Hello and welcome to episode 133 now of the Prepared podcast. I'm your host, as always, Rob Burton. Nice to have you with us. Just before we jump in for today's interview, I want to let you know about the ninth annual International Crisis Management Conference. That's coming up in the scenic Newport, Rhode Island, and that's coming up on June 5th and six of 2024.

So we hope you can join us. It's a fun packed few days. We have speakers on day one, a group of panelists as well on day one and then day through some training. So find out more at crisis conferences. Dot com. Okay. Today I'm joined by Nathan more. Welcome, Nathan.

Hey, thank you very much. How you doing?

I'm great. And you know, your early years getting involved in the whole weather world. As a young meteorologist. I'd love to hear about an hour Q&A here. Start off in Texas. Great career throughout the US here. And then degrees in mass communications, which I'm fascinated about, of course, coming from our crisis preparedness world. So looking forward to hearing more about that as well as, of course, all those roles through to where you are now at Storm Gio.

So really looking forward to it. Welcome, Nathan.

Hey, thank you very much. Yeah. Again, I appreciate you allowing us to kind of talk about I mean, hey, you know, weather. I know weather fascinates a lot of people. And yeah, like you said, over the next coming several minutes, we'll we'll hit on that and, you know, kind of. Yeah, I mean, I'll give you some my interest and then what I'm also seeing coming up in the meteorology world kind of how it's changed as well.

Yeah, that's fantastic. All right, let's just jump in straight. So let's talk about early life and education. So a childhood passion for weather. So I know in your bio that talks a little bit about going way back. So could you share your first memories of some of those early childhood memories and what sparked that fascination for you?

Yeah, you know, if you talk to a lot of, you know, fellow meteorologists, really a lot of them have it's almost innate. They both were born with the fascination of weather. And, I mean, you know, a good percentage of my friends actually ever since they were four or five years old. And you know, something that I always remember and the thing that first got me were mainly because I lived along the Gulf Coast and Southeast Texas.

I was from a small town called Lumberton, but just outside of Beaumont, Texas, you know, right along the Louisiana, Texas border, you know, we experienced hurricanes there, you know, a lot of the time. And, you know, my first hurricane, I remember I was born in 79. The first hurricane, I remember, was a Hurricane Bonnie, and that was in 1985 that hit southeast Texas.

And I always remember that type of storm. And how, you know, interested me, it was it was a category I think it was a borderline one to hurricane. And I just that was really the first storm, I think that really piqued my interest into weather. So at that time, I was about five years old and I actually I was always a very social, extroverted type of person.

And, you know, one thing I've always wanted to do was television weather. So something I did as a youngster was I would in my room because I was the only child. So I had to kind of make up, you know, plan. I'd have to be creative, you know, because I did have a brother or sister, anything like that.

And so something I would do is I would put a map on a wall and and I would have a newspaper next to me as well. And I would, you know, read the weather off of that newspaper and then pretend. And I would have a camera, a camera that my dad had. And yeah. And I'd put it right in front and I'd had a yellow map, you know, like a Rand McNally or whatever.

And it just and just it just point out the weather that was going on and, and then I would do a live report from my front porch and, you know, all these clouds are rolling across. And you know something? You know, my my mom always would tell stories is, you know, I'll say, hey, these clouds are coming. And sure enough, they're rolling right across the camera screen and stuff.

So, you know, I've always been interested in it. And weather has just been a part of me. And, you know, I love it. And I mean, you know, it's it's not a you know, $1,000,000 type of job or whatever, you know, But, you know, so you've got to put your you know, you've got to be passionate about it.

And that's something that I definitely have put into is a lot of passion. And yeah, that's really where it all started. I mean, I'd say really. Hogan Hurricane Bonnie in the mid-eighties really started it and then, you know, we'd always get afternoon thunderstorms, sea breeze, things like that that would occur. And so yeah, and not until you know, which began to later on when I got to the Midwest as winter weather kind of, you know, factor things here as well.

