John Gumm - Weekend Meteorologist

"Ever since I can remember, I've had a fascination with weather," says WWL-TV weekend meteorologist John Gumm. "As a kid growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, I was terrified of thunderstorms, but at the same time, I was curious about what caused them."

"I used to sit out on my aunt's farm in southwestern Ohio," he recalls, "looking across the rolling hills to the horizon, waiting for the next storm to approach and then run frantically to the house when it finally did." This keen interest in weather led John to decide, by the time he was just eight years old, that one day he was going to be a meteorologist.

After high school, John attended and graduated from Valparaiso University in Indiana, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology. While at college, the same intense storms that John once ran from as a young child would be the very ones he would try to drive into as a curious student.

"During college, I helped create what has become one of the largest university storm chase groups in the country." John notes. "We not only chased severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in order to better understand them, but we also worked with storm spotters and with the National Weather Service to help warn folks of dangerous weather."

While he never had any close calls with mid-western twisters, John did come close to encountering some giant - and dangerous - hailstones. "Our chase group was on the tail of a giant thunderstorm outside of Oklahoma City one afternoon when hail began to fall. It was pea-sized at first, but then began to get a bit larger. When we started seeing cars on the other side of the road coming from the storm with their windshields busted out,
we decided to turn around."

During college, John says he never intended to go into weather broadcasting as a career… but changed his mind after working as a summer intern at a Cincinnati television station.

"I always pictured myself forecasting for the National Weather Service or doing research in meteorology, but during my internship, I discovered television not only offers meteorologists a great opportunity to inform and educate people about the weather, but also to become involved and really make a difference in their communities. From this point on, I knew what I wanted to do."

Ironically, John's first broadcasting job in Rock Island, Illinois took him to the banks of the mighty Mississippi River. "I had the opportunity to forecast everything from blizzards to tornado outbreaks there," he recalls. "My very first weekend on TV, I had to deal with a situation where I had several tornadoes on the ground at once within our viewing area. It was probably as stressful of a first day that anyone doing television weather could have ever had." But the challenges of staying on top of severe breaking weather would surface quickly at his next job as well.

That opportunity came in 1999, the year John earned the American Meteorological Society's Television Seal of Approval… and the year he accepted a weekday morning meteorologist position in New Bern, North Carolina… right in the middle of the East Coast's hurricane alley.

"Up until that point, everything I knew about hurricanes I had learned in a classroom,"
he explains. Now, John was about to get first hand experience with the most powerful storms on earth, and what would become the largest natural disaster in North Carolina history.

"We were getting hit one after the other in 1999," John recounts. "First, Tropical Storm Dennis hit, not once, but twice. After hitting us the first time, he stalled off the coast and then moved back west and hit us again. This storm dumped a tremendous amount of rainfall on us and also produced some of the highest tidal flooding on record in portions of our viewing area." But John says things were about to go from bad to worse.

"When we saw Hurricane Floyd coming, we knew we were in for serious problems.
The ground was already saturated and Floyd was a huge storm." John says Hurricane Floyd ended up dumping over 20 inches of rain over parts of North Carolina, generating floods like the state had never seen before.

"It was unbelievable. Entire towns were under water. Roads were underwater. People were being airlifted from their homes. Some people lost everything they owned. It was heartbreaking." But the 1999 hurricane season was not over yet. "To add insult to injury, Irene came along just a few weeks later," says John. "Thankfully, she just grazed the coast." John says the 1999 hurricane season really changed the way he looked at his job.

"People really depend on our daily forecasts," says John, "but the stakes are even higher when the weather is life-threatening. That is when people need you the most. Here in New Orleans, our weather can change in a heartbeat and things can also get pretty interesting come hurricane season." John trusts his extensive severe weather knowledge will serve him well here in southeast Louisiana. "The experience I had covering flash floods and hurricanes in North Carolina will definitely be invaluable to me here."

John also believes that the technology now available to him in the Channel Four Weathercenter will tremendously enhance his television forecasts. "Live Pinpoint Doppler is amazing. It is the best radar system of its kind out there and a tool I plan to take full advantage of. Also, the "WeatherLink Four" real-time network is wonderful and gives us some great live data we would not otherwise have."

John is just as enthusiastic when it comes to his newly-adopted home.

"New Orleans is a very special and unique city," he describes. "The cultural diversity is amazing, the people are the friendliest you'll find anywhere, and most importantly, the food is great! Everyone has made me feel so welcome. It's also an honor to work at a station as acclaimed as Channel Four. When I was asked to come here, there was no doubt in my mind this was where I wanted to be."

Outside of the Channel Four Weathercenter, John enjoys biking, inline skating, and tinkering with electronics and computers. He lives in Slidell with his wife Jennifer and Calvin, their Bichon Frise.