Dennis
Welcome to Uncommon Convos. I’m your host Dennis VanDerGinst, and before I introduce today’s guest, I’d like to ask you all to subscribe, register, and review Uncommon Convos on your favorite podcast platform.

Dennis
You can also contact us, comment, suggests guests, and watch the video version of this–and all of our podcasts–by going to UncommonConvos.com and following the links.

Dennis
Today, our guest is Erik Maitland, weather guy extraordinaire. Erik grew up in Minnesota, then he left to become a proud Arizona state sun devil, where he studied meteorology and broadcasting. After a stint forecasting in Phoenix, he returned to his Midwestern roots with stops in Traverse City, Michigan; Iowa City; Minneapolis; and the Quad Cities–where he’s been a staple at KWQC, the NBC affiliate, for over 20 years.

Dennis
So, Erik, I want to thank you for joining me today. My first question–how’s the weather?

Erik
It–It, you know, it’s finally looking better than it has been. I don’t think we had a whole lot of frost this morning, and sun is out–everything’s green. I’m starting to really dig it.

Dennis
Yeah.

Dennis
And I’m assuming that’s the kind of question you’ve got to get a little bit tired of. All the–all the jokes about, you know, the weather and being blamed for the weather when it’s bad and all that type of thing. But I–but I do want to revisit something I just mentioned in your bio. So you had this stint in Phoenix….I mean, how challenging can that be? Isn’t it like every day it’s like, “yeah, today’s weather–

Dennis
It’s hot. It’s dry.”

Erik
Well, you know, that’s–that’s another common misconception that I always wanted to write a book. Had I stayed in Phoenix, I always wanted to write a book called, “Fire and Ice: The Four Seasons of Arizona,”

Dennis
Really.

Erik
Because, they really do have four seasons. But before I get on to that, I just–a really quick anecdote about that. A few years ago–well, not–more than a few years ago, when my kids were young, we were visiting my parents in Scottsdale,

Erik
and this is after, of course, I had been away from the valley for quite some time, but we got into the hotel room that we were staying in and I sat down to watch the news, and my oldest daughter, who was only about, uh, gee–I want to say 11 or 12 at the time, sat down next to me because she was eating something, and it was raining that night in Phoenix. The first ten minutes of the newscast, whereas if we had a tornado outbreak here in the Quad Cities, it was “rain, rain, rain, rain.

Erik
Live reports of rain over here. A live report of rain over here.” And it was–and she wanted me–do they have anything else they can talk about? So, yeah, when the weather changes in Phoenix, it’s a big deal. But but no, there were some forecasting challenges. There’s something in the summertime called “the monsoon.” It’s really hot, really humid–and that’s the key, because when you get these big thunderstorms, yes, you can get severe weather,

Erik
Yes, Phoenix can get tornadoes and then they can, of course, get, because of the heavy rain, all kinds of flooding in the wintertime. You can get snow, which is some of the most beautiful snow I’ve ever seen in my life, Dennis. I would get up in the morning after a storm had gone through during the nighttime hours and the mountains that surrounded Phoenix and Scottsdale were white with snow, but there was no snow down at the valley floor where people live.

Erik
And and then to–to because I missed it, because I was a Midwesterner, sometimes when I was off from school for the day, I’d drive up into the mountains and there would be these Saguaro cactus–the kind of cactus that you think about when you think of the old west covered in snow. And it’s just–it’s just a beautiful juxtaposition of snow on the desert. So, yeah, there are–there are many different types of weather. Even in Phoenix, they have their four seasons.

Erik
And I will say, well, I was still in college and interning at the NBC affiliate in Phoenix. And actually I was really lucky because I got the chance to be on the air even before my college career had ended down there. The one morning that it snowed on Camelback Mountain, I had that in my forecast. So–

Dennis
Nice.

Erik
I was pretty happy about that.

Dennis
Nice. Well, you know, you mentioned how everything was all about the rain when you were there and it was raining in Arizona–in Phoenix. And, you know, it’s kind of the same thing when you see snow down south. I mean, the traffic stops, the stores close, they close up the schools. Obviously, it’s–what are you prepared for or what do you see in the course of a normal year? So I guess, you know, it really, really does depend.

Dennis
But obviously, you eventually move back to the Midwest where we have all kinds of different weather issues. And, you know, we’ll jump into that. Would you– would you say that it’s more of a challenge, the weather forecasting, is more of a challenge in the Midwest than in most places in the United States?

Erik
Yeah, I really would. And I would really say here in the Quad Cities, it–it’s the biggest challenge I’ve ever had. I’ve worked north in Minneapolis. I’ve obviously worked south, but right around Iowa…It’s at this latitude we’re kind of in that constant transition zone. So, you know, as much as I hate to say that our seven day forecast really can’t be that great after about four days–and sometimes they are–I mean, we’ve got the technology now that sometimes, you know, we can tell you that it’s going to rain Sunday afternoon on a Monday or Tuesday.

Erik
And it does!

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
But especially during the wintertime and when the progression of weather systems is faster, spring, fall, winter…Long range forecasting is really tough, and it can even change within a day or two. So, you know, and think about this–when you watch the news, in any newscast you watch, there’s always a weather forecast. I mean, that’s because it’s always changing. I mean, sportscast, you might see once or twice a day, but once the sports scores put it in the books, that’s history.

Dennis
Right.

Erik
You know, we’re always trying to get the best lead time on something that’s going to happen weather wise as we can, so you’ll always see a weathercast in a newscast because we’re always trying to fine tune the forecast. And, you know, any forecast is just as good as the information that we have. So the more information we get, which is better closer to the arrival of any weather system, the better our forecasts will be.

Dennis
Yeah, you know, for those listeners who aren’t in the Midwest, um, you know, it’s kind of an ongoing joke that if you don’t like the weather in Iowa, just–just give it an hour or two.

Erik
Yeah right. Just wait five minutes, it’ll change.

Dennis
Yeah, for sure. And it really does so. So what is it that got you into meteorology to begin with? What influenced you to–to go into this career path?

Erik
This is a bit of an interesting story because it had its pauses and it had its, you know, brilliant moments. When I was a kid, I was I was between fourth and fifth grade, so I was somewhere around 9 or 10. And I grew up in the Twin Cities in Bloomington, Minnesota. And one afternoon I was out and I was–I was kind of a loner as a kid. I’d find my own thing to do. And I’d usually be doing something outside.

Erik
One day I was outside and it was a beautiful day, in the morning. Got home, ate lunch, went outside again in the afternoon and just noticed that the sky in one direction had just turned like pitch black. And it was coming at me. And it was this thunderstorm moment that inspires a lot of people. And, you know, you know, no matter if they’re poets or future weather people. But this storm was coming into my neighborhood and I looked down to the end of my street and all of a sudden I could see the wind picking up because all the garbage cans were flipping over and coming my way.

Erik
So I decided at that point probably a good idea to get in the house, got in the house and we lived up on the top of a hill or the neighborhood dropped off below our backyard. So I could have a great view of the yard or the yards that were behind me. And I was at the back window watching the storm go by and watching the clouds spin. And all of a sudden–it wasn’t a tornado or anything, but it was it was a really good storm.

Erik
And that kind of inspired me to find out why did that happen so fast? What made that change? So that summer, I went to the public library, got on all the weather books, and I started reading those cover to cover. And within a few weeks, I was making my own forecast and putting them up on the refrigerator. I mean, I draw maps of our city and stuff and I put in fronts and I’d go out and I’d sketch all the clouds and make my own satellite photo from below, kind of.

Erik
And thankfully, I still have those those six sheets of paper that I–

Dennis
Nice.

Erik
So I post those on Facebook every now and then just to say, “hey, this is where I was a long time ago.” So, so that got me interested in weather. My friend and I, we had tape recorders. So I was already we were already pretending we were doing radio shows or TV shows or whatever, just without the cameras or we didn’t have movie cameras or anything like that.