Yeah well that's great. You know thanks for sharing that. Those early early memories. That's, you know, I really love those stories. You know, look, we have the passion for the jobs that we do. And often our early memories and early childhood is, you know, shapes that path. It certainly did for me as well. So let's talk about your educational path moving on slightly.

So mass communications and geosciences is how do they help, you know, you know, those two, you know, you know, subjects come together and help you kind of shape where you are today.

Yeah. So I always wanted to do you know, I've always wanted to do meteorology and I always wanted to do it, you know, in front of the camera. You know, I that's something I've actually wanted to do, you know, again, that sounds young, you know. So what I ended up doing was I was only 30 minutes away from Lamar University, which is there in Beaumont, Texas.

I was only about 30 minutes away from there. And they had a really good mass communications program. Well, I didn't know quite which route to go where I wanted to go in terms of meteorology, because there were several schools Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Mississippi State, Florida State. You had Penn State, you know, a lot of other schools that are meteorology focused.

I just didn't know which route I wanted to go on. So what I end up doing is I got to my junior year of college at Lamar and my parents and I decided to go take a little tour across, you know, across two different schools. We were going to go to Mississippi State first, then to Norman, to University of Oklahoma, then down to College Station and then make our way back home.

And so we wanted to kind of figure out what route to take. And I was like, you know, I was like, I could I could utilize what I'm what I'm learning at Lamar, because they had a television studio. I actually did weather for them during that time. And I mean, it was you know, if you saw it now, I mean, you definitely know it's VHS and deal like, yeah, yeah.

Just, you know, just ridiculous looking or whatever. But but it was it was good practice. And I interned at TV stations then as well. One of the CBS affiliate there in Beaumont, I interned there doing weather also off and on. But what I then did is we took a trip to Mississippi State. My mom, dad and I did.

We visited their climate lab and all that other stuff. And I still remember that to this day. We were sitting in the cafeteria there and, you know, mom and dad asked to go, What do you think? And I said, you know, I think I just want to go hear Mississippi State. And they and I said, well, we hadn't gone to the other two places.

I said, I know. I was like, this this is where I want to go. This says, this is what I'm looking for. So so, you know, long story short, there I ended up picking Mississippi State wind up just coming right back home. I had two options, though. I had either option of going after my junior year to Mississippi State and getting my geoscience degree, or I could go an extra year, get my, you know, finish out my communications degree, and then go two years to Mississippi State and get my master's in geosciences or metrology.

And I figured I could just go an extra year and, you know, and I'll get two degrees. And that's what I did. And that's that's the route that I took. And really what I used both of those has helped me, you know, communicate, you know, help me in TV. And even honestly, when I went to the other markets, which we'll get into again later on, is, you know, it helped me do television reporting and things like that as well.

So but it was it was a blessing in disguise, to be honest, for me to do what I did. And then where it took me after that.

Yeah, well, you packed a lot in there in that short period of time, so that's fantastic. Well, we're going to move straight onto your job experience here. You went to Iowa first in terms of, you know, your first job in meteorology and what what were the challenges there, what the learnings from that initial job gained, you know, thrown into the fire, so to speak, after being at school for so many years?

You know, a great question there. And I tell you, the the big thing that really helped me with that, first of all, you know, a lot of these smaller television markets like your, you know, Sioux City, I was you know, you're I mean, you know, you got these small markets everywhere, you know, that are very small of these a lot of the meteorologists who work weekends, they have to do reporting during the week, news reporting.

So it doesn't matter what it is. You know, they they try to focus more on more on like environmental type of stories. But sometimes, you know, because they're a short staff and so on, sometimes you're doing shootings and fires and, you know, potential, you know, murders and things like that, you know, so, you know, but Sioux City, what you had to do is you actually had to shoot your own video.

You had to come back to the station, look at the video that you got. Right. It put it into the computer and then you had to edit it as well before having it to the newscast. Right. You know, a lot of these markets, like the Houston's New York's Chicago's.

They have a whole, whole team of, you know, whole resources, right? Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And so these smaller ones, you don't. So you had to do everything and, you know, sometimes you wouldn't get back get to 5:00 newscast, you get back to the station at 415. And really to this day, I don't know how sometimes I got the story across me by one of the best ones in the world. But it was a you know, it was quite poorly edited and everything, But, you know, you had to do that.

