Latest / Atmosphere with Emily Gracey / Weather Myths: What's Fact, What's Fiction?

Transcript

Weather Myths: What's Fact, What's Fiction? · Atmosphere with Emily Gracey

• Emily Gracey: Weather myths and misconceptions. They run deep, pass down from generation to generation. Sometimes they're harmless, a way to make light of a scary situation. I mean, how many of us grew up believing the gods were bowling every time a thunderstorm rolled through? But sometimes these myths can be dangerous. Misinformation that leads to bad decisions. This week on Atmosphere, my friend and fellow meteorologist Anthony Yanes joins me to bust some of the biggest weather myths we've heard in our combined decades on television. From lightning lies. Nobody gets this right. Everybody thinks you can't get struck twice. To earthquake errors. And I remember somebody telling me one time, and they were like, uh-oh, you know what this means? I'm like, what? This means that we're gonna get the big one. To flood folklore. Well, we just had a a hundred year flood and we're good for another 99 years. After decades of school visits, viewer calls, and emails, we're finally tackling the myths we hear over and over. I did a deep dive on that because I heard the same thing. The meteorological misunderstandings that might actually surprise you. Technically, for a meteorologist, probability means something completely different. I think that throws everybody for a loop. And along the way, even I picked up something new. This is real. This is real. Real scientific thing. And and I get this a lot in my job. We're separating fact from fiction and figuring out why we make this stuff up in the first place. We do not as human beings like uncertainty. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie, and this is Atmosphere, a podcast where science becomes conversation. Each week I sit down with the experts behind the forecasts, the research, and the headlines to explore not just the science, but the human stories behind it. Through natural curiosity, we're making science more understandable, more relatable, and hopefully bringing a little more comfort in how we experience the world around us. Anthony Giannis, I'm so excited. This has been a long time coming, I feel like. I've always told you how much I love your podcast. and so to be able to be on it is awesome for me. So this is a great day because I get to talk to you because I always wanted to, but we hear we're different companies and you're like, I can only talk to my my peeps. And I'm like, Well, hopefully one day I I can be that person, and that's today. Yes. And I think it's fair to say that like with off the radar, you might have been maybe like the number one fan of the show. Like every week as soon as it came out, I got a text from you with like your critique of the show, good and bad, every week. And I and ever since atmosphere has started, I'm getting the same. So I appreciate always your feedback. I I trust you and I respect you as a meteorologist and a science communicator. So it means a lot to me to have your support. Yeah. Well, well, what I always what I love about this podcast is how curious you are. Because I think other people might come into this and say it's just going to be a weather podcast and I'm going to just reach out and talk to these people. but what I love and what makes your podcast different is you're curious. So your questions come at a different angle than I think most people or most meteorologists would. And so it makes it more interesting to me. And it's funny. So I I'm always laughing out loud at certain things, like the way you'll ask a question and the way someone responds. I that makes it real genuine, and that's why I love this. Well, I genuinely don't know the answers. So I think that's where the curiosity comes from is that I don't have all the answers by any means. So this is great. I get I feel like I'm getting like a higher education just from bringing on guests that know more than me. And I actually I include you in one of those guests. I know we have like the same level of education, but You're one of like the smartest meteorologists I know. And I might even like verge on saying like weather nerd because you're that guy at conferences that's like going up and down the poster section and reading every single poster while everybody else is over getting cookies and coffee. Like you are asking the students questions about their posters. So Well you know what's fun so what's funny about that, and I guess maybe this is our similarity, is I don't feel like I'm very smart. So I always try to learn. And so when I'm looking at those, I'm like, okay, how is this? And maybe it's selfish. How is this poster going to benefit me and my job? And so though we did this tornado study on Texas. And I'm like, wait, tell me about this because we get tornadoes where we are in Southeast Texas. So I'm always trying to learn. And that again, I think there are a lot of meteorologists, and this is The compliment to you who think they know it all. And I've met a few of those, yeah. I've worked with a few. You lose the curiosity. Arrogant meteorologists. What are talking about? You're right. You lose the curiosity. You've got to, you've got to be a little vulnerable and admit