Ep. 28 National Weather Service Interview

Jide Talking interviews a member of the National Weather Service and answers some questions from our members. You can learn more about the National Weather Service at https://www.weather.gov/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, good afternoon or good morning depending on what it is where you are.

(00:07):
This is another edition of Jibe Talking.
I'm pretty excited today because we're going to have somebody from the National Weather
Service on and my name is Ted.
I'll have everybody else here introduce themselves.
I have two co-hosts today.
Phil Fry, Jolly Roger Sailing Club.
Christina Columbus, Jibe Talking.

(00:29):
And Dave, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself.
My name is David Marsalak.
I am a meteorologist here with the National Weather Service in Cleveland, Ohio.
You know, you brought up right out of the chute you mentioned meteorologist.
What kind of schooling is required to be a meteorologist?
I never knew so I'm just going to ask.

(00:52):
Well, it's a science field and those fields typically have a lot of science and math that
go with it.
Are the majors, you know, a lot of it's called, a lot of times it's called atmospheric science,
sometimes it's called meteorology.
They're kind of the same thing for the most part.
There's a lot of math, a lot of calculus.

(01:13):
You go all the way through differential equations and then the core classes for meteorology,
it's not as much of, it's not all forecasting.
It's a lot of physics and theory behind it so we're doing atmospheric dynamics, fluid
dynamics and thermodynamics, which is a lot of what governs the atmosphere.

(01:37):
So we learn that and then we derive our forecasting and our skill off of that.
We do have some forecasting classes but a lot of times the forecasting is just developed
through experience.
So is there like, where do you go for this?
Is it a university?
Is there like a meteorology school or how does that work?

(01:58):
No, I mean a lot of universities have it.
I went to Ohio State.
I got my undergrad there.
The Ohio State, right?
The Ohio State University, correct.
And then I went to Texas Tech University out in Lubbock, Texas and I got my master of science
in atmospheric science there.
And then before you went with the, we always think about, I mean I do anyways, when you

(02:23):
get a meteorologist on television, did you ever have a TV gig or did you just kind of
right away go over to the National Weather Service or how did that work career path wise?
No, for me, TV wasn't for me.
I have a ton of respect for people that do that but what do they say?
I've got a face for radio so.
They tell me that too.

(02:46):
TV wasn't for me.
The National Weather Service can be challenging to get into.
So I did start out with a couple of private sector jobs before I did get into the National
Weather Service which was in 2006.
Oh, you've been there a while, okay.

(03:07):
Yeah, and so I started out in an office in West Texas down in Midland, Texas.
That was the first office I was at.
That was my entry level position.
And then from there I took a promotion and moved to the Charleston, West Virginia office
and I was there for about 14 years.
And then two years ago, about two and a half years ago, I was able to come up to the Cleveland

(03:31):
office which is actually home for me.
I'm from Rocky River which is a suburb of Cleveland.
We have one of our people has his finger up and it's a good finger.
It's the pointer finger so you're all right.
Yeah, David, I actually lived in Midland, Texas for five years.
It really felt like five years.
It was only about six months though.

(03:53):
And that's where I met my wife.
She grew up in Midland and you having spent some time there, weather related, it actually
can rain mud in Midland, Texas.
Some of the most beautiful sunsets you've ever seen but that's West Texas.
It's as flat as a table and almost as dry as the Sahara Desert out there.

(04:15):
And so a storm will come through and kick up all that dust and it'll rain mud.
I'm sure this isn't like a Sharknado episode or something like that.
No, it's not a Sharknado.
I just, I don't know.
Does it really rain mud, Dave?
Well, there's a lot of dust out there and if you get the dust blowing up in the atmosphere
and then it first starts raining, yes.

(04:37):
It's not uncommon to see kind of mud splotches on your car windshield and things like that.
So it's definitely a thing.
And going back to how he was talking about how flat it is out in West Texas, it's very,
very flat.
There's no trees or anything like that in the running joke out there.
If your dog runs away, you can still see it running three days later.