And so that that was a learning experience. Yeah. So from a weather perspective, which is entering the first year I was in Sioux City was 2004 actually, you know, because I was like, man, I get to experience a good winter, good snow and so on. it's funny, as I moved up there and in Texas they actually got snow before we did of course.

Yeah. You can't make that up, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, so that was I always remember that. It was like, I think one of the latest on record that they got. And I think it was like New Year's Eve, I think is when they end up getting it. But I also remember the time that I was in Sioux City in terms of a forecasting challenge.

It was was it on a Tuesday morning or Tuesday afternoon? It was 80 degrees. A cold front moved through late Tuesday and Thursday morning it was eight degrees for a low. And so I was never how challenging that was because was a 72 degree change, a swing there from, you know, Tuesday to Thursday morning. And and you know, that really sparked my mind.

The extremes that you can see up there in the Midwest. And, you know, it still amazes me like how the interstates, a lot of times are a dividing line between, you know, heavy snow or nothing.

And right. Yeah.

And and that sort of thing. So, you know, in Sioux City, that's what, you know, for my first job, that's what really I, I learned a lot through that by doing a lot of stuff on your own and then being able to move forward with, you know, with with the weather and how challenging it actually was up there.

Yeah, I've been across, you know, been fortunate enough through my job to visit across various parts of the U.S. And, you know, I've been to parts of the U.S. where I would I would, you know, bet, you know, a lot of money. And I'm not a gambler. There would be snow here. And, you know, it's 60 degrees and I'm just like, I need you know, I need to move that.

And this weather pattern is very similar. I think it's I had a colleague that worked there and a client there. Indiana was the bottom of the state there by the Mississippi River. So, again, I am forgetting the name Evansville, Indiana. And it's nice, you know, I mean, of course, you know, recently they got some ice and some snow and they were they were shocked.

You know, I was like, you know, place is falling apart. But that's fascinating that we have these different weather patterns. But I do want to move on. I wanted to I want to go from Omaha to Houston because, again, you've got this, you know, unique perspective in terms of where you've been in the career and, you know, transitioning roles.

I'm interested in hearing about that, but also how it's evolved over the years and those skills that have been most critical at various different stages.

Yeah, You know, after Sioux City and up going to Omaha, Nebraska, where else was weekend, whether weekday reporting is what I did. So I essentially do the same thing just about 90 miles south of of of where I originally was up in Sioux City. So so I did that and then when I realized, you know, long story short, I did a three year contract there, but about two and a half years in, I got an offer for, you know, now I'm with, as you know, Storm John with them now.

They were impact weather back then. So I you know, I wanted to get back to the Texas area, you know, and and I was about, like I said, six months short of ending my contract in Omaha. But what I end up doing was I said, you know, I was like, I'm not going to well, you know, if I have this opportunity, I'm going to take it.

Because, you know, a lot of times you can't break a contract in the TV market, but it's usually when it's with another TV station, Right?

All right. That's it. So yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No matter where it's at, usually, you know, it is like that. So what I decided to do as I decided to come, you know, I got a job offer at Impact Weather in Houston. And I did start off with marine meteorology there, which I never knew existed. I didn't know any of that, you know, but through great training and so on, I ended up taking that route with you with Impact Weather.

And I was there for, I think like three years. I think I was with with them again. I wanted to get closer to home is a good opportunity. Private weather, which, you know, I didn't know how it existed necessarily, you know, you know, or how fast it was or, you know, whatever. And so I took that route and, you know, and then after that, I kind of went on to other things.

But that's that's what I ended up that's why I went that route, because I knew I wasn't going to move up, you know, where I was there, you know, in Omaha. So I figured this is opportunity both honestly, both financially and also both professionally. I could I could grow further and put another feather in my hat since I've already done the broadcast.

Now I can work something else right into, you know, the into the sea, basically is what I did after that.

