'It was obvious that Andrew was going to be an intense hurricane,' he said. During the 48 hours that Andrew approached, John did nearly 30 weather cut-ins and newscasts. He was the main on-air weather anchor as Hurricane Andrew first turned toward Florida and then toward Miami in 1992. John later took on a position as chief meteorologist at another Jacksonville television station before joining WFTV in Orlando, Fla., as the only meteorologist on staff. He then applied for and received the AMS seal of approval in 1987. The experience was enough for John to land his first on-air job as chief meteorologist at WOLO television in Columbia, S.C. 'The hours were numerous and the pay wasn't much, but it was a great experience.' 'It was quite an honor to work for Bob and WRC while attending school,' he said. He worked full-time during the summers in Ocean City, Md., and during the school year as a weather graphics producer for Bob Ryan (who later became the President of the American Meteorological Society) at WRC-TV in Washington. 'Oh well! I really learned a lot about the Earth's climate though!'Ĭollege was a busy time for John, who attended the University of Maryland.

'I would have won if I had found a stronger correlation between the two, but the data showed only a slight correlation, and in scientific research that happens most of the time,' he said. As part of his advanced science class, he produced a research project on 'the possible correlation between the location of the late summer subtropical high pressure ridge over the western Atlantic Ocean and winter weather patterns over the eastern United States.'Īfter completing the two-year research project, he entered his work in the prestigious Westinghouse-Baltimore Science Fair, where he received four awards, including an honorable mention. In high school, John concentrated in science and math. Living in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, he loved writing about and forecasting snowstorms. He wrote it in pencil and used crayons to draw the pictures. Television may have been a beginning, but it was reading about the weather and then writing his first weather book that consumed his early childhood. When he was 3 years old, his mother would place him in front of the television so that he could watch the weather portion of the newscast. This is how John Gaughan describes his passion for meteorology.

Channel 4 weatherman