Erik
We had tape recorders. So when we played tennis in the street or baseball or or hockey, you know, where you twist the knobs and make those little guys turn, we would commentate that. So, you know, back then I had the–the foundations of broadcasting and meteorology. And it wasn’t until I got to college and I started working at a TV station in Phoenix behind the scenes because I was also interested in television production–thank you

Erik
Price Is Right for showing the cameras every now and then on the TV show when I was a kid–I thought those cameras were cool, I got operate a camera. So I got into TV, I operated studio cameras. And one of the people that I worked with there also worked at another station in Phoenix where they did news, the NBC affiliate. And she said, you know, if you’re interested in weather and TV, you should come spend an evening with our weekend weather guy.

Erik
And see what he does, and I thought, you know, OK, after all these years, I’d never put the two together. It was her telling me that that that I could, you know, sit in with the weather guy for one evening. And when I did that one night on a Saturday evening, I mean, 10 minutes in, I thought, this is it. This is it. This is–this is what I want to make a living out of doing.

Erik
And, you know, from that moment on, I pretty much knew I had to twist my area of study in college, which my dad wasn’t real happy about because he goes, “all broadcasters are a dime a dozen, you’re never going to make any money or have a career there.” So I, I double major in meteorology and broadcasting. And as I said, what happened later on is I got an internship at that station that led me to being actually on the air a year before I graduated.

Erik
Tough to do back then. Not a lot of people started in a major market for TV. So I had a really nice tape when I wanted to get out and do it full time after I graduated.

Dennis
Well, it’s–it’s clear, you know, and then we’ve known each other for a long time. And of course, anybody who has been in any of the markets that you have been broadcasting within knows what a passion you have for the weather, as well as obviously a clear command of–of, you know, the information and whatever is necessary in order to do the forecasting. Which is great when, you know, somebody who’s got that passion from an early stage and is able to follow that–that career path.

Erik
But at one point you told me, and I don’t know where this fits in all of this, but you told me you did some modeling, too.

Erik
I did?

Dennis
Yes, you did.

Erik
I mean–

Dennis
Maybe it was hand modeling, I don’t know.

Erik
Wow, wow, this–this is coming at me from left field. I don’t remember that.

Dennis
Well, maybe, maybe this will give you a context. We were–actually, it was your birthday.

Erik
My 50th birthday.

Dennis
Yeah. I wasn’t even going to say that.

Erik
5-0. Cat’s out of the bag.

Dennis
And maybe–maybe it was somebody else that told me that about you. Well, certainly those of you who are watching the video could tell why he would be a good model. But if you, if you, if you didn’t do any modeling, then there’s nothing to go into there.

Dennis
But we can we can certainly see that he could have and would have been a good model as well.

Erik
Well, you know, I will say that my mom was a model and she was a model back in the 40s and 50s. And she had a lot of pictures that I saw as a kid of her, you know, standing in front of the old Admiral refrigerator or TV or something, you know. And classic, you know, long, thin figure with the skirt down below the knees and the nice dress and the little hat and, you know, pointing at products and–

Dennis
Right.

Erik
Maybe we talked about that–

Dennis
That might be it.

Erik
Unless it was–unless I was a baby model and I don’t remember it.

Dennis
Well, it might have been–it might have been the discussion about your mom–

Erik
Ok.

Dennis
–And maybe some you know, the context was, of course, as I said, it was a party. So who knows what was being said and what how it was being interpreted.

Erik
Dennis, I’ll tell you what, if, if, if I need to lose about 10 or 15 pounds so I can be a model, I’ll hang out on the beach and get millions of bucks and a nice tan? I’ll do it.

Dennis
Absolutely. So, OK, obviously, though, your path has always been or at least from an early age, meteorology. And I’m interested in knowing you’ve indicated how you how lucky you were to, you know, jump in even before you you were out of college. And so I’m interested in knowing how that path has evolved, because you’re the chief meteorologist now and I don’t know at what stage that occurs. And but. What, what kinda cracks me up, and I’m sure you’ve seen this–is when you see these YouTube videos of a guy doing the weather out in the weather and obviously not happy about it.

Dennis
One in particular came up uh, just, I don’t know, maybe a few months ago where he’s in the snow and the anchor is kind of throwing, you know, the the broadcast to him and asking, “well, what’s the weather like?” And he basically saying, “well, if you can’t see it, then I don’t know.” I mean, he’s getting really snarky and upset. Have you ever had to do that kind of reporting on the weather?

Erik
Well, I’ve been stuck in it, yeah. And, and I’ll tell you what, it was the worst time span that I had that was up in Minneapolis. And it was the morning show that I was a part of. And yes, when they would send me outside in the morning at the coldest time of the day on a Minnesota winter day, you know, when the wind chills were down to minus 30, minus 40, and I literally had about six layers of clothing on, and it was–it was pretty rough.

Erik
I mean, I can remember two instances and one when I was standing next to Interstate 35 in Burnsville, which is just south of the Twin Cities, one of the southern suburbs. And I was next to a Best Buy and I think a Perkins restaurant and looking right over an interchange at 35 W and one of the other connecting freeways. And I was there for about four hours. And I think the–the snow depth had increased close to eight to 12 inches in the timespan that I was there.

Erik
And yes, between shots, we could get into the van, but the van wasn’t any warmer than it was outside. And I had just gotten some some new outerwear from my brother, who used to be in the recreational business. And he gave me some samples and everything was blue. Everything was just very pretty blue. And when I got back to the station and it was all I could do to put this over sweatshirts and sweat jackets and sweatpants and three socks and everything, you know, they they looked at me like I was the kid in Willy Wonka who became the blueberry.

Erik
And from that moment on, I was pretty much known as “the blueberry.” But–but you know that–that day was probably the coldest day that I had ever had to do any reporting outside. And it’s ingrained in the memory. I know it always will be.

Dennis
Is that–would you say that’s also like the most dangerous condition in which you had to report? Or have you, like, done–or have you been in the path of tornadoes and things of that nature?

Erik
You know, I’ve never been in the path of a tornado. I’ve–I’ve come into a little area that got hit by a tornado afterwards. And it really changed my perspective in a way. But–but, yeah, winter weather is the–pretty much the most dangerous because you’re out there for so long and the risk of exposure is so great that, yeah, that was probably the most dangerous thing that I was ever in. And yeah, I was, I was at that point kind of thinking, wow, this is pretty ridiculous.

Erik
Here we are out here for four hours telling people traffic is bad because of the weather. The weather is bad because it’s just so bad. And you should plan to just stay in the house today. So…there I was.

Dennis
You stay in the house.

Dennis
I’ll be out here. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of kind of like the guys too that do the reporting on the hurricanes. Now, I know you haven’t been in those markets where you’re going to have to have to be doing that kind of reporting. But have you ever been in a hurricane?

Erik
No, I’ve never been in a hurricane, persay, but the last time Michelle and I went to Key West, a pretty good storm rolled through. And I took the opportunity because I was in the parking garage of a hotel to turn my phone on as a camera and pretend that I was doing a hurricane report and saw it. And I was I was taking it off my face and putting it out in the waves that were crashing over the beach and everything and looking in the palm trees that were all bent over and looking out to see where the waves were coming in from.

Erik
And I think the most pleasure I got out of that video was sending it back to KWQC, to one of my coworkers to say, hey, I finally got an ocean storm. And so I got back and we laughed about that. But that’s really the closest I’ve ever been. Although hurricanes they’re like winter storms. I mean, they take a long time to develop. You can track them for a long time. And and when they hit, they hit pretty hard.

Erik
And I always–my thought about hurricanes, and this is a terrible way to think about a hurricane because obviously there are deadly storms and you don’t want those, just like even as a weather guy, I don’t want tornadoes because they–

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
–they break stuff and they kill people. But, but hurricanes for, for broadcasters are money because for–nowadays you can–you can be a hurricane specialist and a forecaster for a Gulf Coast radio station if you live in Juneau, Alaska.

Erik
I mean, we’ve got the technology. You don’t have to be at ground zero. But as soon as one of those storms starts to form in the Atlantic, you can start doing radio broadcasts specifically on that storm. And I say this because one of my first coworkers did this when I worked in Michigan. He had a bunch of radio stations that he provided weather for on the Gulf Coast. And every time hurricanes were starting to form way out in the middle of the Atlantic, just off the coast of Africa, he would start doing radio reports for them, you know, “Kaching” for him.

