My wife and I have always been active in sports, at least when we were a little younger. We played a lot of volleyball, and I even played on a men s over-30 soccer team while in St. Louis. I enjoy golf but don t get to play enough. We have four children, all of whom are active in sports also. My other hobbies are photography and amateur radio, both of which have strong connections to meteorology and weather forecasting.
Many meteorologists enjoy observing the weather and photographing interesting weather phenomena.
Many amateur radio operators serve as weather spotters and report directly to National Weather Service forecast offices during severe weather, winter storm, and flood events. During many severe weather events in our warning area, I work at the amateur radio base station in our forecast office, talking directly with spotters. During the May 3 rd event, I was serving as the amateur radio operator at the forecast office and received the first reports from very dedicated volunteer spotters in southwest Oklahoma as the storms developed rapidly and began producing large hail. The first reports of a rotating wall cloud north of Fort Sill came from amateur radio operators. Our forecasters combined these reports with radar data to issue the first tornado warning of the day.