what you don't know, and that's where you learn. So I love that. And I appreciate that about you. But I want I want to give our audience a little bit of a background on you too and how you got into this. You are the chief meteorologist, correct? At KPRC in Houston. And you've been there for a little while now, but this is like your second round at this station. Is that right? Right. So I started in let's see 2003, July 15th, 2003 was my first day here at work in Houston, coming from Albuquerque, New Mexico. And on that day, Hurricane Claudette, a category one hurricane, was hitting Galveston in Houston. So my first day at work that I'm supposed to be doing HR and Filling out paperwork. We are on the air from 9 to 6 p.m. nonstop, covering a hurricane. And the at the time, the chief meteorologist Frank Billingsley looks over at me and says, Don't worry, Anthony, not every day is like this. but that was my baptism into Houston, Texas. I was in Houston for 11 and a half years, and I had just a wonderful opportunity to work in Los Angeles at the NBC station. KMBC or MBC LA. I did that for six and a half years. And then the opportunity to come back home. All of our our kids were born here in Houston, had the opportunity to come back home and potentially grow in in in the job. And so I jumped on that. And so now I've been here almost four years and have been the chief for two years now. Where are you from? Where'd you grow up? Albuquerque, New Mexico. So that was my first job at KRQE, the CBS affiliate there. So I went right out of college from the University of New Mexico to working, actually starting in sports. And I have a journalism degree. So I actually don't have a meteorology degree. so I'm one of those dreaded AMS seal old seal holders, because I actually have a journalism degree. And that's why I think my forecasts are a little different because I look at the forecast more as a story. What is the essential message? and so I did news. I was a news reporter, news anchor. And then one day my boss came up to me, he said, I think you have a better personality for weather, so we're gonna move you to the weather department. So I had to go to Mississippi State, which offered an online meteorology training program, got my certificate, and the rest is history. That's been more than twenty years now. Wow. Well, you know, it's funny because you say you're one of those that doesn't have the meteorology degree, but I think, you know, having that story storytelling aspect may be just as powerful. Like there's the there was that kind of like transition at some point where telling that weather story is just as important as like the forecast itself. So I think the world needs both of those, and it sounds like you have a balance of the two. And you think about the old days before the internet when people could only get Current temperatures could only get an hour by hour forecast, could only get a seven-day forecast on television. That was it. And back in those days, I'm like, I'm bored. I mean, I can't, I, I, I can't do this job if that's what I'm doing. So I always tried to find what was interesting to talk about. So I've been doing what I'm doing now back in those television times. and and now, as you mentioned, now the internet's here, we have. We can get current temperatures, we can get hour by hours, we can get a 10-day forecast on our phone. All of us now are having to change our presentation to make it what can we give them that's not on the app? Mm-hmm. A hundred percent. Yep. Seven-day forecasts have kind of lost their value in a TV broadcast these days. okay. Well, one thing that you do well that I have noticed over the years is talking to children. And I know you have like 15 kids yourself, but also you go into schools. And you talk to kids all the time. How many kids do you have? We have five. I have five. Not 15, but five. okay. But you you do these school talks and I am guessing, because I've done many school talks myself, you get a lot of kids asking some kind of wild questions, but some of these kids kind of grow up believing these things as well. Cause I talk to adults that kind of ask these same questions, and I'm still shocked. At the amount of misinformation that's out there, not just when it comes to like, you know, current forecasts, but like weather knowledge in general. So I thought you were the perfect person today to join me to kind of break down some of these myths and misconceptions. And I know we've both been like compiling our lists. Mine was like two and yours was like 200. But and only because, you know, when I go to schools, especially because for school visits, the important thing is weather safety and it's Don't play in flooded roads. we had somebody just two weeks ago, a teen pass away because him and his group were playing in in flooded roadways. And these are just tragedies that happen. And so I always say, hey, listen, and I'm getting these kids young. So I'm like, hey, here's how you stay safe in storms. And one of the things is thunderstorms, because thunderstorms are a lot more common than what we as meteorologists say severe weather is, which would be hail, size of a quarter, winds. Yeah, 60 miles per hour or tornado forming. Most of the time you get heavy rain and lightning. And