From the WNIN tri state public media center in downtown Evansville.

I'm David James, and this is Two Main Street.

Well, in the not too distant pas before radar and satellites, folks used to rely on animals to predict the weather.

The Farmer's Almanac provided helpful observa some more practical than others.

Now, before we meet my guests, here are a few of my favorite an weather proverbs.

When rabbits are fat in October and November, expect a long, col winter guys, and you can count t a cricket chirps in 14 seconds.

Add 40 to that number and you ha the current temperature in Fahre All right, we'll have to try tha In 1883, the U.S. Army Signals Service commissione a guide book to predict the weat longer than the 24 hour period of the meteorologists of Now seems the guidebook author HHC Dunwoody, had a high regard for cats regarding the weather.

Here are few government approved weather theories from the 19th c When cats sneeze, it's a sign of When cats are snoring, foul weather follows.

And cats lick table legs to signal an approaching storm.

OK, so we'll closely watching th of guest number one Betty, the W she's seen frequently on WFIE-TV along with her fellow forecaster Guest number two chie meteorologist Jeff Lyons.

And Guest number three Tim Troutman is here.

He's a warning coordination mete with the National Weather Servic So welcome guys to Two Main Stre And Jeff is.

Trying to guest number two out here Uhh -- guest number one Betty.

Betty, the weather cat.

Guest number one.

Guest number one is actually in our ca Oh hi, Betty.

She thinks you're the veterinari I think.

Oh, no, no, I'm not.

I'm no.

I'm cool.

I'm cool.

Tim, if you'll do the She's got her out of here.

Stage Oh my, Betty, it's OK. Betty, now, have you noticed Bet sneezing or snoring lately?

Always.

I mean, you know this this cat is not over it.

Now I'm We got some ice water.

Thanks to Sarah Downs here and y production crew for accommodatin And we'll see if she won't take a little drink here for a minute I think she's just kind of checking out the surround, right She's making sure there are no, you know, vets in the neighborho veterinarians, not veterans, vet Course, Betty.

The weather cats are going to be the show here.

This this whole program.

But Tim Troutman, let's get you The government has come a long w of course, in weather prediction since the animal guidebook in 18 not just a 24 hour forecast, of course, with long range forec based on years of data .

Is that correct, sir?

That is co Yeah, we we can, you know, prett forecast the weather, you know, at a very good accurac at least out to seven days.

And then we we then from there, look at normals and definitely t you know, above or below normal precipitation, temperatur So the you know, it's really get to the point to where we could, in the near future, with technol improving, be able to branch out a little f involving that forecast.

So it's, you know, it really we really focus in on that first seven days of the forecast.

And that's really what's, you kn most cases, what's important for Oh, sure.

I mean, you got the farmers, of course, and school officials and everybody else checking out that seven day fore Definitely.

Yeah.

And definitely we we do the Clim Prediction Center out of out of They definitely put together a seasonal forecast and that helps a lot of differen and organizations and and businesses to plan ahead you know, transportation is a bi you know, involving a lot of different freight and things like that that go across the world and and having an idea of the tr over a longer period of time is is really important for those in Well, I think the The Weather Se was first founded based on comme in the United States, getting pr from here to there safely.

So now before we talk about more about Betty, the weather cat who is really quite photogenic, yeah, I want to learn more about this cooperation between t and the National Weather Service How's that going?

Well, we.

Call it the weather enterprise, which, you know, you might laugh but that that's actually the ter that we use in the weather servi or in the media and everything e because you have several parts, the weather service comprised of many, would you say thousands, if not tens of thousands scientists and physicists.

And these are the the brightest brains and.

The country, I mean, almost without exception who are working research to make the models work better, they their radar technicians and that design this stuff.

I just did a conference for the National Weather Associa a couple of weeks ago and hearin these men and women present.

It's like, you know, here I'm si a cat talking about the next thr These people are doing the real hard science.

But you know, as with everything it's highly technical and always evolving, but it has to be communicated to, you know, just the regular g who just wants to know if it's going to rain or not tom And so that's kind of how the me into that piece.

And and of course, we have to be educated to meteor just maybe not at the level that a lot of the National Weath Service is, but our primary job is to commun and to do it in a way that will hopefully draw people to listen to the message and hee and things like that.

So yeah, it's a in my experience And of course, you know, I've been at this 35 years, 33 here at WFIE in Evansville, and we've always been blessed with a very strong local office.

Originally, of course, it was in Evansville.

And then when the weather servic modernized, it kind of streamlined their ope and moved down the road to Paduc And we've had uninterrupted what I would say, excellent service along the way and quite a few characters, too.

