different youth delegates from the United States and hearing about like where they came from and the efforts that they're doing and how they're going back and like checking back in like five years later, and that nonprofit they created is now five times bigger and involving so many more things, and now they're like college students is just a crazy thing to witness.

Kyle David 1:04:44

That's a really cool story, and it's nice to be able to meet people at one meeting or conference or something that's work-related, and then to see them again, as you said, five years later, or however much time later, and catch up with them. It's a phenomenal experience. No, it was the best. And you had mentioned the Paris Agreement, and this is probably the only time we'll get a little serious on this conversation, but with the latest changes to policies because of the new administration pulling out of the Paris Agreement, changes at NOAA, which unfortunately have led to you and a number of NOAA and National Weather Service employees being laid off, which we've done a whole deep dive on that, and we've explored what they are and why they're important in our deep dive episode, which I'll plug and link in the show notes for everybody to go and listen to because it's a very important topic. But with all of these changes to policy and how we collaborate with different nations, organizations with the weather and the climate, what are some things that you'd like to say on that and some kind of notes that you'd like to leave on that?

Tom Di Liberto 1:05:55

Yeah, the weather, the oceans don't stop at boundaries, international boundaries. The only way this works when it comes to the weather community is international cooperation. The only way this works too is with big investments from governments across the world to be able to provide the infrastructure to be able to really properly monitor the planet, to allow us to run the models that we do, to have the supercomputers that do that, to issue the amount of forecasts that we have. And an attack on any aspect of that is really an attack on the entire community. It's going to make everybody's lives harder. And there were severe weather outbreak yesterday. There are a ton of tornadoes. And I'm already seeing that there are reports that there won't be any damage reports from certain weather forecast offices because they don't have the staff to do it. These are real impacts happening right now. And in the end, it's just going to make people less safe. And I feel like that's one thing why, you know, everyone who works at NOAA got into, especially in the weather service, is just we want to help people. That's it. That's all we want to do. We want to go to work and help people. The fact that it's harder to do that now is just very frustrating. But also really shows that we need the community. Like we are a weather community in its entirety, and it's important that we stay together.

Kyle David 1:07:06

Definitely. And I'll again link that episode where we talk about NOAA and National Weather Service and why these services are all important in the show notes. For those wondering why Tom sounds familiar, he's on that episode and he helps me explain what the National Weather Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are and all the different components and what they provide for you, the listener, for anybody on the world in terms of weather, climate, and the STEM field overall. Let's bring it back to a more lighter note now because you know it's it's meant to be a fun podcast, very conversational. And you've been through quite the roller coaster between starting out laying in the snow at 12 and going on to 14, doing science fair projects around the weather and climate, and you've eventually gotten to the point where you've made your own content, the Tik and Tom series, and a number of different things. It's quite the ride that you've been on. If looking back, is there one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self or something that you'd like to say to your younger self? And it could be for also those looking to get into the weather field currently.

Tom Di Liberto 1:08:16

Yeah, I would say my interests in weather's big weather, climate, it's a big field. There's lots of things that you can do in it. I would tell my younger self to not be so rigid in where you fit into the whole thing. My interests have changed from when I was 12 to high school, to college, to grad school, to early in my career, to middle of my career in terms of like what I wanted to do in this field. Do I want to be a scientist or a forecaster? And now I'm a communicator. So is being don't be too rigid. Don't count yourself out. If there's something that you're interested in within the field, take that chance and do it. Just because you decided to do something at one age does not mean you have to do that for the rest of your life. There's always the opportunity to change. It's nothing is this kind of this rigid line. The journey is not a straight line. Heck, the journey may not be a path. Sometimes you have to make your own path, and that's totally fine. But just trust yourself and what you're interested in, your passions.

Kyle David 1:09:10

And I like how you say don't stay rigid and keep your mind open to things. And on that note, how has your passion for the weather, the climate evolved throughout your career? And what's in a piece of advice that you'd give for those who have an evolving passion, not just for the weather and climate for, but just in general?

Tom Di Liberto 1:09:31

Sure. Like when I was I wanted to be a weather forecaster for a long time. I do I focused so much in college. I focused it every single day for a thousand different places. It was all I wanted. That was my identity. And then I got into grad school and I got interested more in climate. And I started doing a little bit more climate forecasting. And then I got a little bit more interested in more of the impacts of climate. And then I got more interested in how climate impacts are changing. And I got more interested in how climate change is occurring. And I got more interested in communicating those impacts. How I've managed this sort of flow is that at my core, I've decided that the core for who I am is I want to help people. That's it. Like it's a very simple thing. And that is no matter what job I've had, no matter what career I've done, that has been the core truth about why I did those things. So I always look at it that way. No matter what I'm doing, as long as I'm serving that core thing of helping people, that's okay with me. And that's how I've maneuvered through my career. And I just feel like right now, the best thing with my skill set to do is communicating about climate and climate impacts. My passion is in climate and climate impacts, and I want to help people. So that's what I'm going to do.