Erik
He was making money. So well. Strange perspective on a deadly storm right now.

Dennis
No, no. But I mean, it’s part of the business. And obviously it’s something that stations are well aware of. You know, I’ve, I’ve had occasion to be down and around in areas when hurricanes were developing and never–I mean, maybe a Category 1 or something like that where I might have been–is one the least?

Erik
Yeah.

Dennis
Yeah, OK. But I will say this, those, those listeners who were in central and northern Iowa last year will remember the derecho.

Dennis
And at its worst, that was very reminiscent of what I had experienced myself in a hurricane. And I would suspect that a lot of people would–would equate it as kind of the same level of intensity.

Erik
Yeah, absolutely. A broad wind field of 100 to 120 mile per hour winds, just full force coming right at you, not twisting like a tornado, but just slamming in and then just continuing to pummel those areas for hours, really.

Dennis
You know, and as far as I can recall, that’s the I mean, I’m sure this might not be true, but how often do we experience a derecho like that in the Midwest? I don’t recall ever having been through something like that before.

Erik
Yeah, this–this one this kind of proves how myopic we can get. I mean, if it doesn’t happen out our back window, we–we just think it doesn’t happen. But derechos, you know, that cross the Midwest, every four to seven years there’s there can be one. I mean, it can be even more frequent than that, just not quite the same scope, but a major derecho like that…Every four to seven years. I think, you know, we’ve had a couple that I can remember in my time here hitting the Quad Cities.

Erik
You know, they, they might not necessarily have been referred to as the derechos, but they’re I mean, we can go back to 2011, I think 2007. And certainly they can be smaller than the one that we had last year, which was a very broad I mean, that thing went almost 800 miles into the eastern United States. But, yeah, they’re just like really any type of weather, the more extreme it is, the rarer it is.

Erik
So to see a derecho like that any time soon, hitting the same areas, it’s going to take a while, but maybe later this year or in a couple of years, one just like that might happen a little farther north of here or a little further south of here. You know, they’re out there. And I’m trying to remember how long it’s been since we’ve been calling them, derechos, which is a Spanish term, I believe. But I think it’s it’s been post-2000.

Erik
But before then, they certainly existed, just like the polar vortex. I mean, sure, I learned about that in the eighties in college. It’s always been there and we call it the meteorologists have called it the polar vortex for decades. It just got sexier, you know, within the last five or six years.

Dennis
Sure. Well, you know, in preparing this, it’s always weird when you’re trying to interview someone who you know, but in preparing some some of the information that I wanted to discuss with you when I was looking up derecho, I also came across the term “downburst.” Is that the same or similar phenomena?

Erik
It’s–it’s different downburst, or you can have microbursts, macrobursts–And it just–they’re they’re both downburst. It just depends on the scale.

Erik
You can have downburst from many thunderstorms. The–the difference between a downburst and a derecho is a downburst is more localized. That will happen from one thunderstorm. It’s–it’s a huge pocket of cold air that just drops out, hits the ground, spreads out in all directions, and because it’s such a massive quantity of air when it hits the ground and spreads out, obviously, because it can’t go below ground. I mean, you can get wind speeds of 60 to 80 to 100 miles per hour.

Erik
Thing about a derecho, is whereas a downburst happens in one particular area, a derecho kind of feeds on itself and it moves–

Dennis
Right.

Erik
–Laterally for hundreds of miles.

Dennis
Right.

Erik
If it’s a strong derecho.

Dennis
Now, you know, given what you said, I presume that you would not–you would not call yourself a “storm chaser.” And that in the context that you people have come to know them, like from watching movies like Twister, for instance, I assume you’ve seen that movie, right?

Erik
Absolutely, yes.

Dennis
How true to life were the scenes in that movie? I mean, would I–like you know, I’ve actually seen tornadoes from, you know, a bit of a distance and obviously found them to be awesome and terrifying at the same time. But sometimes I think of–when I think of tornadoes, for instance, I think of scenes from Twister. I think of the Wizard of Oz, where the–the Dorothy’s house is, you know, plummeted into Munchkinland and–and all that type of thing.

Dennis
How realistic are some of those things when we’re talking about a tornado, as far as the force and everything?

Erik
Right. Right. Well, they can certainly affect those things, but they usually end up obliterating them rather than placing them in Munchkinland–

Dennis
Right.

Erik
–Or, or allowing a pickup truck to stay within a multi vortex tornado where cows are. That–that pickup truck would have been in the water. Yet a lot of Hollywood went into that. And, you know, I personally know meteorologists who are really irate about that movie. And, you know, I just I know you’re a purist everything, but just take a breath, ease back.

Erik
It’s just a movie.

Dennis
Right.

Erik
The thing about the one thing that I can certainly point out about the tornadoes in Twister–they do not have a fine line like that. You know, you can’t run up and throw something into a tornado and run back to camp and say, “Hey, I just threw mug a coffee in the tornado.”

Dennis
Right.

Erik
There’s not that fine of a line. So when you get within certain hundreds of yards of the base of that tornado, debris is flying into it.

Erik
Such–at such a force, that if something hit you, even you know, like

Erik
my stapler here, if this hit me as it was being sucked into a tornado, it would knock me cold and, you know, I’d be making my arguments in front of God.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
Yeah. A lot of Hollywood special effects went into that. And, and I will say this about Twister. And in the last few years, it’s been very difficult to find people to fill TV weather jobs because the Twister effect is over. They saw Twister as a kid, they went to college to become a meteorologist,

Erik
And now they’ve all gotten their jobs and they’re in the business. So they’re kind of in in the hallways of the business. So when we have openings, that Twister effect, whereas we used to get, you know, 300, 400 people apply for one job, now we get three or four.

Dennis
Right. Right.

Erik
So it was an interesting phenomenon to see that movie come out and the popularity made a lot of people want to get into this business. But now, you know, unless somebody comes up with Twister 2 or something or, you know, it’s funny how that had an effect on the business that I worked in.

Dennis
Well, you know, speaking of the business and I want to revisit the issue of storms in comparison of the different type of storms in a moment here. But. It seems to me, and maybe I’m–I’m wrong, but it seems to me that when I was a kid, the weather person, the person reporting the weather, whether it’s a woman or a guy, was not necessarily a meteorologist. It seemed to be someone who was simply reading or reporting the weather.

Dennis
Is that accurate? Is that true?

Erik
That’s–yeah. That’s very accurate. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, it was just kind of the wave in the 70s that that people, the TV stations were finally touting, “We’ve got a meteorologist, the first and only one in town.” And now, you know, a few years after that, “We’ve got our own radar at the station, the only one in town.” And, you know, I think what that is representative of is the evolution of the TV news business.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
You know, think about a lot of the people who were on and I’m not talking locally, but the first pioneers of TV were from Hollywood.

Dennis
Mhm.

Erik
And, and even as that trickled down to TV newsrooms across the country, they wanted people that would draw in viewers. I mean, either it was a pretty girl or somebody who had a great personality or somebody who they–you knew from radio for years. And that was kind of interesting, too, because they, they took a lot of their TV people from radio.

Erik
You knew the voice. And a lot of these people had great faces for radio, right? Yeah. And the only way they were popular because, “Oh, I listened to this guy for 15 years on radio, now

Erik
I guess that’s the guy I should watch on TV.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
Well, when the news business started to realize that, well, you know, we’re we’re putting out a lot more news these days. I mean, we’re adding morning shows and noon shows.

Erik
We we really need something to give us credibility.

Dennis
Yeah.

Erik
That’s when and it was especially in the 70s that I can almost pinpoint the time because it was just we moved to Minneapolis in ’71 and within about two or three years, we got the first round of Minneapolis meteorologists on TV. And, you know, the early to mid 70s is when that whole thing turned over and they were looking for, you know, degrees and credibility as opposed to a pretty face or somebody that you knew from, you know, the storybook theater or whatever.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
So, you know, and then then the 80s came along and TV budgets were huge. That’s when you got the satellite trucks and the helicopters especially.

Dennis
Mhm.

Erik
And eight shows a day with eight different anchor teams.

Dennis
Right. Right.

Erik
Well, that’s those days are gone.

Dennis
Yeah.