those are the two greatest threats for for people where we live here in Houston. And so for kids, I'm talking to them and they have so many kind of old thoughts on lightning and lightning safety. And it's, you know, it's hard. You're talking to like a third or a fourth grader, like, no, you're wrong. That's not how it is. Sometimes they're a little arrogant. They need to be put in their place, though, right? I mean My own kids are like that. Like they think they're really right all the time. So that's funny. yeah. Yeah. And you'll have a kid who'll come at you like, I know this. I know this about lightning that as long as I'm not wearing anything shiny, I won't get hit by lightning. And I'm like, if you're outside during a thunderstorm and if the lightning is gonna hit you, I mean the odds are it's not, but if it's gonna hit you, it's not gonna hit you because you're not wearing something shiny. Or I have rubber shoes on. You know, I learned that if I have rubber shoes on, I'm gonna be safe if I get hit by lightning. And I actually have a photo in my presentation. I'm like, well, here's what happens to rubber shoes and a lightning strike. And the kids are all, and and then the kid is humbled for a little bit, realizing, okay, well, I guess I should listen to you and be either inside my house, inside a school, or inside a vehicle when there's lightning around. Mm-hmm. And you know, I think the science keeps changing too with safety. And so there there are some like things that maybe were being told 30 years ago that just aren't right anymore. And I learned one of them at a at an AMS conference. We have our American Meteorological Society's broadcast conference every year. And there's a lightning safety expert that comes out every year and does a talk. And he was talking about life lightning safety and When I was a kid, we were always taught to like crouch in a ball because the smaller you are, the or get down low and crouch in a ball if you're in a lightning storm. And he was like, do not do that. This that is like outdated information. Do not do that. You need to run as fast as you can to get inside. So that is one of those misconceptions I think is still out there. I I taught that. I mean, literally 10 years ago, I was the one saying, Hey, if you're outside and you see lightning or hear thunder, you know, and your hair starts standing up because of the static electricity, you get down this ball. And then at that AMS conference, John Jinsenius. And he said that and I and I then I was at that point the third grade kid feeling. I'm like, I'm so stupid. I've been telling all these kids that this is what you're supposed to do. And he really emphasized it, no, there's lightning, thunder, run. Get inside. That's the only safe place. Don't get down in a ball. Yeah. Literally run for and it was one of those where all the meteorologists in the room were kind of looking at each other like, I didn't know that. Did you know that? It was kind of new information. Okay. So let's stick with lightning. Another one, I would say the one that I hear the most from both children and adults. And I heard it the other day, and that's what made me think of this. Is When determining the distance a lightning strike is away from you. When we were kids, we were taught just count and however many seconds it is, that's however many miles it is. But then I grow up and I go to college and I learn about weather, and it turns out that's wrong information. And that it's actually for every five seconds, it's one mile. So that's kind of scary because it means the lightning is a lot closer to people than they generally think if they're using that formula. Yes. And so I have that i in my talk. And you know what's interesting? Rarely. And I'll meet with kids from second grade all the way to fifth grade. And almost all the time, nobody gets this right. And it's just really but it's also very counterintuitive to think how slow sound is because lightning is that's the speed of light. You see it, that flash. And if you're waiting 15 seconds to hear that rumble of thunder, you're like that lightning strike is nowhere near me. And then you realize as far as a thunderstorm goes. Three miles is nothing. That next one might be right on top of you. Yeah. And then you get also like the fact that lightning can strike outside of a storm. So that's scary too. really scary thing. It it really is. And you have those bolts from the blues that can go out ahead of a storm. and and that's why we were mentioning John, who's really the lightning expert. so if you if you see lightning, you get inside. It doesn't matter if you can hear if you can hear the thunder. Because if the lightning's far enough away, the sound's not even going to reach you. I know there's your other myth that people will call it heat lightning. And so heat lightning doesn't make noise. And it's no, every lightning strike makes noise. If it's too far away, like when I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, there would be thunderstorms in Santa Fe and you would see it the way the topography is. It's incredible. It was beautiful, but you would never hear that lightning strike. If that's sixty miles away. Although you tend to see it at night. So like at night, I think it's more