This year we’ve seen extreme weather events – hurricanes, flooding, record-breaking heatwaves, and wildfires – cause chaos and devastation across the globe. A new IPCC report also has climate experts and famous meteorologists calling out for the world to take notice.
Our Top Famous meteorologists & Weather Influencers to Follow
To help you stay informed, we’ve put together some of our favorite voices in the weather and climate space, to help you know where to turn to for expert insights, commentary, and advice.
We’re going to continue increasing over the next few weeks – so if there’s somebody we missed that you think we should add, let us know in the comments below!
1. Crystal Egger
Crystal Egger is an award-winning meteorologist and the president of Monarch Weather, a consulting firm providing global weather & climate forecast and analysis services.
Renowned for her broadcast appearance on The Weather Channel, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and The Today Show, Crystal spearheads innovation in the predictive meteorology space, leveraging weather and climate modeling to enable risk mitigation and business growth.
2. Kathryn Prociv
Meteorologist Kathryn Prociv has worked for The Weather Channel for 5 years, after which she became a producer for NBC News, in charge of all the weather content airing across the network’s platforms.
Kathryn is the executive vice president of Monarch Weather, where she works alongside Crystal Egger and their team of meteorological consultants. Kathryn’s social media presence is a fountain of information on weather preparedness and safety. She has also written for The Washington Post’s global weather news outlet (Capital Weather Gang).
3. John Haynes
John Haynes works as the Health and Air Quality Applications program manager for NASA’s Earth Science Division, where he promotes the use of Earth observation methods to manage air quality and environmental public health.
In addition, John serves as Co-Chair of the GEO Health Community of Practice, a network of global experts that leverage their expertise across different sectors to support various public health applications with earth observation data and tools.
4. Nancy Colleton
Nancy Colleton, president of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, has become a globally respected leader in communicating scientific environmental information to the public.
Nancy is a staunch advocate for leveraging Earth observations and environmental intelligence to improve decision-making on the individual, business, and government levels. She leads numerous initiatives that promote a better understanding of our planet’s dynamic weather and climate changes.
5. Paul Walsh
BreezoMeter’s own Paul Walsh is a data science leader in the realm of weather & climate sustainability strategy for small-medium enterprises (SMEs). A veteran of the esteemed 101st US airborne division (popularized by HBO’s award-winning Band of Brothers miniseries), Paul is also a former on-air expert for The Weather Channel.
As BreezoMeter’s new Head of Growth, Paul’s experience and passion for all things weather are invaluable assets in our effort to integrate personalized health-focused environmental intelligence into diverse services and products that empower decision-making.
6. Chris Mooney
A lecturer at Yale University’s School of The Environment, Chris Mooney’s passion for climate and weather is further expressed in his work as an environmental reporter at The Washington Post.
Chris’s well-researched articles and expert interviews help shed light on dynamic climate changes, bring public attention to the resulting impact, and highlight environmental trends that can completely alter the world we know.
7. Dr. Marshall Shepherd
A leading global expert on weather and climate, Dr. Shepherd is the Director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program and Full Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia.
Dr. Shepherd’s work in the climate and weather space is widely recognized. He’s lent his expertise to major institutes such as NASA, NOAA, and even Congress, and often contributes to national media outlets like CNN, CBS, and Forbes. Dr. Shepherd also hosts Weather Geeks, The Weather Channel’s Award-Winning weekly podcast.
8. Eric Blake
A senior hurricane researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Eric Blake has studied atmospheric changes for two decades, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Louisiana at Monroe and Colorado State University, respectively.
In his efforts to promote hurricane awareness and preparedness, Eric teaches FEMA, NWS, and WMO courses at the NHC, focusing on hurricane-related dangers. He regularly presents and participates in national meteorological meetings, including the American Meteorological Society’s 34th Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology Conference, where he serves as the program chair.
9. Angela Fritz
A meteorologist with an M.S. in Earth and Atmospheric Science from Georgia Tech, Angela Fritz strongly advocates for data-driven decision-making integrated with weather and climate forecasting.