Erik
You know, it’s not necessarily TV on a shoestring.

Dennis
So anyway, I want to go back to to the storms a little bit, because, you know, I think a lot of people find it fascinating when you’re talking about these awesome weather events, comparing, you know, well, what’s what’s the most dangerous? Now, again, in kind of looking through this a little bit online, my take on it was that if you want to talk about the most dangerous as far as the immediate impact you’re probably looking at, as far as the, the possibility of death and destruction, you’re probably looking at a tornado versus if you’re looking over an extended period of time,

Dennis
the impact, you might be looking more at drought or flood. Would you–would you agree with that?

Erik
Yeah, pretty much. I mean really, it really just comes down to this, Dennis, I mean, the most dangerous type of weather is the one you’re not prepared for.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
If you’re not prepared for a tornado, and you know, for years, you know when I went to visit schools, kids would ask me, “If I was out in the middle of a field and a tornado hit, would I live or die?”

Erik
And, you know, I was just trying to be the the coddling parent, I guess.

Erik
And I was trying to to to, you know, soften that answer. Well, you know, if you are, you know, and that answer for me would never end in death because I just thought I’d say, “OK, you’re going to die.”

Erik
And then a few and then, you know, 10, 15 years ago, I realized, you know, I’m not doing them any favors by saying that, son, if you got caught in the middle of a field and a tornado was coming, you’d probably die. You know, you just you just have to get that through people’s heads. It’s like, you know, where wherever you stand on issues like helmets and seatbelts, I mean, you know, you’re if you’re using one of those and you have an accident, you’re probably going to be better off than if you’re not using.

Dennis
Right.

Erik
So if you’re prepared for a tornado, you’re in the lowest level of your house and you’ve got as many walls between you and the storm as possible. Does that mean you’re going to be completely safe? No.

Erik
A tornado could still hit your house and everything in your house could collapse down on you and kill you. It’s just, it’s just you got to be that cut and dried about it. Flooding, if you’re not prepared for a flood by seeking high ground, if it overtakes your car, if it overtakes you, if it overtakes something that you are in, such as a home or something, you know, you could die. Wind! I’ve got a big tree out here in this–

Erik
By the way, this is a new place for me. So I haven’t got time to paint the purple wall behind me yet. And one of the projects is a tree on the front of my house. It haunts me because so much of it hangs over the house. If that thing were to fall today on me right now, I might not wake up tomorrow. So it’s just whatever. Yeah, there are short term weather events like tornadoes there in and out in minutes, but then you get hurricanes which pummel an area for hours, if not a day or two after floods, which, as you know, can last for weeks, if not months.

Erik
And it just comes down to the most dangerous weather that you can encounter is the one that you’re simply not prepared for.

Dennis
Yeah, and I actually recall also reading that probably on an annual basis, more people die from heat waves than anything else. And, you know, that’s something that at least I have not really come across as as far as been, you know, a lot of discussion about concerns every once in a while when when the temperatures spiking, you’ll hear people say, you know, be sure you stay in, you keep your air conditioning on, get make sure you’ve got a fan.

Dennis
If you know somebody who’s, you know, not maybe an elderly person who’s not able to access that stuff, help them out, etc.. But it’s not one of those extreme weather events that you normally think of as being so dangerous, but evidently it’s probably the most dangerous annually.

Erik
Yeah, I’m trying to think of the Chicago thing. Was that nineties all the way back in 97, was it? I think it was, but it seems so long ago.

Erik
But still the dramatic impact.

Speaker 3
And yeah, when you when you get that situation, a heat wave in Chicago where the percentage of people not prepared for, it is huge.

Dennis
Right?

Erik
Yeah, it can it can do some real damage.

Erik
And another thing is, is lightning strikes. Lightning kills so many people because they just don’t think it can happen to them.

Speaker 4
It does strike the same place twice. It can strike you even if your next to a much taller structure or a tree. And you know, you know, I don’t know if it’s just Chicken Little thing, but yeah, when you’re a kid, mom said don’t run out in the middle of a thunderstorm. She was right.

Dennis
Right. No, no kidding. Well, you know, it’s funny because, again, pouring through the Internet, you come across some, some strange stories.

Dennis
And one, you know, you talk about Chicken Little, the sky is falling. I remember reading something about a good question that was posed in one of these on one of these websites was can it really rain frogs and fish or something like that? And I’m like, what are they talking about? But they were talking about, you know, obviously a situation where a wind, whether it’s a tornado or something, picks these things up from a body of water and deposits them elsewhere.

Dennis
And, yeah, that’s a little misleading. The–you know.

Erik
I have a book I should loan ya.

Erik
The title is literally “Frogs and Fishes and Other Weather Folkore.” and yeah, that’s absolutely true, that’s been known to happen where wildlife gets picked up by a tornado and, you know, you think of a tornado or something that’s just whizzing across the countryside, well, it’s actually picking things up.

Erik
That’s that’s a vertical. That’s vertical motion. And as it picks up lightweight things, it can distribute them in many different places.

Dennis
Oh, for sure. Along similar lines when I was researching, this was a question I had that I actually wanted to ask myself or figure out myself was the distinction between hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons. Now, as I understood it there, it’s really just a matter of of geography–where it’s occurring. Like a hurricane is the tropical cyclone north of the equator in the Western Hemisphere. And then if it’s on the Eastern Hemisphere, it’s the typhoon and then a typhoon.

Dennis
And then if it’s Indian Ocean or South Pacific, it’s a cyclone. That is that about right?

Erik
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And Australia. Australia, I think they call Willy Willys or something like that.

Erik
But yeah, it’s all the same storm.

Erik
It’s just a matter of location and everything.

Erik
Everything is a cyclone. All of a cyclone is, is a low pressure circulation where the air is spinning counterclockwise and rising. And so, you know, hurricanes, typhoons, they’re all cyclones. And it’s just that one area that actually calls them cyclones. Why we call them hurricanes. I guess it’s just more distinguishable. I’m not quite sure the history of it. But, yeah, you’re right, it’s all based on geography.

Dennis
So as far as, like, the intensity of the winds, is is there a distinction as far as geography and how does the intensity of the winds for a cyclone, you know, no matter what you call it, compared to that, for instance, of a tornado?

Erik
Well, that the Saffer Simpson scale, which we use for hurricanes and tropical storms, is up to a five scale and that covers lower end winds that a tornado–I mean, you can have up to three hundred mile per hour winds in a tornado, even higher than that. But hurricanes, they never get that high. The wind speeds are never that high that–the effect of a hurricane–yes, you can get winds of over one hundred miles per hour, but it’s the duration.

Erik
I mean, you know, you can have a house destroyed by a tornado in seconds with 200 mile per hour winds. Or you can have a house destroyed by a hurricane in a matter of a day or so with 100 mile per hour winds. It’s just a matter of duration. But as far as distinguishable winds are concerned, you’re you the potential for higher winds comes with the tornado. They just hit quicker and are gone quicker.

Dennis
So. So what’s the tsunami then? Is that just the wave that gets picked up by the–

Erik
Yeah, tsunami is a real clear cut tsunami is caused by an earthquake. If there’s a plate shift underneath the sea, that will it’s like if you have your hand in the bathtub and you you lift your hand up really quickly, you’ll see a surface reflection of that. The water will rise up at the surface and that’s spread out. That’s a really simplistic way to describe a tsunami.

Erik
What you’ll get with a hurricane, all that wind driven water, you will get a storm surge. And that’s where the storm surge and it’s the wind driven water which gets piled on itself to to form a wall of water that can be, you know, up to 15 feet in some cases driving on to the shore. And the closer, of course, it gets to shallow water, the higher it gets because there’s no room for that water. There’s less, less area beneath the surface of the sea for that water to to extend.

Erik
So as the shore comes up, as the shore comes up in, the water rises up on that shore, that’s the storm surge and it gets higher the closer it gets.

Dennis
So tsunami, though, wouldn’t really technically be considered a weather event then, would it?

Erik
Right. Yeah, right. For earthquakes and tsunamis, they’re not technically meteorological.

Dennis
Sure. Sure.

Erik
And it just just hit even here in the Mississippi, you know, when we get Mississippi River flooding, that’s not really a weather event. Now, the rain that might have caused it–

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
Certainly is.