Kyle David 1:10:36

And now that we've climbed the mountain range, you've looked back at the mountain range you've climbed. Let's look ahead to the mountain range that lies ahead of you in terms of the weather and climate. What do you see for the future of the weather and climate? Not only forecasting it, but also communicating it and educating people on it. How do you see that changing in the next year, five years, if you want to be bold, 10 years?

Tom Di Liberto 1:10:59

It's going to change a lot. The way we communicate, the way people consume information, the way people understand what's going on. It's a weird world right now in terms of the ability to communicate information. Everything is a conspiracy. Everything can't be trusted. You can't trust experts. That's a very dangerous thing when you're in the weather community. When you're issuing watches and warnings and you don't have time to convince somebody that their conspiracy is wrong when they have five minutes before a tornado comes, right? Or you're trying to convince somebody to evacuate when they think, oh, the government's controlling the path of this hurricane. That is a big concern. And I think for the next one, next year, next five years, next 10 years, this idea of misinformation, disinformation on social media, and just the way people get their information is a huge problem that the weather community, climate community have to deal with in order to help keep people safe. The way we look at how this stuff is funded, I think not only in the United States, but globally, is going to be a huge impact for the next year, next five years, next 10 years, because impacts now are something going to be felt for a decade after this if we cut programs, if we cut research programs. And higher education, but also in the government, you can't just flip a switch back on. These are things that take decades and decades of investment. It's a lot easier to burn down the house than to build a house. To me, that's the big concern I have in the next year and five years and ten years. And of course, climate extremes are increasing. Heavier rainfall, heat extremes, and hot temperatures. And I'm worried about more kind of these black swan sort of events where you have 120-degree weather in places that are not used to it, like we had in the Pacific South Northwest several years ago, happening more often. Let's say it could happen in the Northeast. It could happen in Minnesota, it could happen in Canada. But these are the sorts of events that kind of keep me up at night because those are hard to communicate. Communicating things to people that they've never experienced before is the hardest thing to do. It's much easier to be like, this is gonna be like an event that happened in 2002. If there is no comparison, it makes people less trustworthy of you in a weird way. So it's gonna be a constant struggle to overcome that. And I think the key for all of it again is just the weather community sticking together and the climate community sticking together, and just keeping true to trying to help people.

Kyle David 1:13:12

Keep true to helping people. I love that little last bit there. And go back to the mountain range analogy. We've climbed the mountain, we've looked at the mountain range ahead of us, and now we're looking at the sunsetting on not only our conversation, but the podcast episode, and I call it my sunset segment where we talk about any last final thoughts. With that said, do you have any final parting thoughts that you'd like to leave? Any last bits of advice for young professionals looking to get into the weather, myths you want to bust about the climate, or any just little tidbits that you'd like to share before we get to our last segment?

Tom Di Liberto 1:13:47

Sure, maybe something for students or people who are interested in the weather. I feel like one of the big things people get terrified of when studying atmospheric science or climate science is math, because of math is crazy. And I always tell people this the best scientists I've ever known are not the people who I would trust to cut the check at the end of a night of dinner, at a dinner to like figure out what like they're not great at math. Like being great at math does not make you a great scientist, right? What makes a great scientist in this field or anything like that is your ability to be curious and ask good questions. If you can ask a good question, if you can have to do some interesting good research on it, you can always have somebody help you with the math. You can always have someone you talk to somebody about the best ways of doing something, but you can't get somebody to come up with the question to answer. That's up to you. So if you're feeling like, oh, I cannot get through this calculus class or whatever, that's okay. Many people have not gotten through that calculus class. Many have struggled. Many are still wonderful scientists to this day, even though it is a very math-intensive field. I just always like to say that. It does not mean that you can't be a scientist in any way. It doesn't mean you can't be a great scientist.

Kyle David 1:14:56

And there on that note, or before I let you give any final parting thoughts, what's the best question that you've been asked? Today or ever in your career. It could be from your time at NOAA. You know, it's something a question that was asked to you about the weather or climate that still sticks with you today.

Tom Di Liberto 1:15:14

Oh my goodness, what a question. I'm trying to think. So I used to give a lot of talks to like the best people who ask the best questions are always kids. Kids ask the best questions because they're so creative and they're not bound, I feel like, by years of schooling and society. My favorite question that was asked by a kid was probably something like, what type of cloud makes the best animal? Like a cloud animal? Like that was not humus clouds. I was like, that's a good one. And it was a creative question, and I had to stop and think, like, well, this one is this side, it's kind of wispy because I thought that was a fun question that wasn't super serious, but just got me involved in this kid's head brain that I really liked a lot. And I think one of my other favorite questions was asked as a teak and tom premiere. So a bunch of kids asked me what it was like to work with Teak. And I thought it was a really fun question. And I was like, Teak was great, a great castmate. And people didn't realize that I was the same. They thought that Cartoon Tom was the same as Real Tom or different, and I had to explain to them that I was the same person, which is a lot of fun.