Not to say everybody at the weat service is a stuffy, dry scienti There are some fascinating indiv that have worked in the weather service and of course, in broadcasting t So Tim Drummond, how important is the media to getting the word All the media are absolutely the most important part of what We're pretty much our number one other than than emergency manage And, you know, I kind of call it the warning triad, you k And I use that in in presentatio you know, the media is just para to broadcasting the warnings and getting that that vital info that vital warning information out to the public in, you know, in a matter of sec And and having that great workin relationship is just just just a and helps us to make sure that w warning information out to the p That's that's number one or aver warning lead time is it's kind of topped out or nationally at about 14 minutes.

So it's it's really important fo to work with the media to get th out as quickly as possible, both preparedness and also also during severe weat and also just really day to day forecasting.

We we closely coordinate with with Jeff and other other TV, you know, meteorologists and TV radio stations and different, different folks involving the da grind of forecasting the weather We have a chat program known as that we can feed that informatio to them behind the scenes.

So if if Jeff is on is on air going with wall to wall coverage you know, he probably has a litt off to the side and he can look at the chat and say, Hey, t the National Weather Service in they're about to issue a tornado so be prepared in the next few s If you're in this area, you know prepared that this tornado warni probably will be coming out and we'll be giving you more inf as it's occurring so that that that just working t gives as much of a heads up as we can give to the public.

And that's what it's all about.

And I was amazed I went down to the Paducah offic I've been there several times and when you walk in to the fore or what they call the forecast floor, ri so they have all the different forecasters, men and women down working and but up on the wall, it's like a newsroom.

They have four or five monitors and they're they're watching the coming in from the media.

In this case, it would be the Pa TV stations and Evansville to make sure that, OK, well, we put a warning out, OK, it's on off three or, you know, wherever it happens to I think there's a misconception that somehow we're competitors, you know, the TV stations trying the weather service or vice vers And that's not true at all where working to get we're on the same We want everybody to be safe and to heed the warnings.

And so you know it, it works best when we work together and we want a unified message.

You don't want to have, you know, one station saying, wow, there's a tornado warning and the other one saying, that's not so bad, it's got to be consistent.

I mean, we've seen that with oth you know, in in life here recently, misinformation and so forth.

And I think the weather service, the weather enterprise with the is one really shining example of a unified message has the greate and and causes the most the greatest number of people to And we also have trained weather all across the tri state.

That are really on it.

They are the cooperative observers are kind of the backbo of weather observations because of course, we have the radar which can estimate rainfall and like that and wind speeds and so But there's nothing that compare to a person with good instrument I know it's very important these they confirm what we see on rada They do.

There's there's nothing that wil the human eye and the human brai you know, ascertain.

As you coul it looks like.

There's a strong storm over Boon Yeah, but if somebody in Boonvil can say you're right, Jeff, or y Wrong, yeah, they said, no, it's not in Greenville.

It's the in Chandler.

Yeah, righ But and I think there's a misconception that to be a storm spotter, you you know, people watch all this on, you know, TV with the Chaser you know, driving through the pl at 100 miles an hour, but you don't have to do yeah, you don't have to do any of that You can if you have a good set of instru in your backyard, in a good plac whether it's your window or a pl just to view the sky and you've trained, that's the important th I mean, any time we get thunders we get a bunch of, you know, there's a funnel cloud or there.

And oftentimes that's not the ca So you do want to have some trai know, before you're making your and the weather service, they kind of have a security pro where the spotters who have been and certified have a secret numb or some kind of credential so that when they call in their they know it's the real thing.

So that's good to know.

It's kind of like when when we used to have school closings in the newsroom and you'd have a squeaky voice k This is, you know, such and such high sch It might have been me back in th Who knows.

So well.

So yeah, we want the information to be true and accurate when it Now, as weather consumers, we rely on these forecasts based on the latest technology, of course, and the expertize of trained meteorologists.

But sometimes Mother Nature does a curveball and surprises everyb Is that happened before Tim Trou Well, you know, weather is an inexact if that's the buzzword we want to talk about today.

And, you know, even though we have the best tec in the world, you know, and in t here with the National Weather S you know, it's still, you know, we're still not to 100 with any of the technology .

So it's, you know, it's the impo of collaborating with the media, finding out what they're thinkin an event, also getting those spotter repor Also, you know, working together with emergency management in the and also just, you know, making sure that we le from events that we that we may not do so we So the next time we can get bett that's the objective is to get a as we can to 100% accuracy.

So, you know, just looking at our statistics, we're definit about 90 plus percent accurate involving our forecast now.

And that's a huge oh yeah.

Even when I started on September 11th, 1989.

So it's it's definitely an impro I started in 86.

And, you know, at that point, there were models, of course.

But man, it was always a coin to you know, and which model to go with and s But now, you know, it's gotten to the poi where there are so many models and very good ones and very high resolution.

And now the weather service is actually using what they call the national blend of models.

So they take all the models and they churn those together.

And that's why you see these hurricane forecast that are so uncannily accurate five and six days out.

Not to say it's exact, but it's you know, 2030 miles, the IDA.

When it came into New Orleans or into Louisiana, that was very forecast several days out, I mean, four or five days.