(05:00):
I like that joke, by the way.
That's pretty good.
Well, so tell us, okay, so is there, well, you know, you talked about getting transferred.
Is there a coveted job at the National Weather Service?
I mean, like, do you start in like the hinterlands and then you move up to bigger markets?
Is it like, or how does that work?

(05:23):
Well, it doesn't necessarily work like that, but you know, the bigger cities are generally
going to be more popular areas.
However, you know, when you're dealing with meteorologists, there are some areas of the
country that some of those meteorologists want to get to that, again, aren't necessarily,

(05:46):
you know, larger cities, more happening cities or anything like that.
I mean, you know, the Wichita, Kansas office, probably pretty popular to get into if you're
a severe weather buff.
There are people that really enjoy what lake effect snow brings.
So the Buffalo, New York office can be challenging to get into if there are people that are,

(06:09):
you know, that have that interest that are trying to get there.
So you know, it is easier to start off in the kind of the lesser populated locations
and then, you know, it's kind of jockeying for position from there.
Now you bring up the different areas having the, you know, people who are into big storms

(06:33):
go to, you know, Wichita.
Is there like, are there specialties within the meteorology field that people look at
and study?
Like if they are interested in lake effect snow, or is it just kind of one degree and
then, you know, you look into what you're interested in?
Well, if you, when you give your bachelor of science, that's kind of your well rounded

(06:58):
meteorology education.
If you go beyond that, you know, master's degree where you're writing a thesis or a
PhD where you're writing a dissertation, of course that can venture off into, you know,
a specific topic within meteorology that you're interested in, whether it's, you know, getting
severe weather or something like that, perhaps hurricanes, whatever it might be.

(07:22):
So you can branch off the further you go, probably, you know, not unlike anything else
really the higher up you go in your education.
Now as far as let's just talk a little bit about how you get the information.
Do you have like setups all over the state?

(07:42):
Like how many, what do you call them?
Substations do you use?
I mean, how do you get the information?
Sorry, I assume you're referring to just current weather conditions.
Yeah, like conditions in Western Lucas County.
Like how do you know, where do you get that information from?
Well, there are, we have one of the main ways we get surface observations from is from our

(08:07):
what we call an ASOS, A-S-O-S.
It's an automated surface observing system and it essentially just takes the basic observation
of the atmosphere pretty much constantly where you're getting temperature dew point, which
is your moisture content in the atmosphere.

(08:28):
Rain speed and direction, precipitation if it's falling, how much has fallen, atmospheric
pressure, things like that.
Now those are kind of limited though, you know, they're expensive pieces of equipment.
They're pretty much found within airports.

(08:48):
They're co-located with airports.
But you can also get data from some surface information from even things like satellite
data, especially if you have a cloudless day, you can derive certain weather parameters
from that.
There's also, you know, Doppler radar serves to provide information in that respect as

(09:12):
well where the precipitation is happening currently.
But there's no question that we could always use more in terms of observations.
You know, there's a lot going on between our ASOS's that are located in Toledo and another
one, you know, south down in Finley.
That's a lot of space in there and there could be different things happening.

(09:36):
So you know, the fact that the resolution overall is still kind of relatively poor,
you know, we could always use, we'll take as much information as we can get, honestly.
So if you were going to do, let's say they want to, in our market here in Toledo, they
want to know the forecast, what it's going to be for tomorrow.

(09:56):
Do they get that from you?
Do they just access the satellites themselves?
How is that stuff all generated?
Well, first of all, my question is who is they?
The news, we'll talk to like a channel, channel 13, channel 11, whatever.
One of our local TV stations.
They can, they have access to weather data themselves.

(10:17):
You know, there's a lot of it out there on the internet, forecast models, which are obviously
very popular and determining forecasts.
You know, they can construct their own forecasts.
They can consult us if they have any questions or anything like that.
But you know, there's nothing that says their high temperature forecast for tomorrow has

(10:40):
to match ours.
That's certainly not the case.
Now, what we do that sets us apart is, you know, our bread and butter here at the National
Weather Service is the watches, warnings, and advisories.
And those strictly come from us.
Now, they're relayed by TV and other media outlets and the internet and social media
and all that stuff today.

