A Return to My First Love

I shoveled and plowed my way through too much snow growing up in New York. Maybe that’s why I was always a weather weenie. As a pre-teen, I constantly watched New York’s famous TV weathermen and when an ad appeared for a Lionel weather station, I asked for one for Christmas. My Dad dutifully put the anemometer on the chimney and wired the dials to a basement nook which became my weather studio.

When it came time for college, I naturally wanted to major in meteorology and chose Penn State where I had Dr. Joel Myers, founder of Accuweather, as one of my professors, and Dr. Greg Forbes, of Weather Channel fame, as one of my classmates. After earning my B.S. there, I went to Florida State to learn tropical weather and statistics for my M.S. 

When I started working summers for the National Weather Service, I realized that everyone worked rotating shifts and many acted like sleep-deprived zombies. I couldn’t do that, so I took jobs in roles that supported forecasters. Most of my career was spent at Stennis Space Center working for the National Data Buoy Center, where I tested new sensors, developed new ways of displaying and transmitting the observations to mariners, trained forecasters, and helped to expand the network.

In retirement, my church recognized my talent for forecasting and started calling on me to help them with weather-related decisions. Event were canceled, or ended early and relief supplies were ordered — based largely on my forecasts. From that, I started posting forecasts on Facebook over a decade ago and have been overwhelmed by the positive response. 

Facebook, though great for developing new friends and communicating with old ones, is not the best for sending out forecasts. Many of my friends see only some of them, or they arrive late. That’s why I decided to create the Wound Up on Weather newsletter in 2025.