And you know, that gives emergency managers and the public time, hopefully t You were talking about unexpecte So one thing that IDA did and that a lot of hurricanes are is when they get close to the sh the water's a lot warmer, especially in the Gulf, and they rapidly intensify.

So it will be like a category two out in the open water.

And then, yeah, and in a couple of days or not, a couple of days within twelve h it could go Category four.

Yeah, which is very hard to predict an And we were looking at that, you the water temperatures were kind of where it was a cate maybe around 80.

But then when we knew once it got into the mid eightie closer to the shore, upper eight oh boy, it was going to be, you know, just a rapid intensity increase in those those type of You know, we just hate that, that it happe But we were fortunate to be able to forecast it at the National H Center level down to the local o that that were affected there.

So I've got a question for you g When I see all these forecasts of these hurricanes and you see the little, you know little swirls out on them, right Right.

Talk about the European model.

What's that coming from Brussels What does that mean, the Europea Well, it's you want to answer that one goin whether there are basically two I mean, there are many, many.

But but the two big ones that you hear a lot about are th the Americans are the GFS, which is the global forecast system.

Yeah.

And then within that you have, y several subsets and different mo And then in Europe, you have the same thing, the UK and I don't know where they base It's run out of.

The out of England.

Yeah, but these are global scale so they they can look at data po all over the globe and that's how they figure out what's going or what may go on down the road.

And there often will be a dispar between the European and the GFS And of course, you know, in our in our culture you know, kind of horse race men you know, it has to be A or B, which one are you going for?

And you know, there are some eve for the European does well, there are many that the GFS does and you have to look at both and kind of consider how they've done up to that poin I think one thing, another misconception is people think we kind of look at a model that day OK, well, it's going to rain tom But the fact is, you look backwa and forwards to see how it perfo and also what kind of data it started out with.

So we call that the initializati So when the model runs, let's say it's 6:00 in the morni it looks at all the temperatures and pressures around the globe, both from airport observations in different places.

And then it crunches it into this computer, huge compute and they run it, and then it kicks out the weathe and either one or three hour inc for any point, see?

And so then you can figure out your forecast based on that.

So as the data gets better and they use airplanes, you know just regular passenger planes have equipment on them so that when they go up into the at they send back instead of a weather balloon eve So often you have all this data, you have a huge, yeah, rich mesh of data that goes in.

So the better the data starting the better the model can be on the other en Did I get all that right?

I've been talking way too much.

I mean, you know, so you know.

Not only do we, though, we look at what Jeff just mentioned involving th tendencies, but we also we also from our experience leve working for several years in the We know that maybe the GFS model is typically slower or faster with a certain type of weather s or a certain time of the year.

It operates better involving, you know, snowstorms or, you know, and so forth.

So we we can take all that into you know?

And and the other the other part that I wanted to mention, too, i the main key to our forecast mod and they've been released since are the upper or weather balloon We released those that over 80 l across the country and all that data when we released the weather bal It has what's called a radio on instrum If you can picture as a little s and we we turn on the computer within the radio, sounds a little small computer and it emits a signal down to the ground station there and we collect the data as the b moves up into the atmosphere up into about 70,000 feet.

So that balloon it expands and gets probably about the size of a vehicle before it pops.

And it usually takes about an ho or so for the balloon to launch and go through the whole process And we collect the temperature, the dew point temperature, the humidity, the wind speed, di when the pressure in the atmosph all that data flows back to our and the all 80 offices or so that that do release the b All that data goes to one big supercomputer in Well, this supercomputer has a w I would say a long math problem the the computer, which we call which is what we were talking ab And all that data flows through and it spits out forecast weathe So, so you know, we typically look at about, you know, four or five different of models most of the time.

And and you know, we we know from experience well, this model usually handles thing pretty good with this type of sc or the first twelve hours of the which gets into the, you know, the blended models.

Now we've really gone that direc and involve in the one hour forecast that we do all the way out to se Now that it definitely is improv I feel the accuracy.

There's computer horse.

Power to do that.

Now it's possible because of the number of data and data that's been collected over the y that you can look at analogs, ri In other words, if the map looks a certain way t you can plug that in and the the computer system will kick out what we call analo weather events and how they play So like if I look at the map tod and it says, Oh yeah, and it's unbelievable the the system I don't know how far the analogs It's like at least 1950 is right, about 1950.

So basically, some poor, you know, group had t all the surface maps that were h analyzed back then into the syst But essentially what it does is OK, here's what the weather map looks like today.

And then the the model will say, OK, well, the last four times or five times it looked like this were, you kn 1948, 1999.

And this is what happened.

Then you can you can start with that and see, OK, what did the low generate sn in that one?

And that's that gives you confid because like Tim said, you know, if you forecast a long you remember these things.

But as we all know, you know, our phone can remember more when you plug stuff in the in the calendar and so forth.

So by looking at the analog, at least have an idea of, well, how did this play out before doesn't always work, but it's of And pretty close.

