An interview with Dr Greg Forbes, Weather Channel severe weather expert

February 23, 2:00 PMDenver Weather ExaminerTony Hake

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Dr. Greg Forbes, the Weather Channel's severe weather
expert, has had an impressive career spanning more than
30 years studying and predicting severe weather.
(The Weather Channel)

If you have watched the Weather Channel during coverage of a hurricane or tornado, you have almost certainly seen Dr. Greg Forbes, their severe weather expert.  With a career that has spanned more than 30 years and taken him across the globe, Dr. Forbes is one of the nation’s preeminent experts on severe weather. 

An interest in meteorology that was sparked in 7th grade led to a B.S. in Meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University.  From there, Dr. Forbes received his master’s and doctorate at the University of Chicago where he had the extraordinary opportunity to study under Dr. Theodore Fujita, creator of the Fujita scale for rating tornadoes.  As a researcher he has studied thunderstorm winds, lightning, tornadoes and even the ozone layer.  In the classroom he was an educator at Penn State for more than 20 years until joining the Weather Channel in 1999.  Forbes was part of a team that developed the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which became operational in 2007.

Dr. Forbes recently lectured about severe weather forcasting
at the National Storm Chaser Convention in Denver.

I recently had the opportunity to meet Dr. Forbes at the National Storm Chasers Convention here in Denver where he taught seminars on severe weather forecasting.  More than that, he actively engaged with attendees one-on-one by answering innumerable questions about everything from forecasting to TV production. 

In an Examiner.com exclusive, I was able to interview Dr. Forbes and gain some extraordinary insight into the man who millions turn to when severe weather strikes.  Of his body of work and expansive career, Dr. Forbes is naturally proud of all he has accomplished.  He noted, “helping people learn more about the weather, how it works, and how to deal with it,” is one thing he is particularly proud of.  Research, of course, has played a key role in his career as well and his participation as a forecaster for numerous field projects and his work on a NASA project in Sweden to measure the Northern Hemisphere ozone layer. 

I was temporarily in the Netherlands and a weak tornado went right through my backyard just outside the window where I was cooking lunch, knocking down a tree.
- Dr. Greg Forbes in describing a close encounter with a twister

While his studies and research have taken him across the globe, he has been fortunate to have escaped direct contact with the target of his work – severe weather.  Hurricane Erin did force him to evacuate the Kennedy Space Center in 1995 and hail and high winds from a bow echo in Illinois certainly were attention grabbers.  In an amusing anecdote, Dr. Forbes described his encounter with a tornado.  “I was temporarily in the Netherlands and a weak tornado went right through my backyard just outside the window where I was cooking lunch, knocking down a tree,” he said. 

Seen here during coverage of Hurricane Dolly in July
2008, millions of viewers count on Dr. Greg Forbes (left) for
the latest news when severe weather strikes. 
(The Weather Channel)

As an on-air weathercaster for the Weather Channel, Dr. Forbes has the awesome responsibility of warning residents of impending dangers.  Obviously he is keenly aware of the potential for destruction and loss of life when severe weather strikes but he also knows his primary job is to save lives by providing time-critical information.  “I don’t think that meteorologists can allow themselves to get too emotionally involved or they won’t be able to do their job efficiently during a crisis,” he said. 

With that however, Dr. Forbes shared one time when he did have a difficult time being live on air as a dangerous weather situation developed.  On the evening of May 4, 2007, all eyes at the Weather Channel were focused on an area in south central Kansas.  A supercell thunderstorm was developing and growing at an alarming rate as Dr. Forbes watched on the Weather Channel radar.  Greensburg, Kansas was going to be ground zero. 

Paul Goodloe asked me something like what advice I had for people there, and I almost choked up.  I wanted to say that people should pray. 
- Dr. Greg Forbes on monitoring the EF5 tornado that struck Greensburg, Kansas in May 2007

Dr. Forbes said, “Then a bright donut of high radar returns (debris) showed up and reports of damage came in.  It was pretty clear that something very bad had just happened.  I mentioned on air that reports were now in of damage in Greensburg.  Paul Goodloe asked me something like what advice I had for people there, and I almost choked up.  I wanted to say that people should pray.  What I did say was something like that people farther to the northeast should take shelter, as there could still be dangerous tornadoes.”

Dr. Forbes was on the air when an F5 tornado destroyed
the town of Greensburg, Kansas. (AP Photo)

An EF5 tornado more than a mile and a half wide with winds of 205mph struck Greensburg at 9:45pm local time.  Ninety-five percent of the town was completely destroyed from the twister and 14 lives were lost in Kansas during the deadly outbreak.  Tornado warning sirens in Greensburg sounded 20 minutes before the twister struck and it is no doubt due to the efforts of weathercasters like Dr. Forbes that the death toll wasn’t any higher. 

Technology plays a tremendous role in the ability of weathercasters to get out early warnings as they were able to with the Greensburg tornado.  As Dr. Forbes says, “Doppler radar has certainly been the biggest help toward detection and warning of severe weather. “  He also points to increased computer power and a greater knowledge of forecasting parameters like CAPE and low-level helicity.  “Further advances in computer power and more advanced weather radars (dual polarization and faster update rates) will help improve our ability to forecast severe weather," Dr. Forbes said. 

The debate over anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is of course a hot topic amongst climatologists and meteorologists.  I was curious to get Dr. Forbes’ opinion on the topic given his incredible array of experience spanning the globe and monitoring the climate and weather.  He points out, “Carbon dioxide records pretty clearly show that the levels in the atmosphere have been rising strongly.  With the dramatic increases in global population and uses of fossil fuels, it only makes sense that some of that increase is from human activity.” 

While at the Storm Chaser Convention, he indicated some of the severe weather he had monitored lately gave him pause and made him wonder if manmade climate change was responsible.  In closing our interview I asked him about his comments and he responded, “The number of cool-season strong tornadoes in the past 10 years or so, in areas where they used to be rare or unprecedented, makes me concerned that this might be a symptom of global warming’s effects on severe storm climatology.”