(11:01):
But all those originate here at the National Weather Service.
Then how do you determine like to come up with, let's say a warning.
So if we have a tornado warning in Finley, Toledo, you guys are the ones that actually
issue that, right?
That's correct.
Yes.
That's correct.
How is that generated?
Okay, so we have computer systems here that we're working on, pretty powerful ones.

(11:29):
And you know, when it comes to a severe weather event, you know, we have the radar data coming
in from the Doppler radar, which is located at Clugen-Hopkins Airport.
That radar is constantly running even during clear weather, you know, no weather type days.
It's running 24-7 unless it's undergoing maintenance, which happens from time to time.

(11:53):
It's a large mechanical device.
It needs a lot of TLC.
So you know, sometimes it'll take it down for a little bit to do some preventive maintenance
and things like that.
But otherwise, we're taking the data directly from the radar.
The radar is making its scans constantly.
We get the converted data into the radar imagery.

(12:16):
It's very quickly.
It's pretty much within a few seconds for the most part.
We're looking, you know, if we know we're looking at a day where severe weather is possible
with, you know, something with damaging winds or possibly even tornadic potential, you know,
we'll be watching for that from the start.

(12:38):
And we'll be examining each thunder, each individual cell or a line of storms or whatever
it might be.
And we're pretty much doing that constantly.
And when, you know, certain things come together in terms of the radar signature, you know,
we'll make the determination as quickly as we can, time is absolutely of the essence

(13:01):
in those cases.
And whether or not we're going to issue a severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning
for that particular storm or line of storms, again, whatever it might be, as necessary.
We have another finger up.
That means a question.
David, obviously, we as sailors probably watch the weather more than maybe anybody except

(13:28):
golfers.
I don't know.
Maybe they watch it too.
And we have access.
Almost every boat that's in our club will have a marine radio on.
And we get weather reports.
I think they're out of Detroit, maybe.
And I forget which channel.
I think it might be channel two.

(13:48):
But they'll generate kind of a general forecast for us.
And then if there's a specific event coming, like a squall line coming through or something
like that, we'll actually get an alert on our weather radios.
Are those coming from you or is that a separate entity?

(14:10):
No, that's correct.
It's coming from us.
And yeah, I'm not sure.
That's the Detroit office.
I'm not sure where exactly their transmitters are located.
So the transmitters have a range of roughly, I want to say it's about 40 miles or so.
I do believe it works on line of sight.

(14:32):
And we have a transmitter in the Toledo area.
There's another one in Castelia, I believe.
So they're kind of peppered along the lake shore.
So if you're at least in the near shore waters, you're going to be able to find a certain
frequency that's going to be able to serve you at that point.
And yes, if it's quiet weather days, the weather radio is going to play your seven-day forecast

(14:58):
and current observations and things like that.
But if there is any impending severe weather, the second we push the button on a severe
thunderstorm warning or tornado warning or something like that, it'll interrupt the
weather radio broadcast and it will tone and you'll get an alert and everything like that
as to where it is and which direction it's going and what hazards are with that particular

(15:21):
event.
Yeah, one of the things that we're especially conscious of around here.
Oh, someone's on a motorcycle outside our window.
This is a weather event coming in right now.
No, I'm just kidding.
Someone on a Harley.
Is wind direction, wind shifts, wind speed.

(15:44):
And there are several websites that we use, Sail Flow, Windy and Windfinder to get that
information.
I race, so it's of particular interest to me.
And they get models and then they extrapolate for what they think the forecast is going

(16:06):
to be, which is relatively good about 24 hours out.
Anything beyond that, I don't get too excited.
That information is essentially coming from you guys going to them and then they've got
some sort of algorithm they're using, I'm assuming.
Is that the case?
I don't think so.
I don't think it's coming from us.

(16:27):
Now, the model data, a lot of times it depends on which model it is, where it's coming from.
But those are private entities and I can't really speak on how they get their information
in display and things like that.
But it's not necessarily from us unless you're at a weather.gov website.