History rhymes if it doesn't rep itself.

Yeah, the Saint Louis University they they collected a lot of the severe weather analogs.

So we actually for about twelve or so years now at the weather s we've been using these severe weather analogs in advance of ex severe weather outbreaks to to give us an idea.

Well, with these type of conditi the wind speeds moving across th the speed, the amount of moistur the strength of this cold front in, what's it going to compare t in the past?

And one good example was when I was working it as a warning coordination meteor at the Morristown, Tennessee, of in East Tennessee.

We we took a look at the analogs April 27th, 2011, and it compared favorably to the third 74 super outbreak.

And I hate to say it verified.

Yeah, yeah, that was, of course, the Dixie Outbreak or South Super Super Outbreak, too.

Yeah.

Well, I think it's interesting, that you're based in Henderson, but you provide weather forecasts for Wyoming.

Yes, that work well.

I've been able to tell telework work with with things that have been going on lately w So it's it's really it's really a blessing to be back in the tri I have to put on my Wyoming had every morning and and help out the office and do w I would normally do administrati from from Henderson.

So it's it's been a blessing.

You know, I've got some, some elderly pare So it's it's been really good to be back in the tri state area I've been away from here as long as I was here, so.

Yeah, I grew up in in Henderson and and really was interested in after the April third 74 outbrea Unfortunately, that that event kind of opened my eyes about tor and in 1978, the The Blizzard and watching watching Marcia Yoc and ol' "double 'L' Young'" Lloy Young back in the day.

In those days, they're zany weather and the pro They they all playing, they they of got me interested more in wea and I wanted to do TV weather, but it just didn't work out that I was, you know, it's odd how you you meet people, you know, and in your life and they kind of direct you in certa And I I ended up meeting someone that I worked with in su and they introduced me to Norm C who was the meteorologist in cha of the Evansville National Weath Service office at the time.

And we got together and he met w and I, and I was doing a class a Kentucky University that I got c by volunteering at the weather s I was able to.

From there, they had an opening and I was able to get to get on at the weather service.

I had a choice between doing a weekend weather, maybe in Bowlin Green Kentucky versus government and I kind of weighed all, you know, benefits and things li So I thought, well, and it was closer to home.

So th why I started out at the Evansvi National Weather Service office.

So Jeff, before Betty, there was an animated weather do Right?

Well, that's right.

And I should point out that the only reason that Betty today is because you wanted her and your critter guy you love.

I love animal stories on the new and I remember, of course, the TV station was close to the Humane Society for many years, and we would oft have these dogs and cats at.

Were dropped at the station in e I think on purpose.

You were not a cat person initia Do you remember?

And probably no I have a cat.

Yeah, right.

And somebody dropped a cat off a close to Christmas and we had a Some lady had brought us bourbon in the news department and you t to give the cat a bourbon balls, so you had you had kindness in y Wait, oh, I don't remember that.

We can edit that out.

But I think the cat went home with y eventually.

I think your daughter caught win I that's a vague memory.

I want to.

Probably you probably tried to erase that That's right.

Trying to feed bourbon balls to Yeah.

Well, the cat didn't eat them.

If, Oh good, that's a good thing That could go really wrong.

Can't say the same for the news.

Well, tell us about scruffy.

Yes, let's so that when we were together, you know, way back, we had a computer system at work that was intended to do the weather maps and everything.

But you could draw cartoons on i if you know if you wanted.

And I don't really remember how or why it started, but you typically would end the with kind of a funny story.

The kicker?

Yes.

And oftentimes you you kind of lean toward an anima You know, the water skiing squir would be the classic example, but we've had.

Still is the classic.

Exactly.

And so anyway, I drew.

This this dog and I named it scr We used to have a neighbors, had a dog named scruffy when I was a kid and always go t the trash are not scruffy.

No, not scruffy, scruffy CFF.

Why?

So anyway, I drew this dog and then scruffy would get into you know, situations and they, oh, they di end well.

Oftentimes it was very unflatter for the TV station that I worked and but nobody seemed to notice.

So it was like it just empowered and you egged me on and I would know, draw these and I had a picture of the you know, the TV station and kin you know , sewage pipe coming out into a lake and swimming around in it.

And nobody, no, you noticed.

Of course, you would just chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.

And anyway, we were getting away with that.

And you know, then it's going to Turn into like a skeleton.

This is in the lake.

Did many things, part of organiz and whatnot.

Usually it was tied into whateve the story was that you ended wit Well, anyway, then fast forward to the pandemic and I'm doing th in my dining room with a chroma screen and computers and everyth we were in a break before we wen and Betty here climbed up on the dining ro because there were lights on.

She thought there was food, prob And I picked her up.

And so the director said, Oh, I can put the cat on.

I said, No, I said, if we put th then you know, we have to always put the cat out, Oh, come on, please, you know, O So I put the cat on.

Well, then and I posted a pictur I said, Well, Betty and I christ Betty the weather cat.