prominent. People think of it like, it's a hot night is no, it's a stormy night. That's just a storm that's really far away and you're seeing it. okay. Well, what other do you have any other lightning myths that that pop up when you're doing these school talks or even when you just talk to viewers? the big one about everybody thinks you can't get struck struck twice or the same place again. And and you you think about that. You like, for example, us here in downtown Houston, those downtown buildings, they have lightning rods. Because they want the lightning to hit that rod and not anywhere else in the building. and so those lightning rods, any downtown building like that, they'll get hit several times a year, and not just never again. And so there is that thought, well, I know years ago the person told me that this tree was struck by lightning, so we're never gonna get struck over here. And it's like, no, it can happen. Yeah, and like that's where you want it to strike. The your rubber boots one also made me think another one I hear a lot is the you are safe in a car. There's this, you know, misconception of why. So like you're safe in a car, but has nothing to do with the rubber tires. It has to do with the metal frame of the of the car protecting you and has nothing to do with the heck you're on rubber tires. So it it's called a fair day cage. And so the metal from the vehicle, it it'll hit that vehicle, it'll go on the outside of the metal and it actually goes through the tires into the ground. But it's not the tires that protect you. It's actually the the metal veh metal vehicle. And I actually had a friend. my best friend got struck by light this vehicle got struck by lightning while he was driving. It trashed the radio, it trashed the electronic system. And his family were safe. It was scary, but not nothing happened beside being very scared. And then it's like, Well, there goes us, you know, listening to the radio again. We have to fix this later. Yeah. Yeah. wow. okay. Well, let's move on from lightning and talk about. my gosh, you know the one that that really drives me crazy because I get asked a lot and I don't know that I give a great answer is probability, rain probability. And I don't know, did you see that that video that Mark Rober put out recently? He did this video saying that like TV meteorologists inflate the chance of rain for viewers. Yes, I did see this. I saw Ginger Z post on this about inflating the numbers. Okay. So this kind of added to the confusion, I think. and I was reading through the comments of this video last night and people were like, Yeah, the meteorologists are terrible. Like nobody was saying, you know, like this is ridiculous. This is a lie. Everybody was kind of supporting him, which added to my frustration that he has such an influence and he did this. But Probability of precipitation. Like to you historically, what does that mean? Well, here's so here's the interesting thing for me. Because I come from a journalism background and really probability came about much later in my career. I I always looked at the forecast. Is it gonna rain or is it not gonna rain? And if I think it's going to rain, I'm gonna give it a high probability that it's going to rain. If I don't think it's gonna rain, I put a really low or zero chance. So I I never put a 10% chance in ever. So he was talking about like the 10 to go to 30. I mean, if it's a 10% chance of rain, I'm putting zero. and and then in my presentation, I might say there might be one or two isolated showers and maybe a thunderstorm, but it's I'm looking at this entire area. The rest of us are gonna be dry. so so for me. How the way I came about it was I go higher if I think it's gonna rain. I go lower and then I really quantify or compartmentalize the impacts or the threats. Like these are strong thunderstorms, or you know what, this is just a passing shower, it's gonna be an inconvenience or a disruption. and so I really get in the detail in the storytelling there, but that's actually not how probability is. I mean, technically for a meteorologist, probability means something completely different. Yeah, like it's a it's a formula of like chances. and coverage. And I never like like you, I I use, you know, this is information that's being taken in by a human and done by a human. So I always use like kind of my human nature to do it just like it sounds like you did. Like what would this mean to me? And that's what I'm going to share with the public. And it it is confusing when you see like a 50% chance of rain on the forecast because it's like, does that mean I have absolutely no idea? You know, like 50 50 Yeah, and that's yeah, and I won't use a fifty either because of that, because a fifty to I think people, it's just a coin flip. A guy me let me say that doesn't know what he's talking about. And you're like 50% chance of something happening is actually pretty high. And you almost equate it to like if I tell you there's a one in two chance that when you drive to work, you're gonna get in car accident, you're gonna say, you know what, I might take the bus today. And because 50% is really high. That's why like tornado threats at 10% are like, watch out. Let's talk about earthquakes. And I did a whole episode on this, and