(16:51):
That's weather.gov.
It's coming from a different source.
Maybe they're pulling from us.
I mean, I don't know.
Again, I can't speak on behalf of what they might be doing or anything like that.
But if it's directly from us, it's going to be from the weather.gov website.
Okay.

(17:12):
And there's a couple of buoys that are out in the Toledo Channel that I believe actually
may feed into your information or perhaps it's NOAA that they feed into.
But we can get real time data off those buoys.

(17:34):
I mean, maybe a minute or two old.
And also, one of the things that I wanted to ask you about, because this has been kind
of a recent phenomenon.
I'm sure it's not a recent phenomenon, but we've been noticing it more and more.
And I believe, and correct me if I'm pronouncing this wrong, but a seish?

(17:57):
Is it a seish?
Yeah, that's correct.
Okay.
So here, being in the Western Basin, this is the shallowest end of Lake Erie.
So if the wind is blowing for any consistent time out of the west or the southwest, it's

(18:18):
essentially, we call it the Lake Erie tide, even though Lake Erie doesn't have a tide.
And all the water is getting blown down to Buffalo.
And a lot of times out here, when we look out to our docks, all we can see is mud.
There's so much water has been blown out.
And I think there was a recent one maybe in the last couple of weeks that even made national

(18:43):
news where essentially we didn't have hardly any water in the Western Basin at all.
They were discovering, someone discovered an old shipwreck over by Catawba, I think,
because so much water had blown out of the Western Basin.
And the way I describe it to people, it's kind of like it's a bathtub.

(19:08):
It goes to one end and then sloshes back to us, it seems like.
And as it gets shallower and shallower here, it seems like we're noticing it more and more
as an event in the Western Basin.
Well, I think, first of all, that's a great way to describe it, like you did with the

(19:29):
bathtub reference.
And the sage, a lot of times, is the water that's sloshing back.
Once it gets pushed out to the east towards Buffalo, kind of that return trip.
Sometimes that sage can be avoided.
So if you remember, two Christmases ago, December 23rd of 2022, we had that, it was just high

(19:57):
winds, west-southwesterly winds, 50 to 60 miles an hour, sustained for like 18 hours
or so.
And the temperatures got below zero for a day, about 24 hours.
And that was really the first of these events, within recent memory anyways, where the lake
bottom was exposed.
It was actually, that event was more significant than the one you were talking about, that

(20:21):
was just a couple, three weeks ago, whatever that might have been.
But yeah, the western end was exposed.
It was exposed for a long time.
There's pictures of people walking out from South Bass Island.
I think it's out to, I think that island just north of it is Gibraltar, I'm not really sure.
But just kind of, I don't want to, you know, it's a little risky saying unprecedented,

(20:45):
I'm sure it's happened before, but it hasn't happened in a long time.
Some of the ferries were sitting on the bottom, things like that.
I think we got lucky in that scenario, because there was no sage coming back, because the
wind direction held in that southwesterly direction and gradually decreased in velocity

(21:09):
during that timeframe as we got out of that event, which prevented the water from just
coming back very quickly, as if it might have been different if the winds had just shut
off completely or changed directions or something like that.
So that could have caused a pretty big issue in the western basin, you know, maybe with

(21:30):
some lake shore flooding and things like that.
As it was, the eastern basin, Buffalo, they had all kinds of issues with flooding and
there were images of houses just basically entombed in ice that came off of Lake Erie
out there.
The event about three weeks ago, again, I'm not sure exactly when it was, but it was significant

(21:56):
also.
The levels weren't quite as low as what they were on December 23rd of 2022, but again,
like you were saying, the bottom was exposed in many places.
I did read about that shipwreck that was discovered.
Are they happening more frequently?
I'm not really sure, that would take some investigation.

