I was born in Delaware County near Philadelphia and brought up in the nearby suburban town of Drexel Hill. There I had my first weather station at my parent’s home with a rain gauge out in the yard, an assortment of barometers, thermometers and indicators in my room and wind instruments mounted up on the roof.
My passion for the weather really got started after my fear of thunderstorms as a young boy turned to fascination as a teenager. I kept a daily record of the weather using my own observations and paid close attention to weather reports on radio and television.
After my graduation from high school a few years passed before I would enroll at Delaware County Community College. There I made the grade to be accepted at Penn State to major in meteorology. I struggled with the math and physics but my passion and perseverance paid off and after some blood sweat and tears I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology in 1980. Also in that year I fell in love with a girl who was also majoring in meteorology at Penn State and soon Noreen Roberts became Noreen Clark.
This was when my first contact with WNEP occurred. My class mate Paul Douglas asked me to work with him in a private weather service that he had started called Total Weather. One of our clients was WNEP-TV and we would call the station each afternoon to inform Jay Kristopher about the upcoming forecast. Total Weather was the first brand of weather seen from Jay’s Backyard at WNEP. Soon Paul got the nod to do weekend weather at the station so he would commute back and forth from school every weekend.
After graduation Paul and I moved closer to the station so that he could resume his duties as an on-air meteorologist for WNEP and I could continue on with the radio side of our business. When Paul became the station’s chief meteorologist there was an opening for doing weekends. After many hours of practicing on camera I auditioned for the job and was soon hired. Indeed my heart was pounding during my first show but I was on cloud nine and working seven days a week between doing the radio and the TV was not an issue at the time.
When Paul moved on to another TV market I auditioned for and was promoted to Chief Meteorologist for WNEP. The rest is history. I have now held that position for close to 30 years and I’ve loved most every minute of it. When we added more newscasts Noreen became one of our on air meteorologists and she has held that position for close to 29 years. Wow! That’s a long time but I can assure you that we don’t have a ‘stormy marriage’. Indeed I have been blessed working at a WNEP and with the station having such a loyal following of viewers. Our daughter Kristin is also a meteorologist having also earned her degree from Penn State. Ironically she now works for Paul Douglas as part of his private weather service based in Minneapolis.
My hobbies include landscaping, gardening, cars, aviation and collecting things like wrist watches and older styled weather instruments. For now one of the things I most look forward to is to see my daughter in a happy and loving marriage and for Noreen and I to become grandparents.
