Rain today, sun tomorrow, snow the next day, then rain, then sun, temperatures in the 40s today, in the mid 40s tomorrow. Along those lines, is life as a meteorologist depressingly, depressingly repetitive. J.P.: I’ve long argued that life can be depressingly repetitive. When it comes to my property, my commute, my $300 cute boots, and how I dress my kids for school in winter … I want the forecast to be accurate. There comes a point when your TV friends must be more than eye candy. And remember while weather people are these familiar faces that make you feel good when you wake up or soothe you right before bed. If they have a Master’s Degree from University of Pennsylvania with a research thesis in Storm Water, that’s cool (check.). If your meteorologist has the Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Accreditation from the AMS-that is the top seal available (check). They should have a degree and be reviewed by the American Meteorological Society with a seal of approval (it requires tests and a peer review). Your meteorologists should be students of the weather, scientists. If they were born with a weather name, like Freeze … maybe that’s too obvious. But I must ask: Save for looks, delivery, wardrobe, age, accent-is there any real difference between what you’ll tell me and what the weather folks at NBC, CBS, Fox, etc tell me? In other words, are there substantial reasons to pick a weather person?ĪF: Yes. J.P.: I watch the weather, I enjoy the weather, I’ve got nothing but respect for the weather. Bottom line: This is not your father’s weather world, J.P. The warning time on tornadoes has gone from five minutes to 13 minutes-20 years ago tornadoes happened without warning 74 percent of the time but now we get at least some type of warning out 69 percent of the time. The seven-day forecast is as good now as the five-day forecast was in 1988. The science is better than it’s ever been. If there are winds above 45 mph, there will be power outages-the above-ground power lines are vulnerable to big winds. Basically, if it rains an inch in New York City in less than six hours-there will be some type of flooding there’s just nowhere for the rain to go.
We had two tornadoes touch down in the city limits in Brooklyn and Queens.Īnd we had a long-path tornado in Great River North on Long Island-that twister was on the ground for 4.5 miles with 85 mph winds! Not to mention the incredible flooding, the hot summer, and the early snowfalls we have had-including the October snowfall in 2011. In the past year, we have had two landfall hurricanes-Irene and Sandy. But we do need to pay attention most of the time around here-the weather is crazy in New York City these days. I like to think of the weather message as a “Call to Action” or a “Calming message.” If you don’t need to worry, I’ll tell you. And he has an opinion about television meteorologists-namely, that, when a potentially awful storm is coming, they will overstate the potential severity so that, afterward, people won’t say, “Man, 500,000 people without power … and all you said was there’d be some bad rain.” Is there any remote truth to this? Do weather professionals sometimes need to watch their backs?ĪMY FREEZE: Tell him to watch Channel 7. JEFF PEARLMAN: So Amy, I have a smart father. offers sun, 85 degrees-and one helluva Quaz … Ever.Īmy Tweets here, and one can visit her official website here and her blog here. Oh, and she’s agreed to speak to my journalism class at Manhattanville College. She lost a ton of weight, married BYU’s mascot, has traveled alone on an airplane with four kids and is a six-time marathoner. She did the same gig for the Chicago Bears. She was the first-ever female sideline reporter for Major League Soccer. Amy is the weekend meteorologist at WABC-TV in New York, but her resume offers up some long, winding, riveting stops and experiences. Hence, it brought me great joy when Amy Freeze-one of America’s most famous TV meteorologists-agreed to be Quazed. Alas, my life is a sad and incomplete one. Nick Gregory lives 1/4 mile from my home, but we’ve failed to chat. G once came to my elementary school, but not my class. Regrettably, I never knew anyone who did televised forecasts. Dating back to early childhood, I’ve always been fascinated by TV weather-people.Ģ) They always seemed to be very excited about weather.