As Senior Editor of Climate at CNN (and former deputy editor at The Washington Post), Angela works tirelessly to promote awareness regarding impactful global climate changes on public health, economy, weather prediction, and more.
10. Jen Carfagno
Jennifer Carfagno is co-host of America’s Morning Headquarters, a daily TV program on The Weather Channel, where she started her career over two decades ago as an intern while completing her Meteorology B.S. degree at Penn State.
Jen maintains a strong online presence, and her Twitter feed provides an excellent source for information regarding climate, weather, and other environmental topics.
11. Michael Lowry
Michael Lowry is a strategic planner at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. An atmospheric scientist with a true passion for climate, Michael has also worked for the National Hurricane Center, The Weather Channel, and even the US Department of Defense, where he worked on transport and dispersion modeling.
12. Ginger Zee
Ginger Zee is the Chief Meteorologist at ABC News and a graduate of the Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Program directed by the American Meteorological Society. She also hosts ‘Heart of Heroes’, a TV program showcasing incredible rescue and survival stories in the face of natural disasters and extreme weather events.
Ginger is also the author of the Disney-published Chasing Helicity Middle-Grade book series, which promotes a better understanding of the science behind weather and climate among young readers.
13. Jim Cantore
Part of The Weather Channel for over 35 years, Jim Cantore is a famous on-air personality for all things weather.
A Certified Broadcast Meteorologist and member of the American Meteorological Society, Jim is a self-professed weather geek, with a deep passion for reporting on a variety of environmental topics related to climate change and extreme weather.
14. Eric Holthaus
A former columnist for Slate Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, Eric Holthaus has championed climate change reporting for over a decade, originally coming to some prominence through his writing on 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.
Dubbed the ‘rebel nerd of meteorology’ by Rolling Stone magazine, Eric continuously strives to promote climate change awareness. He authored the speculative journalism book ‘The Future Earth’, launched The Phoenix newsletter and the ‘Warm Regards’ podcast, and famously even gave up flying in an effort to do his part in the fight against the global climate problem.
15. Tom Niziol
Tom Niziol spent a 32-year career at The Weather Channel as a forecaster and science & operations officer, and as a senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service Buffalo office.
Tom has also helped educate future meteorologists via the COMET Program, a global education & training initiative for environmental sciences focusing on progressing and creating new scientific and instructional products and services.
16. Stephanie Abrams
Stephanie Abrams has worked as an on-air meteorologist for The Weather Channel since 2003. She is currently part of America’s Morning Headquarters trio of co-hosts, alongside Jen Carfagno and Jim Cantore (also on our list).
Stephanie is a National Weather Association member and former president of the North Florida chapter of the American Meteorological Society.
17. Nate Johnson
Nate Johnson is 2021’s president of the National Weather Association and serves as Director of Weather Operations for TV stations owned and operated by NBC Universal.
Nate has worked as a meteorologist and executive producer of multiple weather broadcasting programs for almost two decades, earning numerous awards, including a regional Emmy, from a variety of TV, radio, and science news associations.
18. Andrew Freedman
As a climate & energy report for Axios and former editor for the Capital Weather Gang at The Washington Post, Andrew maintains a strong online voice covering scientific research, policies, and environmental topics related to climate change.
19. Zack Labe
Zack Labe is a climate scientist working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Atmospheric Science of Colorado State University.
As part of his research, Zack seeks to model emerging climate trends in seasonal transition periods, as well as evaluate and chart the impact of sea ice loss and Arctic warming on mid-latitude extreme weather events.
20. Josh Morgerman
A self-proclaimed hurricane chaser, Josh Morgerman and his iCyclone storm chasing team provide highly valuable weather data and insights by ‘punching through’ extreme storm events to record atmospheric pressure and document the experience.
Josh and the iCyclone team, which operates in North America, East Asia, and even Australia, have seen their collected data utilized by the National Hurricane Center on multiple occasions. The team has received funding from multiple media companies such as CBS, the Weather Channel, and WeatherNation.
Update!
We asked – you answered! Thanks to the fantastic engagement with our previous post, we now bring you 20 more leading weather and climate voices worth following (and listening to) in 2021:
21. Jeff Berardelli
Jeff Berardelli is a meteorologist and climate specialist with a Television career spanning over 25 years, making him one of the most experienced voices in his field.