people can reference back to kind of earthquake knowledge with that one, but some misconceptions as you lived in an earthquake zone. I'm sure there are plenty. So the the the the wild one for me was really the earthquake myths. and I just remember when first moved to LA, my neighbors came up to me and we moved there during a drought, really bad drought. And they said, Hey, this means We the big one's going to happen. The San Andreas fault. We're talking seven point something on the magnitude scale. We are going to get the big one this year because of the drought. And of course, here we are still waiting on San Andreas. And then I remember we had a winter, usually in in Los Angeles, you have or Southern California, you have six wet months, you have six dry months. So you have a wet and a dry season. And I remember the wet season was really wet, a lot of rain. and I remember somebody telling me one time they're you know what this means? I'm like, what? Tell me. This means that we're gonna get the big one. The San Andreas fault is going now because whenever we get really heavy rain, it means we're gonna get the big one. And here we are. Now I'm back in Houston and we're still waiting on the big one. So it is interesting how people we do not, as human beings, like uncertainty. No, we don't. When we can't say this happened. Therefore, this is going to happen and that is going to cause this. When we can't put things together like that, and when things are truly random, like earthquakes are, we will make things up. And you think about like you were just talking about Venezuela. That last earthquake that was this strong was in the year 1900. And so and you kind of forget about it that long. but it's just it's fascinating to me how people they will fill in the blanks. When they don't understand something and something truly is like with earthquakes, truly random. Yeah, it really is. And you know, people kind of I'd live in a hurricane zone and you do too now, kind of. people really like to like have anecdotal stories that they like to make connect connections with. And one that I often hear here in Charleston is whenever there's a big hurricane the following year, we're gonna get s a snowstorm. And that's and I've even had like talked to like climate experts about it. This like, is there any pattern or truth to this? And they're like, not one that we can make sense of. But people will still hold on to that like all day long. I didn't I did a deep dive on that because I heard the same thing for us in Houston. When we get snow, that means uh-oh, next year we're gonna get a hurricane. Or if we get a hurricane, uh-oh, next year we're gonna get snow. So I went into the data and I did this deep dive. And again, correlation is not. Causation. And so it happened one or one or two times. And it's memorable because you're like, yeah, we got snow, we got a hurricane. But most of the time you'll get snow and nothing tropical for years. Or sometimes you'll get a tropical hit, tropical storm or hurricane, and you're not getting snow for years. But the one times they're together, you're saying it happens all the time, and it's those are the memorable ones. Yeah. Yeah. Well, while we're on hurricanes, are there any other hurricane myths that you hear? man. Well, you know, I I I think it's also kind of putting those things together. we just went through Tropical Storm Arthur that brought strong winds along the coastline, brought some flooding to Brisoria County in southeast Texas. And it was very interesting hearing the stories when our reporters would go and interview the people who who got flooding. And they would compare what they got to Hurricane Beryl that of course hit two years ago. And I'm like, these are completely different storms. How well how would you even put that in your mind? I mean, Beryl came in a different direction. It was a real strong category one. Arthur's coming in at this funky west-east angle. It's very isolated, impacts only on the coast. And they're drawing this comparison that, well, Beryl wasn't this bad. And I'm like, It's kind of like saying you have two kids and you're like, well, you know what? This kid doesn't play piano, but this kid does. What gives? And it's it's just truly strange. People love to talk about the weather too. So they're just gonna come up with stuff like this. And so it's it's great. It's like job security for us. We're gonna, we're always gonna need to be here to kind of to talk about kind of getting back to like the probability you were talking about. Here's a here's a fascinating one. For us, it's really talking about the one in one hundred year flood. I think that throws everybody for a loop more than percentage of chance of rain, because we have distinct hundred-year floodplains in southeast Texas. And I always tell people, I'm if it rains hard enough for long enough, your home is going to flood. It doesn't matter if you're in a floodplain. And when you think of like Harvey that hit us, 75% of the flood damage was outside the 100-year floodplain. Because if you look at Southeast Texas on a map, the entire area is a floodplain. Everything drains down. And 80% of the people who had damage to their homes did not have flood insurance. because they there there's this false