(22:20):
But it's definitely, we do put out low water advisories for conditions like that.
It doesn't even have to be as extreme as that, because there's still shipping going on a
lot of times, even in the wintertime.
Those freighters coming through, coming down from Lake Huron through St. Clair River and

(22:42):
the Detroit River and across Lake Erie heading towards Cleveland or Buffalo or wherever it
might be, or even Toledo, they've got to know if they can actually navigate through there.
A quick story real quick, going back to that 2022 event again, we had our wave model trying

(23:03):
to put out wave forecasts for that event.
And I just, we didn't know the lake bottom was going to get exposed.
We knew there was going to be low water.
But we had, in the western basin, we had five foot waves in the forecast.
And I just casually made a remark.
I'm like, I don't know if there's going to be enough water in the western basin for five

(23:24):
foot waves.
Because if you have five foot waves, you probably need a depth of at least like 10 feet or so.
So it was just kind of, I was just making an offhand comment at the moment.
And ultimately it couldn't have been more true.
Now I've been doing some reading lately and reading about a weather phenomenon called

(23:45):
a derecho.
And I know I was reading about, I think it was 1912 or 1913, the year maybe, and they
called it like the white hurricane.
They had a derecho and they had a terrible snowstorm.
I think it was like 22 inches or something in November.
Do you know what is a derecho?
I mean, we actually had one here.

(24:08):
They said, we called it Black Thursday where they got a derecho and they had a bunch of
problems with their boats.
So what is that?
Well, a derecho, I'm not sure, you know, referencing the first part of what you said there, wouldn't,
likely wouldn't be involved with any sort of winter event.
A derecho is a, it's essentially a complex of severe thunderstorms.

(24:33):
And what makes a derecho a derecho?
It's got to meet some criteria.
First of all, it's got to have a path of about 240 miles or greater, which is basically 400
kilometers.
Sometimes we still go with the metric system with a few of these things.
So it's got to have a 240 mile path, which also means it's got to last for several hours

(24:57):
to get to that point.
So it's going to be a large swath of straight line wind damage that's going to be at least
58 miles per hour or greater.
But it's essentially a band of rapidly moving thunderstorms.
And you have to have several specific conditions that need to be achieved, you know, for the

(25:18):
setup for the possibility of a derecho to happen.
But when they do come through, yes, they do cause considerable damage a lot of times.
And what kind of accentuates the damage is it's usually hitting everything.
There's such a big feature that not a lot is getting spared.

(25:39):
Many times when you have just kind of a more run of the mill severe thunderstorm event,
it may be one storm or a couple complexes of storms.
And yeah, it can hit, you know, damage significant parts of the county or whatnot.
But a lot of times a derecho is affecting several counties in a line as it's moving
through.

(26:00):
So the swath is so large.
And that's one of the characteristics that makes a derecho what a derecho is.
Now you mentioned tornadoes.
Now a lot of times out in the lake, we'll see water spouts.
Are water spouts and tornadoes the same, just ones over water or do they tend to be different?

(26:23):
No, they're definitely different.
Now you can have a tornado over water.
So if you're dealing with, again, a severe thunderstorm possible set up, you know, in
what we call the convective season, meaning the thunderstorm season, you can definitely
have a tornado, an actual tornado over water, wouldn't be any different from a tornado over

(26:45):
the land.
Okay.
And those are obviously very serious situations that need to be handled very carefully.
A water spout is a completely different, it's a different set of circumstances that lead
up to it.
It's not going to be associated with severe thunderstorms.

(27:07):
And it's, a lot of times it happens, you know, the peak season for the Great Lakes is going
to be kind of in the August, September, October type timeframe, kind of when those water temperatures
are, they may be coming off their peak a little bit, but they're still up there.
Because the water temperatures, as we get into the cooler season, they're going to

(27:27):
lag.
They're not going to cool as fast as, you know, the seasonal air is going to cool.
But so you've got kind of this relatively warm water and then you're getting colder
and colder air masses coming through as we start to venture in towards the end of summer
and into fall.
And that's the first thing you need.
A lot of times you'll see them in the wake of a cold front that's coming through.