Erik
But if it’s a snowmelt flood, it’s not really a weather event per say.

Dennis
Gotcha. Gotcha. So. Speaking of weather events, I was curious as to what the most the rarest weather event was and what I read was it’s something called a fire rainbow. Are you familiar with that? It’s a circumhorizontal arc?

Erik
Yes, yes.

Dennis
And what is that and how does it differ from, I guess, your typical rainbow?

Speaker 3
Well, you know, one thing we get a lot of around here, especially in the fall and the spring and the wintertime, when we’ve got a lot of ice crystals, a lot of cirrus clouds in the sky and the sun is at a lower angle.

Erik
We get what are called sun dogs. And if you see those bright, they’re like mini rainbows on either side of the sun.

Erik
Circumhorizontal arc is when you get a full circle around the sun, you get those sun dogs kind of flashing out on either the left or right side. Well, in this case, both left and right. And that arc that’s circling the sun is rainbow colored and just trivia. The red will always be in the inside. And, you know, if you think about your Roy G. Biv, which is the colors of the rainbow, so those red, orange, yellow out to the right blues and the violets, that is it is rare because you need the sun at a particular angle and you need the clouds that that sun is shining through at a particular angle and the ice crystals in that cloud to be a particular structure.

Erik
Because what’s happening is just like in a sun dog, just not all the way around the sun.

Erik
The sunlight is hitting these ice crystals, which are simply like little prisms of glass and splitting the light.

Erik
So as the viewer is looking at the sun in one direction, those little ice crystals have split the light and throw it back to you from a different direction.

Erik
And to get a circumhorizontal arc again, you need so many things to line up properly in terms of the angle of the sun, the angle of the clouds and the makeup of the ice crystals in those clouds that, yeah, it doesn’t happen very often. And even another, another optical phenomenon. It was what we call these things a luminous clouds or an iridescent cloud.

Erik
And sometimes I’ve even seen that here, just little patches of color, as if you were spraying your garden hose up in toward the sun and you see that little patch of color at some point. Sometimes we can get those in high clouds and and they just sit there for a while and you think, well, wow, should I grab my camera and take a picture of this? Well, sometimes by the time you get your phone turn to camera mode, it’s gone cause everything’s moved.

Erik
Yeah, but and that is an optical phenomenon. And, you know, you can argue whether that’s a weather phenomenon or a space phenomenon.

Erik
But yes, that arc is very hard to see in terms of the frequency at which it has gone.

Dennis
Well, since we’re talking about ice crystals, I’m going to shift a little bit and talk about another weather phenomenon and that–that’s blizzards. So like, what does it–how much snow, ice, wind, et cetera, does it take to actually constitute a true blizzard? And how often do we see true blizzards in the Midwest? It seems like every day in the winter at times.

Erik
Right. Right. Well, you know, a blizzard is not based on snow. You can have a blizzard without snow.

Erik
What a blizzard is based on is a 35 mile per hour wind for at least three hours.

Dennis
OK.

Erik
That’s pretty much it.

Erik
And if you if you have that coming in with a snow system, because that snow system is really winding up the winds, then you can get a blizzard with snow and every blizzard will be different if it’s a blizzard with snow in terms of how much the snow piles up, how much drifting, you can expect. Obviously, if it’s going to produce more snow, you’ll get higher drifts.

Erik
But then the next day, if if another system comes by or that system is still influencing the surface such that it’s still producing winds over 35 miles per hour, you can have what is called a ground blizzard and you can have blue sky with that. But once you get at ground level, that’s where the visibility is going to drop because you’re blowing that snow.

Dennis
Right.

Erik
So so really. And that’s that’s something that everybody asks about when we talk about blizzards, it’s like, “well, how much snow are we going to get with this one?” Well, this storm is going to produce so much snow, but as far as a blizzard is concerned…And we don’t always get time to explain that, you know, a blizzard isn’t about snow or snow amounts. Some people say, “well, if we get over a foot of snow, is that a blizzard?” Has nothing to do with snow amount, just the wind.

Dennis
Got it. Got it. You know, since we’re talking snow-related phenomena, one of the things I often find interesting in just kind of fascinating in, you know, the Midwest is when we have thundersnow as opposed to like a thunderstorm. What, if any, scientifically speaking–what’s the difference between the two? And how infrequent do we see the thundersnow versus a thunderstorm?

Erik
I’ll tell you,

Erik
in the last few years, I’ve seen a lot more thunder snow than I ever have in my life.

Erik
All it is–a thunder–what you need to get thunder is a very tall storm, a vertical storm that’s got updrafts and downdrafts.

Erik
So when we get that in the wintertime, it’s essentially a very well developed storm that instead of producing rain, produces snow. And, you know, you can still get a low pressure system which is lifting the air, moving through an area in the winter, producing these isolated storms or these thunderstorms because they’ve got a lot of vertical lift and they’re producing the thunder or they’re producing the lightning because of the electrons being shot up into opposite polarities, which is essentially why you get lightning in the first place.

Erik
You get that big spark and sometimes you can see the lightning with thunder snow. Sometimes–usually you can’t because the snow clouds are so thick that you can’t see that illumination versus a rain cloud in in the warmer months.

Erik
But when when you do get a storm that’s actually causing thunder snow, you know, do the math. The heavy rain that you would get in the summertime–if that’s snow, that can be extremely heavy snow. I mean, that can be a snow burst. That can cause a whiteout as long as that snow is or that storms on top of you and dump, you know, a quick up to two to three inches of snow as it passes by.

Erik
But, you know, that’s that’s really all thunder–thunder snow is. It’s a thunderstorm in wintertime.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
And it comes with a very well-developed winter storm.

Dennis
Gotcha, you know, shifting from from snow to the opposite end of things. I was surprised to find when listed among the different weather phenomena–wildfires, I guess, I’ve never really considered that to be a weather event. How, how and why is that considered a weather event?

Erik
I think because going into… Let’s say there is a wildfire, and, you know, these last few years isn’t half of California usually on fire at this time?

Dennis
Exactly right.

Erik
At any given moment? The weather phenomenon that causes that is drought conditions. You know, lack of rainfall just continue dry weather.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
Areas of low humidity such that the vegetation never really gets a chance to thrive.

Erik
And then if there is a fire that that is started, then typically in those areas you’re also looking at wind driven location or locations that have a lot of wind simply because of the the arid climate. Deserts aren’t always very still. I mean, because of the heating and what we call differential heating, you get a lot of heat during the day and that heat rises. Air’s got to come in from all sides to replace that.

Erik
So you can set up a static wind generation or if it’s–especially in California, what is known as the Santa Ana winds, when the wind is coming off the ocean and–or, I should say, toward the ocean, and it’s running into mountains and those mountain passes where it gets squeezed, it’s just like putting your thumb on the end of a garden hose all of a sudden that wind speeds up.

Erik
So any any fires that do break out one, the first thing you’ve got going against you is the amount of dry vegetation and then throw an 80 mile per hour wind.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
Those winds literally can get to and that fire spreads–

Dennis
Gotcha.

Erik
–Very rapidly.

Dennis
Yeah, yeah. And I guess I wasn’t even considering the fact that we’re talking drought or dry conditions plus the wind. Obviously the–it’s not necessarily what starts the fire, but what, what,

Erik
Right, what spreads it.

Dennis
What leads to it. Yeah, I gotcha. So for the listeners out there, this might seem a little disjointed, but–but we’re going to pick up, and I wanted to ask you about the kind of coursework that is involved in the kind of the–what it is, what is it that you have to do in order to become a meteorologist?

Dennis
And then the second part to that question is, do you have continuing education requirements?

Erik
Well, a lot of people ask me, how long do you have to stay in college to become a meteorologist? It’s a four year degree. I mean, no longer than anything else. And certainly you can master in it and pursue further education. But four years will get you in and out the door. But, you know, realize it’s a science.