Yeah, that's great. Great transition. I know. I know. You mentioned that this is your second stint now. Storm go. So, yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit about, you know that initial impact weather and then transitioning get over to storm Gio and how the industry may have you know changed you know especially where you sit right now and the challenges that storm go face today.

Yeah, you know, Yeah, I know some also, you know, I did, I did get out of weather, you know, for a couple of years. I wanted to try it just to see what it would do because I really wanted to do something more client centric. You know, I, I didn't necessarily want to stay behind a computer screen do forecasting.

I mean, that's I loved it, but I wanted to do something different. And and I always wanted to try to you know, sales or something like that where I can talk, I can discuss it, I can do that whole sort of thing. And so so that's why I got into client relations with Universal, whether in aviation at the time they owned impact, whether.

And so you know that that was an easy transition for me. So I went of client relations and I went and I went into the I'm sorry. yeah. So then I what I ended up doing was I went into I figured out my opportunity. Then I was asked to come to do aviation forecast.

For.

Universal whether in aviation. So when I did that I was like, man, I've never I've never done that before. I want to try it. I want to see, you know, if you know how this does. So really, I was there for a long, long time and I didn't know how vital, honestly, aviation weather was. And I've seen it grow over the last I mean, really the last 5 to 10 years.

And I think over all, I've seen the private weather industry grow as well. Like, you know, broadcast used to be the the end all be all sort of thing from what I remember and what I gathered Right. 15, 20 years ago. But now I think it's shifted more to a private weather industry because how people need it so much more.

There's so much you know, there's so much technology that you can, you know, that you can get off of off of this, you know, then than anything. And I think, you know, off the phones, it's it's not as reliable as people think it is. And, you know, that's really honestly one thing I I tell people is, is because it changes all the time.

That's why to me, it's not as reliable as like companies seriously, like storm goes you know, the the other company I was with for aviation weather you know, and so on, you know, because it's it's a more personalized it's a more precise location specific type of forecasting. And now with, you know, the the climate changing and so on and so forth, that is, you know, you know that there are more extreme.

But I also think part of that has to do also with technology. We have more cameras around, more cameras available and things like that. So but it's it is reported more. But, you know, you do see it. And again, it's one of those things where, you know, in that case, I think it's more, you know, like us as a as a you know, as humans, you know, we evolve.

Well, that's what weather doing. It's it's evolving. And the technology is is evolving as well. You know, now with AI and stuff like that, that's the big challenge now is, you know, how do people and how companies incorporate that with AI? You don't want A.I. taking that over because really a lot of people still like the personal touch.

Yeah, yeah. People. Yeah, that's what they like. They don't want to talk to computer, they don't want to talk. And that's the one thing I think that's a big challenge though, is now, you know, people relying on this almost too much. I'm guilty. You know, but the personal aspect of it is what I think is most important. And that's the one thing that I know that Storm Geo has a big upper hand in, is the personal touch, because we still have a lot of people doing these things right.

But that's also a challenge that we face. Other, you know, other people down the road is, is, you know, the ones who are all stuck in technology in that that that don't look outside that box.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. So you got to have that perspective, right, of both. So that's great. So aviation, that's fascinating in the private aviation world. So how do you tailor weather forecasting and reporting for aviation clients differently from the marine domain? So of course, of course, you know, weather patterns come and it seems to me and a non, you know, not experienced weather, you know, individual who relies like you said, on the on the local media reports.

But I also I go to these you know, I go to these the radars now that you can get on your phone and it's you know the local radar and again even that sometimes is wrong. Right. And we live in Newport, Rhode Islanders, sailing capital of the world. I guess it's cold in the summer. And of course, you've got all these professional sailors here.

So we got access to some great data here for weather patterns because they need them to win races. So so there's some local tools and resources out there. They're actually much more accurate than the general ones that you can pull off of line. So I'd love to hear the difference between the two, though, and your experience there.

Yeah, like I tell aviation weather, which was a animal I have never thought about doing, never even crossed my mind. None of that. And you know, when that came, when that opportunity came to me, I said, Well, okay, I think I've already done sea, I've done land. Now what the heck, Let's do air, you know, so.