sense. Well, I'm not in the floodplain. And the other false sense is with the probability part. Well, we just had a a hundred-year flood with Allison 25 years ago, tropical storm Allison that flooded these areas. And We're good for another 99 years. And then you realize you get another one in a hundred year flood, you know, just 20 years later or even less than sometimes. so it really is that's that's a difficult one. Percentages that deal with insurance, that insurance agents and insurance companies deal with with 100 year events, don't make sense to people. Yeah. Kind of like that chance of random. We need like almost different. If they're gonna hold on to that for insurance purposes, like the communication that goes to the public needs to be different, or there's some sort of disconnect there between the two. And and then then you've got climate change too. So it's also kind of irrelevant because these normals are constantly changing as time goes on. It's the the the what was more rare 50 years ago is a little more common now. so that it's tough. And I I what I always do, and I try to make the message as simple as I can, it's like if it raids hard enough. For long enough where you live, you're going to flood. but I just that message that that's that's tough. That's tough for people to get. Plus, and the other thing is flood insurance is so expensive now. Yeah. When I first moved here to Houston, it was so cheap. And I'm like, you gotta have flood insurance. It's so inexpensive. And now people are like, well, I'm playing the odds. And I I just don't have the money to do this. I'm gonna hope that I don't flood. Well, yeah, preparing, including insurance is expensive. So like While we can tell people all day long to do it, it it is a costly thing and I understand why they take their chances. Yeah. But but at least if they realize, hey, this is a threat, I like it better when they realize there's a threat and it's like I just can't afford it, to someone who says, I just don't think I'm gonna flood. because my house is my house is built three to four feet up from the street. I I'd rather have someone who really says, Hey, I just don't have the money than I'm fine. I'm safe. Well, that that's a personality problem. That's a vulnerability. Admitting something that might be hard. So yes. Have you really heard hurricanes only hit at night? I've never heard that one. Yes. You know, and I I think it's for all of us who've experienced a big event. What happens in that big event, we remember. and for hurricanes, for some reason, I I would always get always get emails on this. And it's like, Why do hurricanes always hit at night? And I did another deep dive on this where it's not true. they do hit, they do make landfall during the day too. But there is kind of a a strange thing. And I always think of the big one, Katrina hit eight o'clock in the morning. So that's that's the big one. But there are hurricanes that hit at night, you know, four in the morning, they hit at midnight, two a.m. And I think when you get hit by something, you remember the impact, you remember the time, and therefore you put all those. things together that therefore all hurricanes hit at night. Yeah, that's true. and then also my thought process with like a hurricane hitting is like arguably Katrina hit for like days, you know, because like then it it made landfall and then like the levees broke and then like for days the impact just kept coming and multiplying. You know, I I guess specifically for those emails, they are about when they make land. It's like they only make land at night. That so it's like you said, but the impacts obviously are I mean Harvey was a three to four day event here. I saw in your notes you wrote something about the Dunning Kruger effect. The Dunning Kruger effect, it's a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusionary superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. And so Is this real? This is real. real scientific thing and and I get this a lot in my job and I think climate climate change is a great one for this because to be a cli I'm I'm not a climate scientist and a lot of the things with with climate science is way over my head because it is so technical. And what happens with people and I think climate science is a great example of this. Someone will write and say climate change isn't real because of this. And And there's no scientific basis for what they say. That's the Dunning Kruger effect. They think they are so highly skilled and superior in their knowledge that they're smarter than everyone else. So everyone else is wrong. And that's just one example, but it's in other things. like, hey, we're we're we're getting so much rain. It's it's also with the myths. We're getting so much rain now that you know what, we're going to get hit by a hurricane in August. And it's why do you think that? Because I'm so smart. Whenever these patterns set up, this is what happens. So it's called the Dunning Krueger effect. You think your knowledge and superiority is so much higher than everyone else who like works in the field. That's what that is. Interesting. I wonder how it gets to that point. There's probably some like life things that happen that get somebody to that point of thinking that. I I