Science

What Sparked Meteorologist Jonathan Erdman's Love Of Weather

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Jonathan Erdman is a senior digital meteorologist at weather.com and one of the most fantastically weather-obsessed people I know. I asked him one simple question: “What inspired your interest in meteorology?” Here’s what he told me.

My lifelong love of meteorology was sparked by a near-miss from a F3 tornado as a child in southeast Wisconsin in April 1980.

When riding home after a shopping trip, I'll never forget how dark the sky was to the west. I haven't seen any sky nearly that menacing since. When we pulled into the driveway, I noticed the clouds racing but from east to west. We then received a frantic phone call from a family friend with a view from a hill who saw the tornado headed in our direction. I never saw the tornado, but my sister did. We frantically sprinted down the stairs, took cover under a large, admittedly wobbly table, said a prayer, and in about 15-30 seconds the howling wind was over.

There was damage to a garage catty-corner from our house, and another home with a roof off, but not much damage on our street, compared to other parts of the city and county. Several folks later told me the tornado either "split" or had multiple vortices. Gov. Lee Dreyfus and various TV news crews were on my street. Years later, I learned that the world's foremost tornado expert, the late Dr. Theodore Fujita, personally surveyed the damage.

Erdman’s copy of his hometown newspaper from the day after the tornado, which he’s held onto ever since.

For the rest of my childhood, I was deathly afraid of, but also fascinated with, severe thunderstorms. That single day changed my life.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

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