Why not just cover them? All right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so, you know, I mean, like, I was in that and I learned a lot from that. I mean, I didn't know anything about icing at the time. I didn't know. I mean, I knew about turbulence. I didn't know how it worked, what the processes were, you know, I didn't know how much. I mean, like, fog impacts everybody.

But I mean, I really realized at the time how much it impacted flights. You know, like, I mean, you know, people peop folks flying into London during the winter. I mean, you know, that's that's you know, you go, well, you know, I can you pick the summer to do that you know because it's almost you know almost constantly foggy there you know during during that time.

But but, you know, that was I think the most fascinating thing was how well, first of all, how many private jets are out there? That's the thing that really, really surprised me was was that and then also next was how many like, you know, how much the forecast entailed into it, because, you know, as a company, as a forecaster, you would write a forecast for that, a test which, you know, we call it.

It's a it's basically, you know, a lot of people looked at it. They'd be like, what does this even mean? You know, because you always have your winds, you have your visibilities, and then you have your cloud cover like a broken deck or an overcast deck or scattered or few or whatever, you know. So you had different levels of it.

So based on, you know, just as a company, what we would do is we would forecast their departure location. Let's say they departed Boston, let's just say, and a alternate forecast. And it had to be within these certain criteria. If if not, then we have to take that out. Now, take the alternate out and then add another one.

That's good. Yeah. Then we would, you know, because we had a flight planning team and what they did, they would do they would give them a, a route that looked good that, you know, that they thought was reasonable because they got numbers, stuff like that to, to work with as well. Best flight at least amount of gas that's that's used fuel etc..

Yeah. So then we would forecast that along the route. Make sure we don't fly through any major turbulence. Some clients were more sensitive than other clients. We called white white knuckle because they were, you know, they.

Holding on for dear life.

Any little any little bump. And then we would give them a forecast for their destination and an alternative for that. If their ultimate wasn't good, we'd let the flight planner know and they would have to put that into their flight plan to, you know, say, hey, this location wasn't good. We're giving you another location that's better. Yeah. And and so that's kind of the process that went went along there of how and what we took you know throughout you know as I worked there for many years.

So, you know and again, some are more sensitive than others. Others say, you know, just fly fly me there. Actually we we participated in the the world's longest flight. It was a it was one of our clients. And they went from Singapore to Tucson, Arizona. And so leading up that entire week, we were trying to plan where the upper level winds were the best and make sure they had enough fuel.

And sure enough, we we did it and they and they were able to break the world. I can't remember how many miles it was, but it was I mean, clearly think about Singapore over to Tucson, Arizona, crossed everything there. And so so, yes, we participated in that. And, you know, and they made it with, you know, I think like an hour's worth of fuel or maybe 2 hours worth of fuel left some something like that.

So, yeah. So yeah, I mean, and that also factors in as well with, you know, the best winds and things like that. So yeah it's it was, it was, it was a big, big time learning experience something I never knew I would do honestly and something that's part of that expansive weather network that's really growing out there throughout.

Yeah. So I know you touched on it a little bit in terms of technology. I'd love to kind of just, you know, hear your thoughts on this and where you've seen technology obviously come from. We you were talking about analog and obviously we've moved into the digital age now, but what about forecasting and the services that storm go provide?

What what's the technology? Where is it? Where's it going?

It is it is definitely going you know, it's an it's a continually and evolving situation. Basically, you have, you know, like we have a very good like database of information, you know, very, very large, very expensive. You know, if you even want to go to hurricanes that, you know, let's say, you know, I don't many people remember Hurricane Harvey or Hurricane Laura that hit, you know, Louisiana.

You know, you got a Hurricane Ike, Katrina.

Sandy. Yeah, all of that.

And exactly. You go back to that and it is in our database. And that's something you can look at, you know, in the past about, you know, hey, where do they have this at that time? How accurate, where they up to that time? That's one thing. But but the other thing is you have so many different layers, backgrounds like you have GIS.