A contributor to CBSNews since 2003, Jeff’s extreme weather reports and predictions have helped promote climate change awareness and highlight its massive impact across the globe.
22. Dr. Kim Wood
An assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University, Dr. Kim Wood, having earned a Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Arizona, serves as an invaluable part of the local meteorology team, specializing in tropical meteorology.
Dr. Kim’s participation in field campaigns, international workshops, and her published research on tropical cyclones’ impact, provide her with a highly experienced viewpoint on all things climate. She is currently researching further impacts and tropical-extratropical interaction events related to climatology.
23. Bernadette Woods Placky
An Emmy-winning meteorologist, Bernadette is Chief Meteorologist and Program Director of Climate Matters at Climate Central, where she works with meteorologists from across the US to provide scientific resources and data on climate change and weather.
Having spent a decade as a TV weather forecaster, appearing on national and local broadcasts, Bernadette possesses a highly effective ability to communicate complex climate information and extreme weather impact.
24. Jack Sillin
A self-professed ‘weather geek’, Jack Sillin has been blogging about the weather since 2011, and his passion for the field certainly comes through in his TV appearances and writings.
An atmospheric science student at Cornell University, Jack is a great communicator, providing in-depth analysis of ongoing atmospheric events in visualized, highly digestible forms.
25. Sean Sublette
With 19 years as a broadcast meteorologist, Sean Sublette brings an extremely experienced perspective. Sean has worked as Chief Meteorologist for a number of TV stations and has served on the American Meteorological Society’s Distinguished Science Journalism Award Committee.
Sean currently works for the Climate Central organization, surveying and researching different climate changes and their impact and communicating the key findings to the public.
26. Kaylan Patel
While still attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison to study Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, Kaylan Patel’s passion for meteorology was ignited in childhood. A promising up-and-coming meteorologist, Kaylan already Tweets his analyzed forecasts and well-researched opinions on a variety of climate and weather topics regularly.
Kalyan has also already started experimenting with future models on climate and extreme weather trends and events, which he sometimes analyzes in-depth via his blog.
27. Brian McNoldy
Former intern at NASA in the late 90s, Brian has since earned a Master’s degree in atmospheric science at Colorado State University and spent a decade working as a researcher at its Department of Atmospheric Science. He currently works as a Senior Research Associate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
Having started his Tropical Atlantic Update blog over 20 years ago, Brian McNoldy offers an experienced and highly informative perspective on climate changes and extreme weather events. He’s contributed to the New York Times and serves as the tropical weather expert for The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang.
28. Dr. Kim Cobb
Dr. Cobb is the director of the Global Change Program and a professor of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech University. An award-winning climatologist and member of the American Association of Advancement of Science Climate Science Panel, Dr. Cobb continuously advocates for community outreach and promoting climate change awareness.
Dr. Cobb has testified before the House Committee on Natural Resources for the “Climate Change: Impacts and the Need to Act” hearing, and even appeared on Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously documentary. She is a highly trusted source of climate information with a passion for inspiring others.
29. Ed Hawkins
Ed Hawkins is a professor of climate change within the National Center For Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Reading, and a lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ed also created the viral ‘climate spiral’ and ‘warming stripes’ visualizations representing the severity and impending nature of climate change.
Having been awarded the RMetS Climate Communication Prize, the Royal Society Kavli Medal, and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his climate science and science communication work, Ed is one of the UK’s leading experts in this field.
30. Dr. Sam Burgess
Another one of England’s top climate experts and partner to no.29 on our list, Dr. Burgess is the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service and has worked as a scientific advisor and research director as well as head of policy in government and the private sector.
Dr. Burgess’ diverse research experience includes paleoclimatology, global fisheries, and ocean ecosystems, as well as work as a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, making her a unique source of knowledge in multiple avenues.
31. Dr. Daniel Swain
A climate scientist in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, Dr. Swain also works as the California Climate Fellow at The Nature Conservancy of California and a Research Fellow in the Capacity Center for Climate and Weather Extremes at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Dr. Swain’s website serves as an excellent outlet for his highly researched climate and weather reports and articles, highlighting atmospheric changes, impacts, and benefits of different weather events, and making him one of the field’s leading thought leaders.