Erik
And so there’s going to be physics, chemistry, math involved. And that scares a lot of people away. And besides all the basic and advanced meteorology courses which go into dynamics and thermodynamics and the motion of the atmosphere and how things move, it’s it’s a pretty intense four years. There are some other ways you can do it. Some people get broadcast meteorology certificates and it really depends on what you want to do. If you want it to work for the weather service or be a forecaster in industry, power companies, airlines, railroads, that’s where you want to stay focused on that and as much science as possible. If you want to be on the broadcast end,

Erik
then you’re also going to have to do things like take English classes, communication classes, public speaking classes and broadcasting classes along the way, because that’s going to be your environment or if that’s what you hope to end up being your final environment, you want to prepare for that as well. There are some certificate courses where you can really go go to college and and get a four year degree in anything and then come back to some schools that are online ahead of their time because they were doing this years ago.

Erik
And you can get a certificate in broadcast meteorology, which essentially goes through all the meteorology courses that you take in a in a typical four year school. But it also gives you intense broadcast courses as well. And that gets you set up to get a certificate in meteorology, broadcast meteorology. And with that, after a certain amount of years of experience, you can get certified with a seal of approval by either the National Weather Association or the American Meteorological Society.

Erik
So there are a few ways that you can do it. But again, you know, when somebody is looking at doing this as a career, they have to realize that it’s a science and everything that comes along with learning a science is what you can expect to go through course-wise.

Dennis
Right.

Dennis
And as a science, I’m sure that there’s new information that comes to light, new resources, new equipment, etc.. How do you keep up on all of that? Is are there continuing education? Other types of opportunities for you?

Erik
Yep, there certainly are.

Erik
Every year there are severe weather seminars. There are conferences put on by both the National Weather Association and the American Meteorological Society.

Erik
For me, I’m sealed by the National Weather Association. So every… I’ve got to accumulate a certain amount of re-education credits every three years and a lot of that what I will do is I will go to the national conference because what they will have there is a separate broadcast conference and also the conference that deals with what we’ve learned in the last year or new studies that have come out, how to use radar, what kind of storm structures we now recognize, and what you need to look for to be a better forecaster.

Erik
Let’s see. I had some type in my mind and it just just left me. But but yeah. So I’ll I’ll do that.

Erik
And every few years I might throw in a severe weather seminar, because there’s one out of Des Moines that has in the last few years become a nationally recognized conference. And it’s really good. Brings in a lot of people from severe weather circles and kind of keeps us up to snuff on yearly developments there, too.

Dennis
So now on a daily basis. What is your typical routine in order to arrive at the weather forecast for the day or, you know, a five day, 10 day forecast, whatever it might be?

Erik
Well, when I get in, the first thing that we do because I work at a TV news outlet is we have a news meeting and I go in and I’m pretty much always the first person to speak because if if weather–weather is the one story that everybody’s concerned about. If they’re turning to a newscast, chances are they want to know what the weather forecast is going to be. Now, obviously, there are a lot of other ways to get that information these days.

Erik
So if if weather is important, if there is maybe a severe weather day or storm coming, we we do research and we find that people still will come to the television because they like it explained to them and broken down and timing given to them versus what they can see on an app, or a website and the TV station website. They like it explained to them. So if if you know, if I feel that weather should be the lead story, if we’ve got thunderstorms coming in the summer or storm coming in the winter, that’s going to produce a lot of snow.

Erik
That’s what I talk about in my part of the meeting. My first few minutes, I’ll tell people what the weather story is really. And that’s what it’s boiled down to every day now is, what is the weather story? There’s probably not going to be much of a weather story today, but, boy, you’re probably thinking already about the weekend. And if we’ve got rain coming this weekend, when is it going to rain so you can make plans around that.

Erik
So what I’ll do is I’ll give my pitch at the news meeting. We’ll decide how we’re going to place that in the news shows, how we’re going to build around it. If there’s–if there’s video coming out of Denver of a huge snowstorm and that’s the one that’s coming to us, you know, we’ll decide, OK, do we want to put those pictures in front of Erik so we can put some context into what he’s going to tell us?

Erik
Or do we want to put that after Erik to say, hey, this is how it looked in Denver from the storm?

Erik
So that’s why we’re paying so much attention to it, that kind of thing. So so that’s the first thing I do. I chat with the news department about the weather in our daily news meeting, of which we have two: one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Then when I go back to the weather center, I literally shoot a couple of promos to tell people, you know, this little ten second teasers that you see between talk shows, you know, storms coming for the weekend.

Erik
Find out how much rain we’re going to get today. And I’ll I’ll record one or two of those that I sit down and I start looking at all the the weather maps, the computer models. You know, I look at numbers, I write down numbers. I write down what all these computers are telling me. Temperatures are going to be like.

Erik
Then, I look at the physical models on the map of the United States and see where the storms coming from, when it’s going to arrive here, what it’s going to bring with it, rain, snow, wind, hot, cold, whatever. And that will be about pretty good hour’s worth of time to go through, sift through all that information, then when I come up with a forecast, I’ll usually actually come up with a seven day forecast first concentrating on the next–the second or third day to day seven, because at this point, I can still be a little bit more general on those.

Erik
And then when it gets closer to the newscast, I’m actually working on the specifics of the next 24 to 48 hours. Then when I got all of that done, then I have to populate things like the app and the website and I have to work on some of the digital things. And then before the newscast, probably within a half hour of the newscast, I’m actually working on the graphics that I’m going to show during the newscast. And these things are set up ahead of time, like satellites and radars and such.

Erik
But there are numbers that need to be plugged in, things I need to write to to build those graphics. And I will. Most days my first show is at four o’clock and I will literally during credits of Paula Sands Live or the last few seconds of Paula Sands Live, I could be putting the finishing touches and what I’m going to show at four. So it’s it’s pretty cramped at the beginning. I don’t have a lot of free time, but once we get into the newscasts and and this will be for four…After the four o’clock show, I’m doing digital things. After the five o’clock show, I’m recording promos.

Erik
And after the six o’clock show, I’m doing the final website update. I’m recording a weathercast for the web and I am doing a live hit in Wheel of Fortune.

Erik
And then by seven o’clock, I’ve gotten the last of the list done and I can take a breather and maybe go have some dinner unless there’s severe weather coming. And then I’m staying at the studio watching the radar.

Dennis
And that’s that sounds like a lot. I mean, it seems to break down to, you know, what you’re doing to actually forecast the weather and what you’re going to do to present that forecast.

Erik
Yeah.

Dennis
But there’s a lot involved in both of those things. Now, with respect to the forecasting, you know, we kind of alluded earlier on to the business side of things in the fact that, you know, instead of someone reading the weather several years back, people wanted to build the credibility.

Dennis
And we started seeing meteorologists actually being hired by the stations to enhance credibility and also become more competitive. And then you’d see, oh, well, you know, this station or that station, we’ve got Doppler radar, we’ve got triple Doppler radar, we’re accuforecast, first forecast, et cetera. So but as far as the forecasting itself. What are you looking at? You’re looking at radar, you look looking at maps and information from the National Weather Service?

Dennis
What is it that’s allowing you to come up with your seven day forecast, for instance?

Erik
Well, you know, I always say the first–my best tool is a window. So when I’m driving, I’m I’m keeping an eye on the sky, looking for patterns for this kind of figure out where in the spectrum of weather we are at the moment, because that’s always a long shot point.

Erik
Of all the computer models that we refer to this all the time on the air will say the computer models say this or that. I’m either buying it or I’m not buying it.

Erik
These are either from NOAA, which, of course, is the United States government, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which one of the subsectors of NOAA is the National Weather Service. So they when the National Weather Service makes their forecasts, they’re using the NOAA info as well. And all this info is publicly available these days because of the Internet.

Erik
Used to not be that way. We would wait in the weather office for these maps to be sent to us by satellite. And, you know, what do we got into the late 80s and 90s?

Erik
The printers were a lot faster to give us these maps so we could come in to work and have numerous maps to look at.

Erik
Before that, there were there were these things called nafax charts. And if you think about a fax machine back in the day, they were fairly slow. And a lot of times that piece of paper that you got on the other end was kind of messy. It wasn’t very clean.

Erik
It wasn’t very neat. It was not very crisp in terms of detail. Well, I remember when I started out, we got these massive fax charts, which were naval facsimiles, and they were there were being sent out to ships, essentially. And because we had access to those, we could get a few weather maps a day. And that was literally and these things came out on this wet paper. They literally left the machine, which took a good half hour to forty five minutes to do an eight by 10 sheet of paper or eight 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper.