I thought, Well, that's not very but you know, we'll see what hap Well, how did you get the name B She named after my aunt Betty, who was a real character, lived in Terre Haute when I worked my first job there and Aunt Betty, we could d to Main Street on our Betty.

We don't have.

The time or resou But anyway, I posted this pictur holding Betty in front of the weather map and the darn thing went viral.

And like, two days later, it was on the Today show.

And of course, I didn't see any of this stuff.

And then my daughter's calling f I use saying, Did you?

Or She was home?

Actually, nobody was anywhere.

And and then it just took off and we did an interview with the New York Times.

And and you know, all these anim reporters came out of the woodwo you know, doing stories on Betty, the weat our t , the Russian Times, even one of t I didn't grant them an interview They were the only one I stiffed because I don't know about this.

And you know, I got.

Some watch.

The magazine Cat-Ster called out Yeah.

You don't subscribe.

No, I hadn't heard of that.

No, I hadn't, either.

But they were wonderful people t The funny thing was all the repo who were assigned the cat beat would tell me their cat story.

Oh, I have a cat named Myrtle.

A myrtle loves to sit in the sun you know, and I'm thinking, Well, that's g But I got to like, move along he you know?

And so and we did Skype interviews with and then I'd put her on the weat every night, you know, at 10:00.

And she knew she had like a litt I built over there for so she could sit and watch me do the weather.

And people just seem to like it for whatever reason.

So now she's pretty much just on my social media on Faceb And but she does have a followin There were people from all conti all around the world that follow and my daughter seeing dollar signs because it's You know, she's like, How can we monetize And I said, Look, I said, You kn I can't get into the cat making money business.

I'm already commercial broad.

Mr So she started an Instagram acco for Betty.

Betty has 11,000 followers.

And so my daughter, Natalie writ in the in the person of Betty.

So like it would be, what was Betty thinking?

You know, so little captions wil you know, dad's coming in with w For me, I hope he's not late, you know, that kind of stuff.

And, you know, but my daughter h a zillion pictures of me with this cat that I didn't know and they show up, you know, going all over.

I'm like, you know, in my shorts, coming o Shower and you know, it's like, you really.

Need to use some discretion.

So, but it's been a fun adventur Oh yeah.

Know we really enjoy.

F Betty's presence here.

I think she wants to get down in a little bit.

Well.

She likes her camera time, So that's true.

Now that we've we've done our th I hate to take away from the gra of this interview with a cat, yo Well, I knew we were going to be by the cat.

Anyway, that's that's a given.

So no question.

So, Tim, anything that gets people involv whether you're you're gung ho for that, I'm.

All for it.

You know, and that's that's what We want the folks to keep, keep abreast of the wea We have those winter tornadoes, which are, boy, those are nasty.

November six, of course, is the that everybody remembers.

And that was in many ways surpri I mean, we knew the atmosphere was set up for thunderstorms and maybe a couple severe and then tornado possible, but no one could have foreseen what actually turned up.

Strong if 3:41 mile track.

You know, unfortunately, 24 deaths, 238 in You know, it's it's very unfortu but just a testament.

You know, we still we worked clo with the media to get the warnin and, you know, had had really go lead times.

It was just that time of the mor Hovered at 2:00 in the morning.

You don't have a lot of people at that time who had weather rad that would wake them up, tell phone apps really hadn't de where they would alert you in the same way that we thin And ironically, it was one of two tornadoes, I think, in the country on that particular event.

The one, of course, that went th southeast Vanderburgh County in There was another one in Webster Kind of the Henderson website th Was right there south, but it went through a rural area So there was very low impact.

And, you know, if this tornado had even shifted two or three mi it would have just been, you kno some trees down and maybe a few But the fact that hit a mobile h community was devastating.

And then you had the yeah, the other event on November 15th down there in Hopkins Count you know, if you're a sports fan and a Kentucky basketball fan, Frank Ramsay's home was destroye He was very fortunate to make it that event relatively unscathed.

That was there was another signi that was actually an EF four.

Tornado was the strongest tornad in the country that year, and it there was November six and then So it is nine days later and we an odd of all the severe weather We literally stayed at the stati 24 hours.

We had people asleep there becau got Byron and at that time, Chad because we had to be covered bec just kept happening.

It would be it kind of calmed down for a lit And then wham, you would get war warning, warning.

And and we were just on the heels of November six, so people were already at a heig you know, worry level, which in may have made the November 15th less.

I won't say impactful, but certa no fatalities and very few injur because people were so tuned in to the weather, so to speak.

They took they shut school down I mean, they everybody did the right things.

Not that they didn't on the six.

That's just the situational awar of what might happen was much higher for the 15th.

Yeah, my wife's my wife's home.

While I was, she was my fiancee at the time.

She was on the periphery of that and just on the outer edge of it There was a branch.