(27:50):
So again, the cold front's pushing through and it's bringing in this much cooler air
mass.
You need some wind in the low levels, but the wind can't be too strong.
And a lot of times the water spouts will happen.
You get several of them occurring at once.
But ultimately they're not going to be as destructive as a tornado.

(28:14):
Now in terms of marine interests with that, you're in a smaller craft.
Of course they're going to be something you need to pay attention to.
Be aware that that's a day that water spouts might actually occur.
They can cause damage even though they aren't as strong as a severe thunderstorm type tornado.

(28:37):
Really something to be aware of if you're out on the water on those particular days.
We have another question from the gallery.
Yeah, David, is your office the one that issues small craft advisories?
Yeah, any of the offices, the National Weather Service offices that border the Great Lakes

(28:57):
or the oceans will be issuing small craft advisories.
So yes, we do most of Lake Erie.
The Buffalo office has a small sliver that they will do in the Far Eastern basin.
And Detroit covers the small sliver that's basically along the western end there in southeast

(29:22):
Michigan.
Okay.
You know, we've noticed sometimes it seems like that, maybe you just can comment on this,
that the rush to be first with forecasts sometimes for like, especially the local people leads
to inaccuracies.

(29:42):
Would you say that that's true or they just don't know how to interpret the data?
Because it seems like, you know, all of a sudden they're rushing and it's like, sometimes
it seems less accurate than it was, let's say, 10 years ago.
Well, I'll only speak about us here at the National Weather Service.
You know, if we go back to what I was talking about with, you know, when we're expecting

(30:05):
a day with possible severe weather, time is absolutely of the essence again and getting
those warnings out as fast as possible.
Those are called what we call short-fused events.
You know, they're happening on the scales of minutes, things like that.
Now, if you're talking things like winter storms, there's a process and it doesn't

(30:25):
necessarily have to do with, you know, being first or anything like that.
You know, when we do watches and warnings, the watch will precede the warning.
I'll use winter storms just for the basis of providing an example here.
We're not going to be putting out winter storm watches, you know, five days out.

(30:51):
Let's say we're super confident about something coming in and providing a, you know, a significant
winter weather threat.
We have, you know, there's timeframes in which we do things.
You know, quite often the watch is going to be out about two days, 48 hours ahead of time.
Then we convert that if we have high confidence that it's going to happen within about 20

(31:13):
or maybe 36 hours, we'll convert that to a winter storm warning.
There's some leeway there, but, you know, we're trying to provide the best service possible.
And if I put out a winter storm watch seven days in advance of something, number one,
the confidence isn't going to be high.
Number two, people are probably going to forget about it.

(31:35):
You know, they're not going to pay attention to something that's probably coming a week
later.
We have a product that we issue called the hazardous weather outlook, and that's our
day one through seven kind of here's a heads up type thing.
So if we do see something in the extended forecast that looks like it could be a significant
issue moving forward, we'll say, you know, day five, it looks like there's a strong low

(32:01):
pressure system moving in that can cause significant snow accumulation for the region.
And, you know, we'll leave it simple like that, but that's our heads up.
And then as we get closer to the event, again, maybe about 48 hours out or so, it looks like
things are coming together and that's, you know, it's coming to fruition there.
We'll put out the winter storm watch and then, and then that will become a warning.

(32:24):
A few years ago, there was a, you know, regarding the differences between watches and warnings,
sometimes people get confused about that.
There's a meme going around.
It might've been created by somebody in the, in the TV media market somewhere.
Not sure who exactly did it, but, you know, the watch is generally considered, you know,

(32:45):
that's what you put out when it looks like conditions are going to be favorable for whatever
it might be severe thunderstorms, winter weather, whatever, whatever we're talking about at
the moment.
And the warning comes out when it's imminent or actually happening.
Okay.
And again, within for a winter storm, within 24 hours, you know, with a severe thunderstorm

(33:05):
warning itself, you know, it's happening imminently or very, very shortly within minutes.
The meme that came out was that they use tacos and they have a picture of the taco watch
and it's the disassembled taco.
If you will, you got the shell and you have the ground beef and the lettuce sitting there
in a bowl and the cheese in a bowl and salsa and whatnot.