Kyle David 1:16:19

Is there a specific animal in cloud that may go together well or may not go together well?

Tom Di Liberto 1:16:26

Oh, so I was saying like it'd be really fun to have a cloud like with with Cirrus's wispy hair, but I feel like if you're looking for something, you'd still be looking more like those like Alto Cumulus. I feel like you could do some fun stuff with that. But like it's really up to the I feel like I could see more things in Wisps of Cirrus clouds just because they're more expansive that I can see more. It's like almost like a constellation. So I went with Cirus.

Kyle David 1:16:50

Interesting thought there. And before we get to the last segment, Tom, are there any last thoughts you'd like to leave? Myths busted or anything?

Tom Di Liberto 1:17:00

Nope. I think that's good.

Kyle David 1:17:02

Alright, well, the sun is setting on our conversation, but it is not the end of the podcast yet. We've got one more fun game for you before we call this a wrap, and that is our weather or not trivia. And this is our tried and true segment where we combine weather and non-weather related topics and quiz you in the form of multiple choice questions. And it's also fun for our listeners as well, because they could play it long too. With that said, Tom, are you ready to kick off this last game? Let's do it. Alright. This is whether or not your first question is related to Saturday Night Live. Who is the longest running cast member of SNL? Is it Keenan Thompson? I've had it a few I've had this a few times where people are confident in their answer. I'll read off the answer choices for our listeners. Is it A, Tom Hanks, B, Keenan Thompson? C Daryl Hammond, or D Alec Baldwin? You'd say your final guess is Keenan Thompson. Yes, it is. You are correct. It is Keenan Thompson, is the longest running cast member. Daryl Hammond is a close second to him. Alright. This is whether or not your next question is related to snow in New York. Which city in the state of New York usually sees the most snow yearly, and in turn is the snowiest city in the United States. Is it A, Syracuse, B, Rochester, C, Buffalo, or D, New York City? That would be Syracuse. Final guess of Syracuse? Final guess. You are correct, it is Syracuse with 127.8 inches on average each year. Alright, this is whether or not your next question is again related to New York, but the city of New York. So the next question is related to general New York City trivia. What is not a nickname used for the city of New York City? Is it A, the city that never sleeps? B the big apple? C, the city of roses, or D, New Orange. The City of Roses. Final guess is the city of Roses?

Tom Di Liberto 1:19:16

I think so, yeah.

Kyle David 1:19:17

You are correct, it is the City of Roses. And for our listeners who may have wondered why New Orange was not a nickname for New York City. It was back in the early days when it was transitioning between the Dutch and the English. It's a little fun fact for y'all out there listening. So all right. This is whether or not your next question is related to ENSO. We're gonna put your ENSO stuff to the test here. During an El Nino phase where the waters of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean run warmer than normal, what kind of weather does the southern United States usually see more than normal? Is it A warmer and wetter, B, warmer and drier, C, cooler and wetter, or D cooler and drier? Cooler and wetter. Cooler and wetter is your final guess? Final guess. You are correct, it is cooler and wetter. So far you are four for four, Tom, with this. Let's see how you do with this last one. This is whether or not your final question is related to the New York Knicks. Who leads the Knicks franchise for most three-point field goals in a season? Is it A, Evan Fournier, B, Julius Randle, C, Dante DeV De Vincenzo, or D, John Starks? I believe it's Dante DiVincenzo last year. DiVincenzo. How do you say the last name? DiVincenzo. DiVincenzo. Dante DiVincenzo is your final guest? I think so, yeah. Drum roll. You are correct. It is Dante DiVincenzo. And with that, you've done a clean sweep of the weather or not trivia. How do you feel about that, Tom? Oh, I feel great. I was nervous for a couple of them. I'm happy I got all through. Awesome. And you've joined the elite crew of guests that have done a clean sweep of the weather or not trivia. And surprisingly, not everybody does a clean sweep, and that that's quite alright. It's all about having fun. But with that said, that brings us to the end of the weather or not trivia and the end of that conversation. But before we go, Tom, how can people stay in touch with all the awesome work that you continue to do for the weather and climate community?

Tom Di Liberto 1:21:37

Sure. Yeah, I'm on Blue Sky, TD Liberto. That's my name. And I'm also on Twitter under the same name TD Liberto. You can follow me over there.

Kyle David 1:21:44

And we'll make sure to include those handles in the show notes for our listeners to go and follow all the stuff that you continue to work on in the weather and climate world. Well, with that said, thank you, Tom, for joining me on the podcast, and thank you to the listener for listening to the Everything Weather podcast. And we'll catch you on the next episode.