Who Was Your Favorite Childhood TV Meteorologist?

[Randy Zipser]

Thank you for this information and video, Randy. This inspired me to see if I could find any video of Conrad Johnson, who I mentioned in an earlier post.

You're very welcome, John. Both of these videos, related to Roy Leep and Conrad Johnson, surely have brought back many early memories for both of us. We were probably too young to realize it then, but those were the wonderful days of simple, straightforward television weather broadcasting, uncomplicated by fancy terminology, gadgets and equipment (including Doppler radar), and advanced computer-graphics technologies. And, as I recall, even though the weather information from television broadcasts was simplistic by today's standards, it still more than met the needs of the viewing audiences back in those days.

I can still remember the earliest broadcasts where the "temperature" numbers were written by hand in marker pen on a physical wall showing the outline of the U.S. Later, plastic numbers were attached, but these sometimes came crashing down to the floor when accidentally touched by a hand or pointer during the live broadcasts, creating some awkward and embarrassing moments for the weatherman (well before the days of digital computer graphics). And I also clearly remember that the latest surface temperature obs west of the Rocky Mountains were from the previous hour because the Western Union teletypes could not relay the current obs fast enough to reach the East Coast (I was in Florida) before the local evening broadcast went on-air.

All to say, broadcast meteorology has certainly come such a long way since those days...but as an aging Boomer, I admit that I really sometimes long for those less complicated days...

 

[Randy Zipser]

I grew up watching the legendary Harold Taft on KXAS NBC 5 in DFW.

Interesting you should mention Harold Taft, RJ!

When I first came to Norman in the 1970s, the two names (besides Gary England, of course) that I heard the most often as far as being beloved local weather "gurus" were Harold Taft in DFW and Cecile Carrier (if I spelled his name correctly?) in ICT. Back in those days, competition was fierce in the major weather-broadcast markets of Tornado Alley, but these two dominated the airwaves for many, many years. Thanks for bringing back that memory...

 

[James K]

I don't remember names, but it woulda been whoever was on the local NBC broadcast station, since that was where I'd be most likely to tune to for news (which I watched the news in big part for weather)

 

[Tony Laubach]

Growing up in Ohio, I was a fan of Jym Ganahl and Chad Myers... my Mom, who was a well known radio personality in those days, worked with a couple of the local Columbus stations and set up a lunch meet with Chad Myers when I was a youngster. I remember it really well; particularly when he drew a diagram of a supercell storm on the back of the placemat at a Bob Evans. One of my earliest memories in the weather world.

Chad would go on to be a Met on CNN; he reached out once when one of my hail videos freelanced to CNN back in 20-something and he recognized my name attached to it and asked if I was "that kid". That was a fun full-circle moment.

 

[Dave Montrose]

Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida when I was 11 and Bryan Norcross was the meteorologist on WTVJ. He really knew how to explain things calmly, which made his name forever associated with the event. I lived in Fort Lauderdale at the time - far from the worst, but close enough that we lost power for 10 days. I remember Norcross telling viewers that the winds would sound like a freight train going over your house. 11-year-old me thought that would be awesome and I wanted to hear it, but my mom made us go to bed. I tried to stay awake to hear the freight train winds, but I couldn't. So Bryan Norcross played a role in my oft-told story that I slept through Hurricane Andrew.