Erik
And with this wet paper in this blue ink, I mean think back to when you were a kid and you used to get the copies at school and you would smell them because that blue ink or looks. But that’s essentially what our weather maps were for decades and they were horrible in terms of detail. So I went from the Stone Ages now to the Internet. We get a lot more models.

Erik
We get what we call the European model, which is literally it comes out of France and it’s a conglomeration of European countries that put the money and funding into this model, which is a good model, by the way, for snow and long range weather forecasting.

Erik
But these days, it’s come down to getting on a few Web pages, looking at these maps, which which come out in very good detail, different levels of the atmosphere, different parameters, winds, temperatures, dew points, humidities, whatever.

Erik
And and looking at all of these and trying to figure out at least the average picture of the weather.

Erik
Now, in the last few days, I was off yesterday and Monday and Tuesday. You know, we were going into these frosty nights, which here in the middle of May, you know, they’re not unheard of, but they are kind of rare to get so many frosty nights in a row. And I was literally showing what we what we set up at the station are these plots of forecast temperatures for for the entire TV6 viewing area. And I was telling people, explaining that the temperatures that I was showing, which were, you know, thirty seven, thirty eight degrees, you might not think that that’s a condition for Frost, but those are two what are called two meter temperatures.

Erik
That’s six and a half feet where those temperatures are forecast for.

Erik
If you drop in a frosty night, that temperature to the ground, then you can lose about four or five degrees and just that much space. And that’s why we were saying, even though you see these maps and your app is going to say thirty seven. Thirty eight degrees, you’re still going to want to cover things up because in the morning time down at foot level or ground level where your plants are, it’s going to be about four or five degrees colder.

Erik
So when we use a computer model, you know, we do have to use experience to say when the models are likely going to be right or more importantly, they’re going to be wrong.

Dennis
Sure, sure. Well, speaking of right and wrong to do meteorologists, are they required to track accuracy? Because we do see and hear some stations saying the most accurate forecast. What’s that based on? And if you are, how does that work? Because you–someone can say, “yes, I’ve determined it’s going to rain. You know, ninety nine percent of the time I’m right.” But is it going to rain one inch? Is it going to rain 10 inches?

Dennis
I mean, how’s accuracy defined, I guess.

Erik
Well, that’s that takes a lot of study. I mean, simply because for it’s easier if you’re forecasting for one spot to to keep records on that. But for any TV station, it’s very difficult for the TV station to track that because that would keep them busy all day long. Looking at all those stats, there are companies, I think there’s actually one called weather rate, and some stations have weather rate on their banners that you see on top of their maps and you can pay them to track the accuracy of that market’s forecast.

Erik
So if they happen to be the ones that are right, most of the time, you can you can at least see in some quantitative way. It’s a lot of money. And believe me, I’m not I’m not trying to say that there’s no point in seeing who’s the most accurate or if we are accurate in the first place.

Dennis
Right.

Erik
Generally, you know, it’s weather. It’s very tough to get.

Erik
I can forecast temperatures for a week and I might get those high temperatures right. Two or three days.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
Based on a seven day forecast, I will consider myself accurate in terms of temperatures. I give myself a five degree window. If I say it’s going to be if I say it’s going to be 80 degrees, if it comes up seventy eight, seventy nine, eighty one or eighty two, I figure that’s–

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
–Outside of my number two to two degrees.

Erik
That’s pretty accurate. You can even take it down to a three degree wind to be really accurate.

Erik
But again, it’s a tough thing to track. And for a TV station where I’ve got Maquoketa, Rock Falls, Geneseo, Burlington, the Quad Cities, Moline, and Davenport, where we have official stations, it would just take oodles of time to sit there and say, am I really accurate?

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
And most importantly, how is that defined? Is it to one degree off, two degrees off? Is it a tenth of an inch off in terms of rainfall?

Erik
Here’s the thing I found. And and viewers are–believe me, viewers are the most honest people you’re ever going to meet.

Erik
Whether they like it or they love it, they’re going to let you know. And that’s why in this business, that’s another thing more so than schooling. If you go into broadcast meteorology, Dennis, get yourself a really thick skin.

Dennis
I’m sure of that.

Erik
Especially now with social media and email, boy, they don’t like something? They’re on your back right away and they will pull no punches because they have that keyboard that’s protecting them. But what I’ve heard more in the last few years from from many of my viewers is like, you know, we don’t–we don’t really care about accuracy so much as we want to learn about it as early as possible.

Erik
If there’s a chance of rain on Sunday, tell us what the chances are as soon as you can tell us the possible time frame as soon as you can. And then we’ll continue to watch you because we know weather changes and it’s just a forecast. We’ll continue to watch you as you make different decisions about that rain on Sunday based on newer information that you’re going to get. And when I first started getting viewers emailing me this or texting me this, whatever, I almost got down on my knees and said, thank you, Jesus, because it’s the most comforting thing to know that they’re watching you to to follow along with a certain forecast, not just tuning in one day and walking away and say, “Yeah, that thing you said about Sunday and Monday, you were wrong.”

Dennis
Yeah.

Erik
I can tell you right now what I’m going to say about Sunday on Monday, it’s going to fluctuate.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
But the people will take the time to tune back in and follow along because it is important to them. And more importantly, they’re choosing you to watch to to watch, make those decisions the closer you get to a situation. That’s that’s all I could ever ask for.

Erik
And I’m very thankful for viewers that have that kind of mindset.

Dennis
Well, now, I want to probably diverge a little bit from the science and get into some of maybe the folklore and maybe it’s the urban myth. I don’t know. But for instance, one one question I have is, is it true that you can tell the temperature by the crickets chirp, for instance?

Erik
You know what if you ask me that question, you’re just going to get a “uhhh.” If you ask a farmer that question, he will have an answer for you, I’m sure.

Erik
And I’ve heard that one. And I couldn’t tell you what the number of chirps or the timing of chirps is for this or that reason.

Erik
But you know, these things, animals and wildlife, are that in tune with nature. I mean, I had a friend when I worked up in Minneapolis. She lived near a pasture. And when she drove into work each day, she would text if the cows were lying down. She said, “cows are lying down. Must mean it’s going to rain.” And if that’s the way that one goes, which I think it is.

Erik
But, yeah, there are a lot of sayings like that that are based on historical fact, I guess, or historical observation, whether it’s fact or not.

Dennis
Sure.

Erik
Because they tend to work.

Dennis
They’re kind of kind of barometers, I suppose, like like my my aching bones are pretty good barometers sometimes.

Erik
Yeah.

Erik
And that’s a really good one, too. That’s right. And that one does work because if you think about it, if there are spaces in your joints, well, when the pressure starts to drop, those spaces expand. You feel your pain.

Erik
And if the pressure’s dropping, there’s a chance for stormy weather on the way.

Dennis
Right. Well, what about the the idea that by counting the seconds between lightning striking and then hearing the thunder, it can tell you how far away that strike was? That seems like it would be accurate.

Erik
You know, I’ve used that one for years and it’s never let me down. And it really is true because you’re simply dealing with the speed of sound and the sound essentially travels a mile in about five seconds. So if you every time you count to five, after you hear a lightning strike, a lightning strike for each five, you get till you hear the thunder. That’s approximately a mile is

Erik
how far the storm–or how far that lightning strike was away from you.

Erik
And gosh, I was going to say something about that. But anyway. Yeah, but that one. That one does work. That does work.

Dennis
Well, you know, there are so many weather related topics that we could continue to discuss. But, you know, we’ve already gone quite, quite a while. And I want to hit some other things specific to Erik Maitland. I mean, for instance, some people are dog people. Some people are cat people. Erik is a cat person. What what is it about cats that you find so endearing and fascinating?

Erik
You know, anybody who has cats, anybody who doesn’t have cats will never agree. But anybody who does have cats will tell you that their personalities are so intense and individual. I mean, I’ve got a guy here that just almost made an appearance because he jumped up on the desk to see what I was doing. And now in typical cat fashion, he’s in the corner of the room and he just put his head on the carpet. He’s going to be out now for an hour. Or–

Dennis
I was going say, by the way, that’s probably why we’ve experienced technical difficulties, right, running across the keyboard.

