I’ve been a meteorologist for 40 years. Here’s why I got emotional about Hurricane Milton.

3 comments

1. 😕 I understand his emotional state

2. From the article:

   *Morales, a meteorologist with 40 years of experience and the founder of weather forecasting company* [*Climadata*](https://climadata.com/)*, said the feeling was a long time coming—a mixture of anxiety about increasing extreme weather, “frustration for lack of action on climate,” and concern for the people in Milton’s path.*

   *For decades, he said, people knew him as a “just-the-facts” kind of guy. But as climate change increasingly fuels storms like Milton, he says, it’s been harder to stay calm and collected. Climate change, in essence, has changed him. As* [*he wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists*](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/10/hurricane-helene-new-normal-future-destruction/) *after Helene hit the Southeast last month, “I look at storms differently. And I communicate differently.”*

   *Below, in his own words, Morales reflect on how the climate crisis has changed his relationship with meteorology*. *His story has been edited and condensed for clarity*:

   **I grew up in** Puerto Rico. So, for years I had been tracking tropical storms and hurricanes. In 1979, there was a big hurricane that passed south of Puerto Rico, and then slammed into the Dominican Republic, a category five hurricane named David. And I think it was the clincher for me in terms of, Hey, this is a field of science that I want to pursue.

   [On Monday,] I was at the home office, just as we were about to go on air for the noon newscast, and an urgent bulletin came out from the National Hurricane Center indicating that Milton had become a Category 5 hurricane. I had a chart in front of me, and I looked at the barometric pressure they were reporting at noon, and I compared it to just what had been reported in the pre-dawn hours. And I go, *Oh, my goodness*.

3. Good meteorologist, good human