You know, that's definitely certain layers that you're not I'm not totally familiar, but I know you just have a lot of companies that use certain layers to operate our technology into that. And, you know, we are coming out with new, you know, new things that that are out there. You know, we have something that's called a grid ISE, which is something that is grid Y.

Yes. It's really for a lot of the California area where they where, you know, we're pushing a thing where it's people come up with these you know, it's a satellite image that comes up and it and actually shows where the vegetation is around a lot of the, you know, power lines and stuff. So, you know, because a lot of times that is what creates some of these fires is vegetation that's close to these power lines, sparks.

And then you have fires. So that's something that, you know, we're working on. We do have like a thing called Seven Analytics, which is a big time flood model, and it takes into account topography, you know, the buildings in the area, you know, even as simple as concrete versus, you know, having, you know, ground, you know, things like that.

That's something that that we have that we're really beginning to push into the market. So so those are really big things that we're, you know, going to the big challenge again is incorporating it because, you know, one company may have a certain amount of technology that matches or fits where it may not jibe with yours, but you have to kind of bring it together the best way possible to make it work.

And so I think that, you know, that's that's always a big challenge. One thing that we do have is is that we do partner with these other, you know, companies as well. But a lot of it is in-house. It's very, very centralized. You know, it's very localized, I should say. And we just have a lot of a database to get this information in and allow our meteorologist to use it.

And then we use that for, you know, for our forecast, you know, because a lot of times weather is you know, it is historical, you know, and, you know, weather patterns, they happen over and over and over again. That's why a lot of times you'll hear analog years where it compares to this year versus this year. Well, that's you know, that's something that's also incorporate it as well.

That's why a lot of these hurricane numbers are predicted like they are because. Yeah, of compared to past years and stuff and you know and also one thing that storm Gio does have is a lot of good people who have been in this business for so long, you know, 30, 40 years that they know how these weather patterns are working and know what they look like.

And, you know, that's that's big time, you know, beneficial because a lot of times you learn through these processes and learned through, you know, what this pattern looks like versus this one. You know, and and and and they have plenty of that where they look at I mean, they're they're really, really, really good at what they do. And and like I said, we are our meteorologist meteorological team is excellent And that's again the big challenge is having it instantly to your thing, which, you know, we want that done but we want it done accurately as well.

So that's that's the big thing is is trying to get that accurately portray to them. And that's something I think we do extremely well.

Great, great, great insight. Yeah. I was just in California talking about the flooding there, just this recent storm that happened last week. And I was in Malibu and I lived in California many years ago. I go backwards and forwards so for business and personal reasons and I can tell you I had not seen anything like it. And I'm used to I'm used to a lot of rain here on the north, in the northeast.

I'm used to a lot of rain coming from England. So I've seen rain. And I can tell you I'd never seen as much rain in four days in any one place elsewhere in the world. So it was it was torrential downpour for literally three and a half days. And we had a short break for a few hours. And then it came again.

It was it was a lot of rain.

Well, you know, you said, John, we have some friends who live in Southern California.

Yeah, that's where it was. Yeah.

Whittier, I think, is where they're at. Whittier, California. And there they my our friends dad, he was exiting his driveway. And just as he was about his driveway, a mudslide came right down. I mean, literally like right in front of him. We got video of it and everything there, too. And it was right in front of them and asked them up.

And, you know, luckily I mean I mean, honestly, if he would have gone three feet further down the driveway, I mean, he would've been swept along with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I read I read somewhere 500 force, 470 something reported mudslides during that. Yes. So. Yeah, Yeah. Unbelievable. So I do a like well, I guess leaning straight in here to sustainability and the climate change discussion in terms of your role and how to address these types of challenges, how is how are you doing that with the work you're doing that storm jail?

Well, you know, I just came into this industry manager position, actually just the beginning of the new year. And one thing I've learned already since the year that I've been there is, you know, how storm go is trying to branch out. You know, like I just mentioned, like things like retired seven analytics, you know, that sort of thing.

There's another company called Climate Tempo is the name of their located down in South America. We've now partnered with them because they have a big part of that South American market that they you know, that we have, you know, done as well because, you know, they have a big hold on that and they're kind of like the Weather Channel of of the South and or, you know, of South America on it.