(33:26):
And then the taco warning is the taco itself completely assembled, ready to go.
I always felt like that was actually a pretty clever way to describe the difference between
the watch and warning.
Again, a lot of times people don't know the difference.
Advisory is basically, it's similar to a warning.
It's imminent or occurring, but instead of life threatening or property damage potential

(33:50):
type issues with whatever weather event is going to be affecting the area, advisory is
basically going to be more kind of inconvenience type things.
And if you're not paying attention, it could lead to problems.
So the advisors is basically just a lesser form.
I like the way you said that, but now I'm hungry for tacos.

(34:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You think so too.
I have to go to Chalupas for lunch.
My apologies.
Hey, one of the questions or one of the people at the club said, and they said that some
people refer to Lake Erie as a microclimate.
Is that taken into effect when you do forecasts?
I mean, is it a microclimate and does it severely affect the weather in this area?

(34:36):
Yeah, definitely Lake Erie affects the weather, especially in the near shore environments.
There's no question about it.
Like this time of year, the lake temperatures at the surface in the thirties, they're not
going anywhere for a while.
We won't start warming up in earnest till probably like April, getting into the mid

(35:00):
to upper forties or something like that.
But a lot of times you'll get, you start to get warmer air moving in, especially March,
April type timeframe as we're getting out of winter, getting into spring.
And you're away from Lake Erie and it's 65 degrees and feeling nice.
And then all of a sudden you get right up on the lake and it's like, it's still 47

(35:24):
here.
Kind of terrible.
That's definitely influence of the lake.
It's just one of the ways they can do it.
But it can also provide wind circulations.
You know, the sea breeze, we call it the lake breeze here, is definitely something that

(35:45):
we have to deal with a lot of times on a daily basis.
When we get into the warmer months, you know, when the lake is colder than the air, it's
going to, sorry, than the air over the land, it's going to develop a circulation.
So the temperature difference essentially creates a pressure difference.
And if you have a pressure difference, the air is going to move from the higher pressure,

(36:08):
which you're going to find over the colder lake, and it's going to move towards the lower
pressure, which is going to be the warmer air that's over the land in that particular
case.
Again, it's got to be a day where the forecast at high temperatures are going to be warmer
than the lake.
But when that happens, you know, you get the lake breeze effect and all of a sudden, again,

(36:30):
those near shore areas might have been warm for a little bit, might have been warming
up in the late morning hours, and then all of a sudden the wind comes in off the lake
and it cools it off.
Now you can have that in April, you can also have it in July.
Now there's some other, you know, there's some other conditions that go along with that.
If you're, what we call the synoptic scale, which just means a large scale wind, you know,

(36:53):
affecting on the order of many states, you know, if the wind is blowing 15, 20 miles
an hour out of the southwest or something like that, that's going to overpower any lake
breeze that might try to develop.
So it's not going to happen.
You need kind of a kind of a kind of a calm atmosphere, if you will, for that circulation

(37:14):
to set up.
But going back to, you know, this lake area microclimate, yeah, it is it dictates a lot
of things.
Sometimes you get some clouds developing over the lake you can't get rid of, and you just
go inland 20 miles and sunny as can be.
You know, there's the lakes definitely make it challenging to forecast on a daily basis.

(37:39):
Lakes and mountains are really kind of the tricky parts of forecasting a lot of times.
Interesting, interesting.
Does anybody else have anything else to ask?
Any questions?
First, David, as far as the National Weather Service, is there a particular website, if

(38:01):
we want to look at what your forecast is, is there a particular website that you would
suggest that we go to, maybe one that's specific to Lake Erie Western Basin?
Sure, that's I mean, that would be our website.
It's weather.gov, so weather.gov slash CLE, and that's just the designator for our office.

