It’s Raining Mike
What attracted you to meteorology?
What attracted me to meteorology was my curiosity about weather in general. Severe weather in particular! When I was a kid, I always wanted to know when the very heavy rain and thunderstorms would be coming through town. I realize that the TV meteorologist had that information and it look like a fun job too...I was sold!
What is the most difficult thing about predicting the weather?
The most difficult thing about predicting the weather is the fickleness of mother nature. All of your forecast models. (these are computer generated forecasts that we rely on daily.) can literally flip-flop overnight. So the forecast that I believed was correct on Monday night could be completely different by Tuesday morning when I wake up to update the forecast. This happens more often than you know!
What is the weirdest thing someone has said to you about your prediction?
I remember one time we were having a particularly cold winter. Someone then came up and said to me…" Well, you are forecasting a cold winter, and that's been going on for a while… That must mean we are going to see more earthquakes soon! "
That was mind boggling.
Does it get under your skin when I hold you accountable for your predictions?
I expect to be held accountable for my forecasts. Even though, as we all know, weather is tricky, and constantly changing so often times the forecast change. What gets under my skin is win I realize that perhaps you haven't even listened to the forecast… For three hours no less!!
How far in advance can you reasonably predict the weather? And what does the remainder of the winter look like?
Well, as far as the forecast is concerned with reasonably decent accuracy, most meteorologists don't count on getting much more than five to maybe seven days out in the future forecast pretty much on point. Beyond that, the specific details really can't be relied upon. When it comes to forecasting for a season, I tend to want to see how we lead into a season, and then make a decision based on that. Those types of patterns do tend to stick around for a while. For instance, this winter definitely looks like it's going to be on the warmer and wetter side in total. Probably very little snow in the end. Sometimes these winter and summer weather patterns take a little bit of time to get set up. But once they get going… They tend to hang out for a while.
Do you believe climate change has anything to do with the erratic weather we’ve been seeing?
Climate change definitely has impacts on our weather. But it's very difficult to point specifically at one storm or even one season being impacted by climate change. But we are going to see is seasonal weather that has changed on a more permanent basis rather than just one particular storm or season.
Have you ever seen it raining cats and dogs?
I can't say I've ever seen it raining, cats and dogs, literally! But I have seen some news footage where you see small fish and I believe the tadpoles falling from rain clouds. It was believed that perhaps those little animals were sucked up from something like a waterspout or a tornado, and then they fall back to the ground. That's pretty amazing though! And real!