So, I mean, like they do it, it's up there. You know, they don't hype it as much like they do. But anyway, so but but yeah so you know I guess, you know, with all the climate change stuff that's that is happening. It is. That's why we're doing all these things because there are more you know, there are more wildfires out there.

There is, you know, a little bit more extreme of flooding potential, you know, things like that. That's why as a company, we're trying to embrace more of that. And, you know, whether person believes it or not, you know that I mean, it's it's out there, it's relevant, it's legit. You know, you know, other than that, you know, we're just trying to trying to embrace and bring that all in to one, you know, one thing, you know, one one ball is what we're trying to do.

And and and that's really something that we're that we're trying to, you know, incorporate as a company that since I've been here that short month.

Right. All right. Wonderful. All right. So I want to I want to wrap up here because I was fascinated. This is my favorite part of the of the questions I have for you is the last question. And it's storm chasing. So I know that was in your bio. I kind of honed in on that. I said, should I ask this question first?

Should I leave? I said, No, I want to I want to get, you know, folks, you know, geared up for this one. And I'm going to tell them to listen in and wait to to the last question is, so obviously, you know, you've got a background in this. You've chased a few storms over the years. I would love to hear one or two stories if you've got a couple of minutes about that experience.

Yeah.

And now you're married with a young child. And congratulations, by the way, by the birth of the baby. So but now, now you're going down that path. No more storm chasing view now.

Exactly. No more storm chasing. You know, that's why it was like it's so big. I can bring the kid with me.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I yeah, like I. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, I know. This is the thing they always call in the news industry. Kind of the kicker because the very last story of the whole thing and you know, kind of the more lighthearted one And so this let me tell you like, you know, my, my friend and I actually, who lives in New Orleans here is actually named Hank Allen.

He lives here in New Orleans. He's a TV meteorologist for the ABC station here. And he's a him when I've been good friends since Mississippi State. I know we work together in Sioux City, Iowa. Well, he moved to New Orleans then when I was in Houston. So a couple of times he would drive to Houston. Then we would rent a car, usually with good, good insurance and make sure that we would, you know, take that the you know, when we drive north, Well, eventually what we would do then is we then decide to fly up to Dallas and then we would, you know, I mean, we would pick a random week.

We don't know what the weather would be like or whatever. You know, we would just pick a random week. And so we did this for, I want to say six or seven straight years, we would do this. And, you know, we went as far north as Nebraska, and there's always an area that we would end up in which I'll get that a little bit.

But our story that I guess, you know, there's two stories that I always remember that we that we would always remember. One was in Oklahoma. We were there was a severe weather day and we were just outside of the Oklahoma City area. And I always specifically remember this, that there was we literally stopped and we looked around us completely.

And I bet you we saw four or five wall clouds. You know, And Walt, like for those of you who may not know, is like kind of the early developments of a tornado. And I mean, but but, I mean, you could see.

You're so you're surrounded by them.

Yeah. And I have never seen that. And I honestly I was even, you know, hanging out and were like, well, it's this is I mean, it's.

Like in the movie, like.

Yeah, yeah, like it's I was like I was like, I was like, we're not we're not seeing Bangor. Me Like, these are actual walkways that we're seeing. Right. And you know, he's, he's like, yeah. He goes, that's what we're, you know, so I mean that was, that was one story but that, but the really the two that I always remember was we were in I think Kingfisher, Oklahoma and we had know we were, we were going along the highway.

And what what we had back then was we'd have our phones. I mean, we we had a laptop, we had a radar that was barren, barren radar services. And it was kind of like an it's almost like an exempt type type type of thing. But you would hook it up to your computer and you would have the radar in there.

Now, it was it would get data, you know, from the satellite up above you. And it would it would it would bring in that information. Well, as we were going down the highway and that the radar wasn't I was like, yeah, I was like, thanks, I haven't moved in forever. I was like, Why? You know, what's what's going on here?

