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For TV meteorologists and area residents Sue Palka, Tom Kierein and Topper
Shutt, predicting snow is the most stressful—and exhilarating—part of their
jobs
By Michael S. Gerber
Fox 5 chief meteorologist Sue Palka still sounds sorrowful when she talks
about Nov. 11, 1987—the day she didn’t see a blizzard coming. The weather
had been warm, but a cold front was on its way. Still, no one could imagine
that a blizzard would hit just days after an Indian summer. Palka predicted
“enough snow to whiten the grass north and west of town,” she recalls. The
next day heavy snow and winds pounded the area. Accumulations in some parts
totaled 18 inches. “It was a terrible feeling,” says Palka, who has lived
in the Kentlands for 12 years. “I was just sick about it. I felt personally
responsible.”
For Palka and two other popular TV weathermen who live in Montgomery County,
Channel 4’s Tom Kierein and Channel 9’s Topper Shutt, winter is the busiest
time—and the most stressful. They know that if they get a winter forecast
wrong, it can affect the lives—and maybe the well-being—of millions of people.
Ratings for local weather reports during snowstorms approach Super Bowl numbers,
says Palka. “Even now I’m surprised at what a general panic it causes,” Palka
says.
When snow is in the forecast, Palka lays low. “I won’t go anywhere near a
grocery store,” she says. Otherwise, she has to face a myriad of questions
about the weather—How much snow? Has the forecast changed since her last broadcast?
How come she predicted 4 to 6 inches and one back yard had 7?
In the winter, it seems, Palka can’t please people. If she predicts snow,
and it doesn’t happen, they’ll be disappointed. “My theory on that is that
they’re rooting for a breakdown in their schedule,” she says. “When it doesn’t
happen, they’re deeply disappointed, and they blame us. [But] the biggest
sin, of course, is if it’s not forecast, and we get it.”
“I’m always the most stressed with a snow forecast,” she adds—and not just
because she has the difficult task of predicting Mother Nature’s next move.
Palka also has to keep her bosses from getting carried away when snow looms
on the horizon. “They tend to promote it a lot. They’ve gotta drive people
to the show.”
“Once in a while I’ll get stopped in the supermarket and they’ll say, ‘You
really blew it,’” says Kierein, who recently moved to Etchison in northern
Montgomery County after several years in downtown Bethesda. Despite the challenge,
he and Shutt agree that they enjoy their jobs most during the winter. Palka
says hurricane season gets her adrenaline going, but she knows that snow season
is when she earns her keep.
Even though they know they have many more viewers, Palka, Kierein and Shutt
approach a snowstorm in much the same way as they would a beautiful summer
day. Each forecaster makes his or her own prediction, based on data and models
provided by the National Weather Service. Shutt sometimes compares it to what
his colleagues on the Channel 9 weather team think, but rarely gets a chance
to see what the other stations are predicting.
“I like it that way,” says Shutt. He prefers to make his forecast with little
influence besides the data. After all, that’s why he went back to school at
the University of Tennessee and University of North Carolina at Asheville
to study meteorology. “Not to say the people in the [Channel 9] newsroom don’t
watch [other channels].” They’re eager to point out when Shutt predicts 4
to 6 inches and another channel goes with 4 to 8.
“It’s not an auction,” he tells them. “We’re going 4 to 6 for a reason. The
highest bid doesn’t win.”
Kierein, who does morning duty at Channel 4, faces the same interrogations
from colleagues at Channel 4. “I just say, ‘We’ll see tomorrow,’” he says.
Palka, Shutt and Kierein know how important the forecast can be for parents.
Kierein has three grown daughters, and when they were in school it was not
uncommon for one of them to ask for snow when she had a test in school the
next day. But he can’t let any outside influence or wishful thinking interfere
with his forecast; his credibility is being judged anew every time he makes
a forecast.
“It’s my reputation that’s on the line,” he says.
For Palka, it’s not hard to avoid supermarkets when a snowstorm is forecast.
That’s when she puts in the most hours—and the most strenuous ones. At Fox
5, the weather team calls the biggest storms “hotel snows,” because team members
stay in a nearby hotel. “We love hotel snows, because we have a lot of fun,”
she says, although “it’s really old after two days.”
“I’ve only been sledding with my children once,” says Shutt, 46, who has
daughters in the fourth, seventh and ninth grades. But the Landon School graduate
relishes the winter weather. He reminisces about snowstorms the way others
talk about Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. He remembers exactly where
he was when the blizzard of ’78 rolled into town: economics class at Trinity
College in Hartford. “When it snowed I wouldn’t go to sleep,” he says of his
college days. “I just happen to think falling snow is pretty cool stuff.”
It’s stressful stuff, too. Not only do people expect him to predict the weather
perfectly, they also seem to expect him to control it. “Thanks so much for
making my wedding day perfect,” a viewer wrote in a September e-mail. It works
the other way, too. In early 2001 some forecasters were predicting a major
snow in the area. Shutt, who refuses to predict how much snow we will receive
until about 24 hours before a storm, remembers that just before the system
arrived, changing conditions made for less snow than originally thought. His
forecast predicted the lesser amount. “Guess what I received?” he asks. “Hate
e-mails.”
Part of the problem is that viewers can’t remember which weatherman said
what. They also don’t realize that even the meteorologists admit they can’t
predict exact temperatures or inches of precipitation several days in advance.
The different climate zones within the viewing area present another challenge—sometimes
it’s snowing in Rockville and raining in Alexandria.
“It is probably more difficult [in this region] because the continental air
masses clash with the marine air masses,” Kierein says. “It’s a battle.”
Shutt wishes his viewers understood just how difficult predicting the weather
can be. In some ways, modern technology has made his job more challenging.
The 2001 snowstorm that never really materialized in Washington serves as
a prime example. Modern forecasting tools allow meteorologists to warn viewers
days in advance that a storm may be coming, which just gives the storm more
time to alter its course or fall apart completely.
“Had it been 10 to 15 years earlier,” Shutt says of that storm, “we wouldn’t
have even seen it coming.” By the time he would have warned viewers about
it then, he would’ve known exactly where it was headed.
Shutt says viewers are most aware in the winter when TV weathermen get the
forecast wrong, but that he and his colleagues take their jobs just as seriously
during a summer heat wave. “If we go 90 [degrees] and [the forecast is] 85,
I’m beating myself up,” he says. “We’re our hardest critics.”
Michael S. Gerber is a Bethesda writer.
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