There was at least a large limbs at least about two to three feet It was jammed at least five feet into the grou and it took me about two hours to dig it out, which is just inc You know, the the power and the of those winds nearing 200 miles And they found this is again the Hopkins County They found signs from the Pennyr Parkway like, you know, exit or sign was at 22 or three miles aw Yeah.

So, you know, these huge metal s just gone, you know, and even, y well, I mean, that's not uncommo when we had a tornado in Harrisb In Illinois, and that was a stro two, three or four, yes, three o and we found canceled checks fro the Harrisburg Bank and Trust in So and that's that's about 90 mi Air miles give or take maybe a little less than that.

Now I know when there's a tornad When I was working at Channel 14 you would stay on the air until that warning expired.

Righ And hopefully you were on a litt Before, right?

We usually as a tornado watch and then it becomes a warning, r You prepare to watch it move across the map, right?

So is that a established policy for all television stations, then to stay on the air?

No.

Maybe you speak to that one.

But it's I don't know if you had any guid from the weather service on that or that disrupted the station.

It's really up to the TV station But you know, the important thin that folks need to further understand is a tornado watch means conditions are favorable for severe weather, including definitely tornadoes in the next, maybe three to six within that watch area.

A watch means get ready and get means keep a closer watch to the And then when we are in the the what the tornado watch, you at the weather service, we're bringing in extra people into the operations area, getting ready for the even calling up the storm spotters, activating the spotter getting on chat , really startin to collaborate more about.

Well, we're expecting the storms to erupt during this time period you know, and then as the storms are takin and beginning to occur, then we're trying to give update to the media on the NWS chat and you know, via social media.

And then, of course, when the warning is issued, that means go, go to your safe place, have a predetermined, saf That's what I can definitely tell everyone r Go to the go to the weather service website.

You know, local media, Red Cross There's there's a lot of good in on those websites involving where, where to go, wh You know, obviously in your home the best place to move to is if you have a basement, that's obviously the best place.

If you don't have a basement, mo to your most interior area of yo You want as many walls between y and the high winds as possible.

You know a hallway.

A bathroom.

Cover your head.

Most injuries or head related due to flying de And you know, if you if you're d as a lot of us are in the, you know, the main part of the a getting off of work.

And however, because in a lot of cases are, you know, tornadoes occur during the time of the, you know, a heated part of the d you know, usually that four to 5 6:00 p.m. time period.

So you know, if you're driving a a tornado warning is issued or a spotted, I'd like to challenge e right now find three or four or locations along your normal rout to get off the road at a moment' Look for it now and not when the event is occurr If a tornado, if you see a torna you know, get off that road and to a more sturdy building and try to ride it out that poin because you're already in a bad That's some great advice right t You can ask about wall to wall c being either is that require the FCC only requires that we pa emergency information that can be in the form of the c at the bottom of the screen or w And it really grew out of, I think, competition in different TV mark you know, because weather is a k excuse me, audience driver.

People tune in to watch the weat and you need to be on with sever you know, for your station to really serve the public.

But just by comparison, when I was very new at Channel 1 to 1990 June, the second we had a major tornad that came across a series of the actually that came across Illino so petersberg, Tornado and Carmel and Albion an I was there.

Yeah, you were ther You were running the radar in working forecast office and it was the biggest outbreak since 1974, I would imagine.

Yeah, it sure was there.

34, 35 tornadoes statewide that long track tornado and we only did cut in, so I bro You know, it's a Saturday night and you know, you would say, wel there's a tornado moving in and we had the radar and everyth And then, you know, you'd kind of say your piece.

And then we now join Punky Brews in progress and then they go bac they wound up or we wound up sta I mean, the cut in Scott, longer and longer.

It was like ridiculous.

Plus, nobody could follow the pl on blossom.

You know, if we if we blacked out 28 minut So finally, we just kind of evolved into tha you know, do they want to see, y an entertainment show or do they want to see the weath nine times out of ten, they want to see the weather.

Don't ask me that question if the Indianapolis 500, the Ken Derby on, you know, that's what' here, away or whatever are the v We do get a lot of pushback from who are not affected, you know, because remember, we cover 100 m Top to bottom east west.

And we can have, you know, a maj event going on, let's say, in Pi County, Petersburg or Princeton County and the Sun shining in Ow And you know, those people want whatever was scheduled.

And, you know, we have to say we have to be here for all the v And that's at the usually I find cooler heads prevail, so I never answer those emails.

They because they can be vicious and you wait a day or two and then you just write back and say anything.

She I understand your frustratio but we got to do it.

We got to do.

And they'll say, Well, I was just mad at that time.

Well, once they see the damage.

Storm the next day, they realize this was really serious.

This could have been my hometown Yeah, that's right.

Now, of course, Betty is stealing the show as us The National Weather Service dates back to 1870, when President Ulysses Grant sig into law the creation of a new National Weather Service within Army Signal Service weather data, of course, have been colle via telegraph from weather obser around the country and even even Jefferson recorded the temperatu He got a thermometer understand he recorded the temperature on Independence Day, July fourth and the high temperature, of course, was 76 degrees of.

