Nash Roberts, Weather God

I have always been fascinated by weather. Not enough to learn much about meteorology, but enough to want to experience things like hurricanes and tornadoes. Of course, when I was deciding on a major it never occurred to me that people chase storms for a living. Had I known that at age 18, I might have picked a different major. Bad weather is super cool.

When I moved to New Orleans, I hadn’t considered the possibility of hurricanes. What a fun surprise! But the other cool thing about hurricane season was Nash Roberts. This man really was the Weather God. He did not rely on computers to track storms. He did it the Nash Roberts way. Every time there was a storm of interest, they would take the camera crews to his house and he would tell you exactly where that storm was headed. Perfectly mapped out by pen and paper from his living room. I was in New Orleans when Hurricane Georges was predicted to hit New Orleans as a Category 5 storm. “Au contraire”, said Nash Roberts. He was the only one to predict that storm would hit Mississippi as a Category 4. So my friends and I stayed for the storm. Nash Roberts said we could. And what fun it was!

A group of us went to a packed neighborhood bar (we took a priest with us just for good measure) after they announced martial law. And then we drank until they were out of booze and ate the last burgers from the kitchen. Of course, my family had been watching the Weather Channel (and news from other non-Nash Roberts sources) and they were convinced that I was on an insane death wish for staying. It turned out to be a big party with some big gusts of wind and some rain. Of course, Hurricane Katrina was a very different story. By this time, I was long back in Austin. Nash Roberts evacuated the city for a hurricane for the first time in his life. That was a sign of bad things to come. If I had still been in New Orleans I would have left too -- just because Nash Roberts left.

Unfortunately, Nash Roberts is really retired for real now. He doesn’t do his badass weather reports from his living room anymore. But every year when the storms start, I always think of him. As I track tropical storms and hurricanes on the weather and on the Internet, I always wonder what Nash Roberts is saying about this storm…

tags: New Orleans Nash Roberts Weather God Storm Weather Hurricane Georges Katrina Dean