And so as we went across, we were we looked and I was like, Wait a second. And there's a little thing in the upper right hand corner of the screen and it's like it's it's a red dot. I mean, it's not getting information. And I was like, no. And, and like, we were debating on keeping on going or not.

And I was like, Let's stop. Well, we looked at these homes just on our right side and saw these big, you know, big things in the yard. And I was like, I think I was like, that can't be hail. And sure enough, it was like it was it was part of the hand type of type of hail.

If we would have kept going, we probably would have ran into that storm.

And crushed the car.

They just crushed the car. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that one that that was one of the stories that was that that was like our our, our big time like, you know, Whoa. You know, actually, I'm kind of glad that we both noticed that. Right?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's probably some distance away that you're seeing this out, right? So, yeah, in a good situation, good situational awareness, as they say. So that's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, but, but, but the biggest one was we were in West Texas and you know how like, you know, I mean, a lot of people may not be aware of it, but it's very barren, dusty that, that sort of thing on West Texas. So we were out there. I think it was actually kind of north west Texas, you know, that area just south of the panhandle there.

But we were out there and there was one storm out there and we were crossing the highway. And you look ahead and it's like dust. It's like complete like dust. And the storm is to our right and the the wind is just howling into the storm because it's because the storm what it's doing is just it's it's sucking up all this, you know, all this wind and things like, you know, all this dust and things like that.

When we went, I decided to record it on my phone, you know, So, I mean, I didn't I gave it to my to you know, I gave it to my friend there and I was like, you know, take it. And he's like, you know, So we started recording it. And as we're going, you could not see anything.

It was dust. And I was like, This may be the tornado. This may be I mean, we and you literally lost complete like you lost complete like focus of it, All right? And and like, you could not see where you're going. You couldn't see any any of that, you know, And and finally, we it probably last because there was a car that was pulled over to our right in the shoulder and there was a you know, and we kept on going straight.

And we I mean, we couldn't see anything. There were a few expletives that may have been said in there, too. But, you know, I don't really like but I mean, you know, like, I couldn't I couldn't see they made you made it out. And talk about the biggest sigh of relief getting out of there. Well, and, you know, we look to our right and I mean, there's you know, there's a storm.

You know, I don't know if they were drop the tornado, but man, it was it was close. And, you know, that was I think, one of the that was one of our big, you know, big, big memories of, well, that was was that that, you know, just just how how close it was to to that. And really, again, you know, just the least least expect it.

That's well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that's great. Well, thanks for sharing those stories with us. We appreciate that. And thank you for your time today. It was this was really good. It's going to be very popular with with everyone and we'll share it far and wide. But before we jump off, I can folks get ahold of you if they want to touch base.

I know I found you on LinkedIn, so we'll drop that link in there. I know your teams mentioned Facebook page. We'll put that in there. But how about going to get going? They get a hold of you and any final words?

Yeah, no, you know, just just as you said. Yeah. My LinkedIn also, I do have a Facebook page. It's a, you know, Facebook.com and it's a back slash. It's more meteorology r e s and then meteorology. That's something that I you know, I let a lot of people know of weather, especially that's across the south. But you know, I do some I put some blurbs in there across other other parts of the country and things like that, especially during tropical season.

They can do that. And also I do have Twitter which is or ex now as it's called is at Nathan weather is where you can find that too. And yeah I mean you know final final thoughts are again weather the weather industry is evolving. It's evolving out of television I think, and really going more privately. Yeah. And I think we're going to see a lot more of that coming up.

And You know, something that those companies probably going to run into against is is the challenge of technology. And, you know, keeping that keeping a good balance with that to where it's still accurate and dependable. And that's you know, that's something that I'm seeing it go towards as well.

Okay, great. Well, I appreciate your time again today, Nathan, And stay safe out there even though you're not chasing storms anymore.

I know. Rob. Hey, thanks for having me. And yeah, I mean, if nothing else down the road, feel free to let me know.

I will do. Thank you. Well, that wraps up episode 133 of our podcast. Thanks for joining us. And don't forget I CMC 2024 is coming up in June of this year. Check out crisis conferences dot com for more information on that. Have a safe day now. Thank you.