Erik
Exactly, exactly.

Erik
He’s nudged all the plugs out of my computer and disconnecting me.

Speaker 3
Yeah. And so but the thing is, I know about Rupert, my my only cat now. As soon as I am done with this and I walk to either the bedroom or the kitchen, living room, basement, bathroom, he’ll follow me. And he sure he always wants to be where I am. But yeah I’ve, I’ve never had a cat that was the same as another cat.

Erik
I love them because they’re clean. You don’t have to walk them in the middle of the night. You know, they’ll–if they feel like it, they’ll snuggle with you. And if they don’t feel like it, they’ll say, Puh! Not tonight buddy.

Dennis
See ya later.

Erik
They’re just so fun to watch because you kind of wonder what’s going through their mind. I mean, even about half an hour before we sat down to do this this morning, he was in one of his flaky modes and he was darting across the living room at about 80 miles an hour.

Erik
He came out of the dining room, saw me walking down the stairs and did an immediate 90 degree turn right into the chair and face the chair. Man, he’s going to get up and get a headache from that. Who knows why, but they are very entertaining. I just I’ve always loved him.

Dennis
Well, and I know you’re also very entertained or at least an avid kayaker and scuba diver. And we’ve had discussions before that it’s your hope that when you put this career behind you that you can continue teaching kayaking and, and/or scuba diving. Is that still the plan? Is that is that what you’re really hoping to do in the future?

Erik
Yeah, that’s still that’s still the retirement plan. Of course, it’ll be at a state farther south than here. So I can do a–

Dennis
Yeah, a little bit.

Erik
But yeah, I mean, I fell in love with kayaking, it’s something I tried to get into for years and I just never did. I mean, the first time I really ever in a kayak was back and I was up in Minneapolis and a store had a demo day out at one of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ten Thousand Lakes. And it was a really windy day. Not good for kayaking. So it wasn’t the day that was going to give me a good impression.

Erik
I took the kayak offshore about 20 yards and just turned right back.

Erik
And I thought–not going to do this. When I got back to the Quad Cities in 2011 and in 2014, I went down to Burlington because the dealer down there had a demo day and it’s a beautiful day. I got in the kayak and I didn’t want to give it back. And I from that day I that’s all I could think about. So that that summer I bought my own kayak and the reason I became a certified instructors, because that first season I made so many mistakes, Dennis, literally, I should have been I should have ended up dead.

Erik
I mean, I think one of the first trips I did with that kayak is because I love the Great Lakes. So I took it up to Lake Michigan, had no idea what I was doing. And, you know, I see a lot of pages on Facebook and it’s you know, people don’t realize that one, whatever you get into a kayak and you’re on a waterway that is commercially navigable. Well, even even any pun, you are now a captain.

Erik
And there are a lot of responsibilities that come with that. A lot of things you need to know, and especially if people around here want to get out of the Mississippi River or go up to the Great Lakes, there are thousands of things they need to know about maritime law and and, you know, just just operating that boat safely. And they just don’t think about it because they think, OK, we can go to go to Walmart, spend one hundred and fifty bucks and we’re in a boat.

Speaker 3
Well, that’s–

Dennis
Right.

Erik
–That’s great. But you’re really not prepared for–what you.. the saying is among instructors, people don’t know what they don’t know.

Dennis
For sure.

Erik
And it’s just a matter of letting people know, hey, we can take it out for two or three hours. You’ll learn a lot of things about how to paddle comfortably, how to paddle safely, and you won’t start off making a lot of mistakes that could harm you. And you wouldn’t put this thing about about kayaking, a lot of outdoor sports like this.

Erik
If you had a child that you wanted to teach to drive, if their friend just got their license two weeks ago, you wouldn’t say. If you want to learn to drive, go to that friend and learn how to drive. Well, that’s what a lot of kayakers do and they end up in a lot of trouble sometimes.

Dennis
So speaking of this, this far off, because, of course, you’re not retiring until–.

Erik
Ehhh.

Dennis
So that’s what I was going to ask you. So when does that day come and then where or how far south are you intending to go in order to live this this dream?

Erik
Well, you know, I can’t be sure of when it will come. I mean, it’s it’s a really good time to be in the business that I’m in right now. We have a lot of technology that we can take advantage of. And I’ve just it’s just been my passion for so many years.

Erik
I can’t think about hanging it up right away. I mean, obviously, the world of broadcasting is changing very quickly now, year by year. So if I’ve got three more years or 10 more years, I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’m prepared for both, but but sure. Whatever I decide to hang up the microphone, whatever you want to say. I would like to go down to Florida or the Gulf Coast area. Kayaking certainly is is something I could do down there.

Erik
Kayak instructor, you know, I find myself becoming more of a hermit because I’m not interested in anything else that I can really make a living and I can make a living being. I can make a living. I can barely squeak by being a scuba instructor. But there are scuba diving jobs that I could certainly get with the experience that I’m working on building now for that. That would that would give me a nice living down there.

Erik
So that’s that’s that’s kind of a plan. I mean, you know, if you ask me two hours, am I changed? But that’s on the bulletin board right now at the highest point of the bulletin board.

Dennis
Well, you know, obviously, as I mentioned, we could talk all day. There’s all kinds of other questions I wanted to get to, but I’ve monopolized so much of your time. And after hearing what your daily routine, I know I can’t take up too much more. So I want to play a quick game with you before I let you go. I just want to play a little. A little. Would you rather? So this one is.

Dennis
Is directed, of course, at the those model good looks that you have, would you rather be bald or forced to wear a mullet all the time?

Erik
Oh, well, you know, I, I brought the mullet back in the 80s, so I think I’m going to take the mullet. All right. As long as it’s not in my eyes, you know, I don’t care what’s going on in the back.

Dennis
All right. Would you rather speak in rhyme all the time? I just did it. Or speak in riddles all the time.

Erik
Oh, see, I, I, I, I like a good riddle. I’d like to speak in riddles just because, you know, sometimes I do that to Michelle and I love the

Erik
look that I get on her face, like,

Erik
“Why are you doing this to me again?” I’d like to speak in riddles.

Dennis
All right. Would you rather have a hook for a hand or a peg for a leg?

Erik
Oh, if I could get the hook on my left hand, I’d do the hook because I– I do a lot of things. I like to run and jog and yeah, I probably do the hook.

Dennis
I mean, I guess either of those could impact scuba and kayaking, so.

Erik
Yeah, I suppose.

Dennis
I s’pose. Well OK. Would you rather hang out with someone who never stopped talking or someone who never stopped texting?

Erik
Oh I hate when people, when we’re out at dinner and people have their phones on the table. I always put mine in my back pocket. So I guess I’d endure the talking rather than the texting because they might say something interesting and it would be toward me as opposed to somebody on the phone.

Dennis
There you go. All right, last one. And this is kind of weather related, would you rather shovel snow or rake leaves?

Erik
I love the fall.

Erik
Give me leaves over snow any time.

Dennis
Me too. Well, as I said, Erik, I’ve got tons of things that I’d love to have you come back at some point so we could revisit some of these other topics and dig a little deeper. But I definitely appreciate your time today. I thank you for being here with us.

Erik
I would love to come back any time. Thank you. And you’re really good at this. Maybe I should watch out. I mean, the– and the broadcasting world has–they’ve had room for one more. Maybe you better start sending out tapes because you’re doing well.

Dennis
Well, you know, it’s not too much different than taking depositions, which I’ve done a little bit of for a long time.

Erik
I suppose so.

Dennis
Anyway, thank you so much, Erik. And as always, I want to thank everyone else for tuning in. Again, we would appreciate you subscribing or registering to Uncommon Convos on your favorite podcast forum. Also, please don’t forget to check out Legal Squeaks and learn a little bit about some of the legal and consumer issues that might impact you on a daily basis.

Dennis
Make sure you also check out Uncommon Convos.com if you’d like to check to see the video version of this or other episodes. And in the meantime, we’ll see you next week. Please have a great day. Be safe and love you all.