Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
February 6, 2002
Meteorologist shares excitement for weather with kids
Mike Nelson visits St. John the Baptist School in Longmont
By Alwen Bledsoe
Meteorologist Mike Nelson from the 9News Weather Channel charmed St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Longmont Jan. 30 as he jumped and danced through a dramatic lesson on meteorology. Around 430 students from preschool to middle school attended the presentation.
Nelson visits approximately 150 schools a year to talk about working on television, about forecasting the weather, and about what it takes to be a meteorologist.
He began the presentation saying that audiences always ask him, "Hey Mike Nelson, are you going to put us on TV tonight?
"And, yes, I am going to put you on TV," he responded as excited screams burst from the students.
Panning around the audience with a camcorder, he promised students that their pictures would be shown on the 6 p.m. 9News cast.
With perfect stage presence and the caramel-smooth voice of a newscaster, Nelson launched into the story of how he became interested in weather as a 9-year-old. He pressed his face against a pretend window as he talked about watching a tornado form. His voice imitated the thunder. He moved back and forth dramatizing the storm that convinced him he wanted to be a meteorologist. He even, he added, opened the window, letting the pelting rain soak him, until his mother finally wrestled him down to the basement.
"It shows you that as a 9-year-old I was not very bright," he joked, but added, "But the second reason I told you the story is it gives you an idea of the excitement I have for weather. I think weather is really cool stuff."
With dramatic gestures, Nelson gripped the students' attention as he explained how he forecasts the weather, how he reads weather maps and how he creates the user-friendly weather maps that he shows on television.
Putting in a plug for their studies, Nelson told students that math is the most important thing to study if they want to be a meteorologist.
As students groaned, he said: "Now judging by your reactions, some of you might not think that sounds too great. You're saying `Well, forget that meteorologist thing.'"
He told his audience that he was not good at math at their age.
"But I knew that if I wanted to be a meteorologist, that I had to get better at math," he said. "So what I decided way back when I was in grade school was to get better at math. I made up my mind I was going to do it. I worked with my teachers. I stayed after if I had to. I made sure I did all my homework and I practiced my math.
"I got a whole lot better at math, and I tell you that because there's nothing special about that," he continued. "Any one of you in this audience, if you're having trouble with a subject you struggle with, whether it's spelling, reading, math, whatever, make up your mind to get better, work with your teachers, and you'll be surprised at how much better you get."
Holding a small device, Nelson told students it was a radiosonde that measures air pressure, humidity, and temperature five to six miles above the ground, radioing its information back to the station.
Nelson explained to students that air balloons carry about 200 radiosondes into the air each day. As the air gets thinner, the pressure on the balloon lessens, allowing the balloons to expand until they pop about 20 miles up. As the radiosondes fall, parachutes open and bring them gently to the ground, he said.
Each radiosonde costs $75 tax dollars, while those that are found and sent back to the weather station cost only $25 to repair and re-use, Nelson said. He urged students to first give recovered radiosondes a "welcome to the neighborhood" party and then to send them back to the weather station in the cloth bag contained in each for that purpose.
Nelson ended his presentation with his signature "tornado dance." Playing the parts of the sunglass-wearing "cool air from Canada" and the "hot air blob," Nelson dramatized how tornadoes form out of the "shoving match" between the cold and hot fronts.
Nelson has been visiting schools with his presentation for almost 20 years.
"It's to the point now that I have people come up to me that are taller than I am who say, `Hey remember me? You spoke to my third grade,'" he said.
Nelson added that he visits schools largely because he remembers the important role meteorologists who mentored him played in his life, and he hopes it will help kids in their studies.
"I hope that maybe some of the kids here get a greater interest in science and in doing their math in part by what I'm saying," he said.
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