Why not?

Of course, George Washington was avid weather observer.

He took up a diary.

Yeah, I think his last weather o was the day before he died.

Yes.

In Washington.

And Benjamin Franklin also.

A.

Into that.

James Madison.

Also, I read a bo It was called The Storm King's, and it had to do with in that pe the first tornado chasers.

Of course, I didn't know what it in the 1700s, and they call it a And these these guys were on hor chasing a storm and, you know, and reporting back.

And I want to say and correct me if I'm wrong and I probably am.

But I thought that Benjamin Franklin may have tried to do what we call a analysis where you would get weather information from several and then you plot it so you conn like temperatures and pressures.

So when you get the finished map if you have enough observation p you get the ice bars and the, yo kind of like what Marcia used to but it would have been very rudi And of course, these things, these observations were sent by and carrier pigeon and smoke sig So it wasn't real immediate, but they were able to forecast, you know, I guess, back cars because they had to look at it a Oh, well, that's why it rained, we had the set and the other goi because .

They were 100% right, they could post, 'cause.

I know, yeah, post-Castro, that's the word I'm looking for.

So yeah, but people will still a you know why I don't draw the ice bars like Marcia used to and I said, Well, they on there.

So I don't use a magic marker.

And, you know, but her maps are really a work o I mean, she would transcribe or copy the surface map.

And if you were just looking at if you're a weather person, you Wow, she got away with that on T you know, the people, consultants and management.

They're like terrified of any ki you know, anything other than pretty color.

So well, that leads us into Tim Troutman' into the local weather icon, the Marcia Yawkey.

She worked for the National Weat Service before beginning her TV weather career at both WTVW and WFIE in Evansvi So Tim, you been, I guess, talking to a lot of fol and what have you learned about those early years in your projec Well, the you know, she was she was basically attending college at the University of Eva studying to be a chemist, and she evidently saw there was there was an advertisement in the newspaper that the U.S.

Weather Bureau is seeking female observers.

And it was during World War two.

So, you know, during that time p a lot of the the federal male federal workers were either tran within the weather bureau to Washington, D.C. different other areas Europe, Pa and and you know, they needed pe So there the weather bureau, you put that notice out.

Marcia applied was was hired.

She completed her weather training in Chicago.

And then from there, that was then sometime between t and early fall of 1943 to early And she there was about a six mo training class, and she she made and and worked at the Evansville here at the very close to the wh the old National Weather Service office was at Dress Regional Air just within less than half a mil from there.

And at that time, the weather bureau had two offic They had an office downtown on V and at the post, at the Post Off Post Office there.

And also the little observer's l there at the airport.

And she worked there until they consolidated the office abo And then at that point, she she made it past World War two time frame when when all the, you know, the and the the displaced weather bu employees came back, they kept h and she and another lady worked until the the early fifties.

And in 1952, she was transferred to the Weather Bureau office in Grand Island, Nebraska.

And then at that point, you know she got her pilot's license and wanted to obviously come bac because she was from here in Eva and she would fly back frequentl with, of course, without instrument flight rules and all that good stuff .

She was a daredevil.

I'll tell you, I've flown.

Flown I can tell stories about that.

Water towers, you know?

You know.

You can navigate by water towers And I may have this a little bit but I'm going to try to give you the best that I can to get her toward the transition to the two Evidently, the family or someone she connected with a congressman or something like that.

Ed Mitchell and then he let her that there was going to be an op and they were opening, you know, and and you know, from there, she she transition out of the we bureau to the the doing TV weather and and you The reason I really like this project, too, is even though she she moved over t and she was in the media from th on, she always remembered her ro back to the weather bureau.

And she would, you know, she would come out to the I was told and I interviewed Ernie Block, who's still living.

I interviewed Sylvia Niemeyer also about this, about Marcia in the project and of course, you, David and ot And having got to, you do that.

But but having.

You a lot of information that we we have clips and stuff.

So yeah, it's been very, very much appreciated.

And you know, she would she would come out to the weathe service office every every eveni for four years and years.

And sometimes I was told she was spend as many as two or or three hours out there just poring over the weather map asking them the meteorologist at the weather what do you think about this?

And this is what I'm thinking, and they would kind of work toge to put together the best forecas that they could find and put together for the area.

And you know, and and from what you told me and others that told she would stay out there a lot o a quarter till ten and then rush to the TV station and get there just in time to get her map done And you know, and when she was o at the Weather Bureau or Weather Service office, she had a smaller map that she would take with her, and she would annotate all that information than bring and put it on the big map on the and just having that close working relationship.

The weather service, I think, was important to her su because we were basically provid the official forecast.

And she helped us too, because she had some quite a bit of know working ten years in the weather to being a pilot in the pilot.

Yeah, she she loved what she did So what are you doing with this information?

OK?

