Welcome to my first blog entry!
I have to admit that I have never blogged before but have always been interested in doing so.
What better subject to blog about than the weather?
There is little that a person can do in everyday life that doesn’t take our weather into account.
I wanted to use this blog as an opportunity to not only extend my weather duties at WETM-TV but to also talk about weather phenomena, severe weather across the country and here at home, and anything that anyone wants to know I will be more than happy to blog about it. Remember the sky is the limit!
I felt it would be fitting to use this first entry to talk a little about myself. I have been interested in the weather for as long as I can remember. I think the word interested is a bit of an understatement, obsessed is probably more accurate. As a young child I can remember numerous occasions when severe weather would be taking place and instead of being scared I was intrigued. It could be severe thunderstorms, hail, winds, or even the threat for tornadoes; if people were running to safety you could bet I was running to the window to see it all happening.
I was too young at that time to realize that I was going to be a meteorologist. When I was eleven years old I had a life changing experience that lead me on the path to predicting the weather, and that experience was watching the movie “Twister”. It was after seeing this movie that I realized that my interest in the weather was instead my life long passion. The movie that I have seen now over 200 times was now the catalyst for the dreams I would pursue.
I went to college at SUNY Oswego and jumped into the world of meteorology. It hardly felt like a chore to read book after book of every weather feature you could ever imagine. Yet as I entered my last year of college I was unsure of what I was going to do with this degree and felt like something was missing from the whole experience. That’s when I was approached by one of my professors about the opportunity to live out my greatest dream, chasing tornadoes.
I was part of the first time team of students from SUNY Oswego to enroll in a storm chasing course at the college. I spent three weeks learning about tornadoes and chasing them across numerous states and over 8000 miles! When I returned from the trip I worked at an internship at WSTM in Syracuse. It would be that internship that would turn into my first TV gig and eventually lead me to Elmira.
Now that I am here in the Twin Tiers I can spend everyday watching the weather and doing what I love. If you think the weather stops when I leave the station you would be wrong. I am engaged to a meteorologist and fellow weather junkie Matt Szwejbka who worked at WETM-TV prior to my arrival. So weather seems to follow me where ever I go and I just love it.
I hope you enjoy my blog and follow all of the really cool weather phenomena I will be blogging about. Feel free to email me any questions you might have at vrichards@wetmtv.com. Remember to keep an eye to the sky and in any situation, the sky is the limit!
