Albany alumni ( left to right ) Rich Von Ohlen, Paul Caiano, John Guaraldi, Mike Landin, and Greg Playford swapping stories recently in the Earth Science weather map room.
Department of Atmospheric Sciences Home Page
The following will appear in the upcoming Albany Magazine. For more information about the Albany magazine, please contact: JMB90@finabus.fab.albany.edu
by Greta Petry
The University's Department of Atmospheric Science has a long-standing reputation as being one of the finest in the country. Among its many successful alumni/ae are more than 10 television meteorologists.
John Guaraldi, M.S.'83, is one such alumnus. He does the 6 a.m. and noon forecasts for WTEN Channel 10, Albany, and says his University at Albany degree in atmospheric science is his "pride and joy."
"It's not easy," he said of the course work. "It's brutal. But I just wanted my master's degree so badly under Lance Bosart. It was my dream." Professor Bosart is one of the leading experts on the complex dynamics of storms.
"This department is just outstanding. It's known all over the world," Guaraldi said. The ham in Guaraldi thus activated, he reached out his arms and bowed energetically, saying, "A lot of times when I see Bosart I just want to get down on my hands and knees and go like this."
The best-known TV meteorologist from the University is Bob Ryan, who for the past 15 years has been forecasting the weather for WRC-TV, NEWS4 in Washington, D.C. and who appeared on the Today Show in the late 1970s. Others are working at upstate New York television stations, and one is in Oklahoma City.
Howard Bernstein, B.S.'88, who goes by the professional name of Howard Berns, does the weather for station KOCO, Channel 5, in Oklahoma City. Bernstein was at an editorial meeting at the station about seven miles from the Alfred Murrah federal building when the April 19 bombing occurred.
"We had finished the morning show and we were having our meeting. I thought the roof was about to collapse. We ran out of our meeting and saw a tremendous puff of smoke coming from downtown. Everybody scrambled. Within minutes we had our helicopters down there, giving us pictures. That was amazing. Everything stopped as far as the weather was concerned," Bernstein said. Several days after the bombing, Bernstein found himself interviewing the governor, the mayor and the administrator of the General Services Administration.
"It was a difficult thing to be here for. While it was wonderful to see the outpouring of support from around the country, going down there (to the bombing scene) to report it made it a lot more real to me. Watching it on TV gives you a layer of insulation, but when you're there you see it, you smell it, you feel it. It brings it home much more," he said.
During that first weekend after the bombing, Bernstein was so tired that he called the area GSA administrator by the wrong name. "It was one of the lighter moments in a far from light atmosphere. I quickly corrected myself, we laughed and went on. One thing I've learned is that when you say something stupid on camera, you need to acknowledge it as soon as you can. The result is that you'll look more human," he said.
In the fickle world of TV weathercasting, a graduate degree in science is not necessarily a ticket to success. Meteorologists will tell you there are weathercasters on national TV who read reports prepared by others but who have little formal education in the science of weather themselves.
But several, like Guaraldi, Ryan, Mike Landin and Joe Cupo, have combined a graduate degree in atmospheric science with broadcasting. Ryan, B.S.'67, M.S.'73, graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics and a master's degree in atmospheric science. He presents weather reports for the 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. weekday newscasts, appearing on the air six to seven times a day. An Emmy award winner who started out as a research physicist, Ryan became the first broadcast meteorologist to appear regularly on the Today Show in 1978. Back then he rose at 2:30 a.m. to catch a ride to the New York City studio with an NBC chauffeur. Today his work day starts in the early afternoon.
Indicative of the respect Ryan has achieved as a scientist, in 1993 he became the first broadcaster to be named president of the American Meteorological Society. The AMS is made up of more than 10,000 weather scientists and administrators from around the country. A frequent public speaker at schools and colleges, Ryan has developed a project called 4-WINDS to teach science and weather to school children. The program is used in 60 schools in the Washington, D.C. area.
Mike Landin, B.S.'75, M.S.'82, fills in at WTEN for Guaraldi and does the 6:54 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. forecasts for WAMC-FM (90.3) in Albany.
"Channel 10 hired me as a backup for the 6 a.m. report. I do it more as a hobby. It's sort of fun and something I enjoy. I have to get up at 2 a.m. to be there and have everything ready on time. I get up at 4 a.m. anyway to do radio," Landin said.