As part of the National Weather Service's heritage program, that's what kind of tune me into because somewhere in the back of I remembered that she had worked weather bureau and I thought, yo this would be a great local proj to do that kind of highlight that part of her career that , y even though we've talked about a little bit, a lot more to it than I found th I've been going through this and it'll probably be about a 15-20 minutes verse of a documen and I'm going to put that togeth through the next three or four w now that I've got some other pro out of the way.

And then I look forward to unvei and so that everyone can learn a little bit more about the Yock.

Mm-Hmm.

Yeah.

Well, we kind of grew up, I guess, on the shoulders of Mar I know I started my career next to Marcia, introducing her at the weather map and people watched Martian d watch me.

So that's how I was introduced to the market, rode the coattail And then you kind of came in on the same thing.

She retired.

And then that was that was the o that eventually became mine.

It wasn't direct.

I started on the midday and did other things and I. I had Marcia, you know, when I w of course, we all watched.

I say we all, but I don't know anybody that di watch Marcia's, whether we looked at the other.

There was a guy with a ventriloq She kind of set the tone for whe It's OK, it's going to be, you know, crazy.

And my, you know, my everybody has a Marcia story and we were.

My dad used to do Sunday drives, loved to drive us, everybody in We're going to go for a ride.

And we drove through Newburgh, and here comes Marcia the other riding her bike along the river there on Water S But she's wearing like, they look like those things like the Red Baron wore like, li Aviator, you know, goggles.

And it had to be Marcia.

Oh, my dad, you know, said, Hey.

Marcia, how's.

The weather, you And and she said, Yeah, who know She said she was fine.

But then that night we turned on the weather 10:00 on Sunday night, and of course, she talked about You know.

I was out today, Newbu Some guy asked me, How's the weather.

Going to be?

And my dad, you know.

Oh, that's that was me That was, who.

Knows how many people she, you know, saw that day.

But yeah, and that was that was the first time I had se and she came to my school when I was in fourth fifth grade and then I actually got to meet and work with her a couple of ti We did telethons together.

After I was working at the stati she was retired and she couldn't have been nicer She was.

She was salty, you know, I mean, an edge, you know, she she defin She didn't know what I thought, but she really, you know, she wa So unique.

And I know that's wel What's what is the classic line?

You still hear that Marcia knew her weather no matter what.

You know what I'll ever do.

In 35 years, I've been on longer than she was, but it doesn't mat You never get out of that shadow which is fine, but they'll they'll say, Well, you know, esp if you miss a forecast, you know Well, Marcia.

Didn't have a prob She only had a magic.

Marker and Marcia knew.

Her, whether she knew her weathe And oh yeah, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that.

But like David, I mean, I owe a lot to Marcia because I am convinced she's the reason that 14, you know, ascended in in viewers And it became kind of a legacy s People watch that channel for th people on there, and I don't say you know, it gets crazy.

It's not the right word, but that the people on there were always personalities.

Yeah, it wasn't just dry weather and news and sports and so forth that people had per you could identify with.

I think that, yeah, the thing th I've gathered by doing this docu is the entertainment part of it, and she gave you a good forecast Of her judgment, she.

Slipped that forecast in.

T Well, she knew our weather.

She was always at things, you know, like they would.

They'd have an event at Washingt Mall and she'd be like the grand She used to go to the Window Fos every Valentine's Day in Owensbo Very self.

With the disabled individuals ov And so she had a lot of causes that were close and she was a good person, you k and that just came through.

But that's further come through in the documentary to show how s and caring and and she would jus if anyone asked her to do something, she'd do it, yo and that's just how she was.

Yeah, no.

It's it's really a really a bles to hear all.

That and not really self, maybe not self-aware, but she sh I don't think she was in it to promote herself or her, you k unquote brand to use a current.

She would have blanched if you say, Oh, it's the Marcia But she was.

She was, you know, of all the pe that have worked in broadcasting and in the Evansville market, she's always going to be on the is the person who really kind of kind of struck a tone and one wo you know who it is, you know.

Alrighty.

Wanted an "alrighty" clip of her just saying, all righty because she said that every time she started it, I thought she sa Every time she started found it.

Oh, you got to do of 1984.

But she was dressed up in one pi I know the one bathing.

Suit with a bow tie when she said that that's going There, OK?

Yeah, she always used to jump in the river or a lake on the fourt which I think she wanted to do t she retired.

I think they finally said, maybe not this year, and then she decided maybe she w That's another story that is, He this has been a real treat for m and I know for our listeners and my guests have been Tim Trotman, the warning coordination meteoro with the National Weather Servic And Jeff Lyons, chief meteorolog at WFIE-TV and his famous feline Betty, the weather cat, who is somewhere under the table , probably right now, but she's been very well behaved Well, she has.

She's right down here.

Betty, thank you very much for being on I'll be there, Betty.

I'm David James and this is Two Main Street.

Presented by Geoffrey Burger, a well services at Baird Private Wealth Management.