WRAL Morning Weather: Trial by fire!

"For today's performance, the role of 'Meteorologist' will be played by the understudy, Nate Johnson."

If you've ever been to a theatrical performance – on or off Broadway – you've probably heard similar words.  During the course of a play's run, actors are entitled to a day off or two every now and again, people get sick, things come up.  Whenever that happens, a role will be played by an understudy, someone who often works behind the scenes day-to-day but who is also tasked with knowing all the lines and directions for a given character. This is to ensure that the old adage, "the show must go on," is fulfilled. 

Much the same can be said for the WRAL Morning News, and there's a lot of "show" that has to "go on":

Needless to say, it's usually a two-person job on weekday mornings, and as of late, my role has been to cover the "Fayetteville splits," as well as the NCNN radio updates and forecasts for Foxy 99 and 96.5 The Drive.  That's what had me coming in around 2:30ish this morning, when I got a bit of a surprise: It was all on me today.

Our usual morning meteorologist, Elizabeth Gardner, had called in a little while earlier.  Normally, when someone critical to an operation calls in, you move toward calling in a replacement, and that's exactly what our crack staff set out to do – talk about that "3am phone call," right?  As you might suspect, good help is hard to find at that hour.

Enter the "understudy."  Normally, I work behind the scenes, helping to coordinate schedules and graphics, working with other divisions of the company to make sure we're serving them (and through them, you) as best we can, and doing battle with the occasional technical gremlin that rears its head.  But, it's part of my job to "know the lines" just in case there's a staffing emergency, like we had this morning.

A little about myself: I'm a North Carolina native, originally from Clemmons, a suburb of Winston-Salem.  I graduated more than a few years ago from NC State with degrees in meteorology and computer science.  After graduating, I moved to Abilene, Texas, where I was the chief meteorologist for KTXS-TV.  I spent the better part of six years keeping folks in the "Big Country" of Texas ahead of the wild Texas weather.  

After getting married to my wife, whom I met while in Abilene, I took a position with a company called Baron Services.  I worked to provide stations across the country – including WRAL – with reliable and innovative weather data products for use in tracking all kinds of weather, from everyday forecasts to severe weather and hurricanes.  I also worked with their radar division, doing training for dual-pol radar systems, such as our DUALDoppler500 system.  It was after one of those training trips here to WRAL that I decided to come home to North Carolina.

That was almost a year ago now, and it's been a fun ride so far. Interestingly, this is my second tour of duty here at the Big 5 – I was here as an intern and part-time radio meteorologist back in the late 1990s, including Hurricane Floyd and the big snowstorm of 2000.

Getting the call to perform on the big stage was certainly exciting, but like getting pushed into the swimming pool when you're not expecting it, it can be a bit nerve-wracking!  But, just like getting pushed in, you don't have much time to think about it – you've got to get on with the task of swimming, or else.  Four hours of morning news and weather is like that!