As a freshman in 1971, Landin "wandered into" a job working for meteorologist Raymond Falconer as student technician in the weather center. During the summers he worked for the University's Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at the ASRC's Whiteface field station.
"As time went on I took care of the map room," said Landin. Other than a one-year break he took in 1976 to take graduate courses, he has worked in the weather room ever since. Landin also teaches introductory courses in weather forecasting. Starting this fall, the courses will be changed so that students can begin forecasting as sophomores rather than juniors.
Landin took over the early morning forecasts on WAMC in late 1993, after Falconer resigned because of illness. Landin believes these morning forecasts, started by Falconer in the early 1960s, are among the longest-running reports in the country. Falconer, a well-known weather forecaster on upstate radio stations since 1962, retired from the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center in 1983, and in 1988 won the award for outstanding service by a broadcast meteorologist from the AMS.
Landin went to school at Albany with Joe Cupo, M.S.'78. Unlike many of those interviewed, Cupo said he never planned on a career in television and envisioned himself working for the National Weather Service. At least eight Albany alumni work for the National Weather Service at various spots around the country. But Cupo landed a job with WCSH Channel 6, of Portland, Maine, 16 years ago and has been there ever since.
Recently, five meteorologists who are Albany alumni gathered in the weather map room of the campus's Earth Science building for a photo. They included Guaraldi, Landin, Greg Playford, B.S.'73, the weekend weather forecaster at WTEN who is an air pollution meteorologist for the state Department of Environmental Conservation during the week; Paul Caiano, B.S.'93, weekend and back up meteorologist at Albany's WNYT Channel 13, and Rich Von Ohlen, B.S.'92, who does the weekend reports for WKTV Channel 2 in Utica. Other atmospheric science alumni include Matt DiNardo, B.S.'93, WKTV's morning and noon meteorologist during the week, and Jon Cash, B.S.'87, of WAVY-TV Channel 10, near Norfolk, Va.
Caiano, who started out volunteering on weekends in the weather map room, in 1992 won Presidential and Honors Convocation awards for undergraduate research for his work on the correlation between cloud-to-ground lightning strikes and violent tornadoes. He also finished in the top ten percent of undergraduate forecasters and top 15 percent of all forecasters nationwide, while participating in the National Forecasting Contest.
As they waited for their photo to be taken, the meteorologists joked about which one of them was "smoked" by a sudden change in the weather. They bantered about atmospheric conditions in the language of their profession. But as they all admit, the real trick is to take that language, go on camera, and translate it into something that you and I can understand.
As Bernstein put it recently, "The technical knowledge is secondary. Among the other weather guys the information we're giving is pretty much the same. It comes down to whom does the viewer like the most? With whom does the viewer feel most comfortable? I try to be me and hopefully they like me more than the other guy."
Ryan said he would tell atmospheric science students there are still opportunities for them in TV. "The one thing they have, of course, unlike someone who is not a meteorologist, is that they have the expertise, the knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject. If you really enjoy doing what you do, that's a big part of broadcasting," said Ryan, who was among Distinguished Professor Emeritus Bernard Vonnegut's first graduate students.
"I may not wear crazy hats and do all sorts of silly things, I never did, but I bring enthusiasm and try to give a little inside view of meteorology," said Ryan.
Like Ryan, Greg Playford said he tries to be a little entertaining but mostly informative. Playford said his approach is to update the viewers on local environmental matters.
"I also speak to students at school about the environment and recycling, and we forecast ozone in the summer," said Playford, a Guilderland native.
Ryan said weather forecasting has gained credibility over the years. "One thing that's interesting is that we've made significant advances in the science of meteorology and in the technique of using that science in TV, in computer graphics, color animation and so forth. Weather, more than any other subject, lends itself to being well done on TV. You can see weather. It changes and it moves," he said.
It was Ryan's interest in tornadoes as an undergraduate physics student that led him to Vonnegut. "I was extremely fortunate to have hooked up with him at a time when I was really trying to find out what to do with my life and with my career. He sort of turned me loose in the lab and let me tinker and do different experiments. He helped me develop a way of looking at the world and at life that I wouldn't have had without him," he said.