(38:26):
And if there's a tab right there on the front page, where it's basically kind of a drop
down and you select forecast and you go to the marine section, and that'll give you the
products that we issue on a daily basis.
We do a nearshore forecast that goes out from the shoreline to five statute miles, or I'm

(38:48):
sorry, five nautical miles, excuse me.
And then there's the open water forecast that goes from that point out to basically the
border with Canada, that kind of invisible border in the middle of the lake there.
And we issue wave forecasts, wind of course, and then of course, any significant weather.
In the warmer season, we will add a surf zone forecast, which is essentially going to be

(39:13):
your beach forecast.
So if you're heading out to the beach for the day, and you know, that will also highlight
any potential issues.
If there's a rip current risk for the day, that'll be highlighted there as well.
We actually put the rip current risk on the hazardous weather outlook.
So that'll show up on the front page map if you go to weather.gov slash coe.

(39:37):
If you need this section for Detroit, or you're going up into one of the other lakes, there's
just directional arrows that you can select the adjacent office on that front page.
And you essentially go to the same places.
The websites are very similar and you can get the information that we put out there.
That sounds great.

(39:58):
Well, thanks for being with us today, Dave.
We will send you a copy of this before we put it out.
Okay.
I appreciate you taking time.
What kind of shifts do you guys work, by the way?
I'm just curious.
Rotating 24-7, 365.
So there's generally three shifts.
There's day shift, there's evening shift.

(40:19):
Okay.
Some people call them swing shifts, and then there's overnight shifts.
Okay.
And we do several week rotation, and we do seven overnights in a row.
I just finished mine Wednesday morning.
So I'm just getting off.
I'm trying to rejoin the living here.

(40:42):
But we work weekends.
We work holidays.
We love what we do here at the Weather Service.
We really do.
It's one of those careers where generally the people that are in it are very passionate
about it.
I mean, I think if you ask a lot of us, our interest in weather probably started as kids,

(41:05):
and it just grew from there.
But working these shifts can be challenging.
It's hard on the body sometimes, but we know what we're getting into when we sign up for
this job.
So it would be like if you're a firefighter or an ER nurse or something like that, you're

(41:25):
going to work some wacky hours.
We help each other, and we pull ourselves through it.
Again, we love what we do.
Is Twister your favorite movie of all time?
Twister, it's funny you mention that.
I would say this is just my opinion.
So I went to college.

(41:46):
I went to Ohio State from 93 to 97, and Twister came out, what was that, 96, 97, somewhere
in there.
So it was a marked increase in the number of people that were going to school for atmosphere
science slash meteorology after that movie came out.

(42:06):
In my opinion, it had a cultural and historical impact, I would say.
It's a pretty accurate movie then?
We can pick it apart.
We can pick it apart.
Just like if there's any movie trying to mimic any other field, I'm sure there are people

(42:31):
sitting there saying, well, that's not quite right.
That's not quite how it happened.
If you ever want to know about sailing, you watch Captain Ron.
That's the best movie about sailing.
I got to tell you though, after-
I wasn't sure when to bring this up, and I'm sure I shouldn't bring this up, but I'm a
power boat.

(42:52):
Well thanks for coming.
We'll see you later.
If you ever find yourself coming up this way, one of us would surely take you out and could
try to convert you.
Right.
Yeah, they say-
Hey, I would love to go sailing.
And we should do it.
I did go to a camp when I was young for a couple years.
I seemed to do okay with it, but we didn't have a sailboat.

(43:14):
Sailing is-
How simple is that?
It's defined as going nowhere slowly at great expense, and also defined as standing in a
cold shower fully clothed, tearing up $100 bills.
So those are the two definitions of sailing.
Sounds about right, and I've heard some of the other acronyms.
Boat stands for bust out another thousand when you're a power boat and things like that.

(43:39):
That's a true statement.
I definitely get it, but even when I'm out there, it's just beautiful.
It's another world for me.
It's my escape.
I love Lake Erie.
Thank you very much for coming on.
We'll send you email with this before we post it.
If no one else has anything, I'm going to let go.

(44:00):
Do you have anything, Phil?
Do you have anything, Christina?
No, thank you for coming.
Thanks for coming, David.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for having me.
Okay, bye.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.