32. Tammie Souza
A multiple Emmy award-winning broadcast meteorologist and a trained storm chaser. She holds the prestigious AMS/CBM Certified Broadcast Meteorology Seal of Approval from the American Meteorological Society as well as the NWA Seal of Approval from the National Weather Association.
During her time at WMAQ in Chicago, Tammie led community-centered meteorology practices, recruiting viewers as “weather watchers” to provide temperature and rainfall information. With over 16 years of experience delivering the weather, Tammie Souza has an incredibly well-versed perspective on the world of climate and weather.
33. Dr. Levi Cowan
Tracking tropical cyclones since 2002, Dr. Cowan operates the Tropical Tidbits website where he communicates up-to-date climate and weather information to the public and discusses Atlantic tropical forecasts.
Dr. Cowan has earned a Ph.D. in meteorology from Florida State University and currently works as Senior Scientist at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
34. Nikhil Trivedi
Having been fascinated with climate and the weather for as long as he can remember, Nikhil Trivedi is undoubtedly a member of the ‘next generation of meteorology’ and represents one of the most diligent future voices in this field.
Although still in High School, Nikhil has already followed and reported on some of the biggest storms in the past decade, including 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, The Blizzard of 2016, and Hurricane Irma in 2017, which ignited his interest in atmospheric processes and changes. He provides forecasts and analysis on all types of extreme weather via Twitter and his Website.
35. John Morales
John Morales is Chief Meteorologist for NBC’s Miami station WTVJ NBC-6 and has been certified by the American Meteorological Society, from which he has earned the 2007 Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied Meteorology. John also holds the AMS and National Weather Association Seal of Approval for Radio and TV Weathercasting.
The longest-tenured broadcast meteorologist in South Florida and a multiple award-winning weather presenter, John Morales has been delivering the weather to audiences for almost three decades and is one of the top climate communicators working today. John also participates in multiple South Florida non-profits and serves as a mentor to young up-and-coming scientists.
36. Peter Kalmus
Peter Kalmus earned a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University and a BA in physics from Harvard. He currently works as a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, where he uses satellite data and Earth models to study biodiversity, stratocumulus clouds, and extreme weather events.
Passionate about reducing carbon footprints in an effort to mitigate global warming, Peter offers real-life solutions that can be implemented daily, many of which can be found in his award-winning book, Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution.
37. Jen Henderson
Jen Henderson is an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, as well as a research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Jen is a fantastic information source for learning about risk and uncertainty in extreme weather and climate-related decision-making processes. Working with weather and climate prediction experts as well as federal and local agencies, she seeks to promote policy changes, improve warning systems, and enhance knowledge about environmental issues with cascading impacts on vulnerable communities.
38. Cristopher Cace
An enthusiastic storm chaser, Cristopher Cace passionately contributes to the Mobile Weather Office with his weather photography work, which provides vivid imagery of such extreme weather phenomena.
As a trained NWS Skywarn Storm Spotter, Cris practices community weather reporting by warning of impending storms and other extreme weather events to promote public awareness and alert, especially in times of need.
39. Philippe Papin
Philippe Papin is an atmospheric scientist with a P.h.D from the University at Albany and has won the Bernard Vonnegut Teaching Award as well as the National Research Council Postdoctoral Scholarship, which lead to his work at the Naval Research Laboratory.
Since 2020, Philippe has worked for the National Hurricane Center division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where he covers tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Having authored many peer-reviewed scientific articles, Philippe is an excellent source of information, sharing guidance dedicated to climate and weather forecasting and research on Twitter and his website.
40. Brian Brettschneider
Brian Brettschneider is a climate scientist operating out of Anchorage Alaska, where he conducts climate research at the International Arctic Research Center and contributes weather and climate-related science reports to the Alaska Public Media Network.
Brian is a highly sought-after resource for station-based climate data within the North American region. He has written articles for Forbes magazine and shares detailed breakdowns of climate and weather events on his blog.