yeah, it really is. I think there's there are people who are highly competent. And then there are people who are not very competent, but they're very confident. And that's where the Dunning Kruger effect comes in. And so for my job, I I deal with a lot of those people. And sometimes it's really hard to even try to describe well, here's what I know, and here's what the science says. But they they don't even look at that level. They're just, I'm smarter than everybody else. Dunning Kruger. Interesting. Okay, good to know. What else do you hear on a daily basis or just like from kids? man. Well kids are kids are really funny. my god. I love And they're so scared of dying. Every time I talk to kids, they're like, Will I die if a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, and a volcano all hit me at once? That you know, that's wow. I do I don't get kids like that. So maybe that's good. I get some dark kids. Yeah, no, we man, we I have some I have funny kids and and they'll ask that sometimes, you know, what happens if this and this and this happen? I'm like, Well, if you're outside and that's all happening, it is a very bad place to be and very bad things are gonna happen. But I'm like, but let me tell you that all three of those things are not gonna happen at the same time. People often have misconceptions about not just weather, but like the job of a TV meteorologist and what it entails. And that's part of what bothered me about that Mark Rober video is he kept saying the TV weatherman. And like that was as triggering to me as everything else was just called. Like, do women not do weather? Like, why are we lumping everybody together? Like these are degreed meteorologists of varying genders. Why, why are you like bringing it down to that? so that's one of them when people use that term, like. weatherman or the weather girl instead of meteorologist or even weather person like it's fine to people I'll I'll mean I'll I'll I'll get those emails can you tell that weather girl to stop doing that and I'm like whoa I'm like that woman is smarter than me I mean by a lot and it's like I would I don't know anybody who would call her a weather girl. I mean you wouldn't call me a weather boy right you know it's so it is it is it is odd that that's still around and it's what's odd Is that these new YouTubers who are young are doing the same thing. You know? It's yeah. It's odd that that's like not going away. It's it it's gonna be around. Yeah, and it kind of adds to the myth that that people who are doing weather on TV aren't degreed meteorologists, because most of us are at this point. You know, like most people doing TV weather, I would say the majority, and if they're not, they're in school. To be working on it like you were when you were on the job. So that's a big one is I think people don't understand the education behind it. and they think that some that we're like you either using the National Weather Service forecast or somebody else is doing the forecast. but generally at a TV station, the TV meteorologists that you're watching made their graphics, did their own forecast, did their own makeup. didn't write scripts because you don't have to write scripts after all of that. Like you don't need a producer, it's all self-contained. I don't know. Maybe big markets. Do you have a weather producer or are you doing everything yourself? I mean, those days are so long gone. Are they honestly? Is anybody doing your makeup, Anthony? No, me. I have to I have to do my makeup. But now fortunately, I was in when I worked in LA, we did have a makeup person. we lost that person at the end. Yeah. That person taught me how to do makeup. So so I don't look I don't look ridiculous like I looked when I first worked here, when I first got to Houston. But you know, I think honestly, the most difficult thing about this job is you're predicting the future. And only God knows the future. And so you're doing a job based on the science of what you know to the best data that you have. And you're gonna be wrong sometimes. And when you're wrong, people remember that. When you're right, people people don't go, hey man, you said it was gonna rain today. And guess what? It rained. No, they remember that they canceled their plans for their pool party when you said it was gonna rain Saturday and it didn't rain. They remember that, so they always think you're always wrong. So that it's being wrong is more memorable. But honestly, when you look at how often we're wrong, the percentage is so small. And you you look at our percentage compared to someone who does the stock market, it's night and day how much more accurate we are, but we don't get the credit and we get remembered more for missing. Weather's so important too in everybody's life, you know, so is money. But like, you know, it it is so it's in everybody's livelihood. So I get it. It's it's important. But I often wonder like, would it be easier or harder to be a seismologist where like you you're never gonna get it right there, but also the expectation to get it right really isn't there either. Maybe like maybe the weather forecasts have gotten too good and now the expectation is is to be right all the time. I I I think that's a great point. I I think that's a a really Really good point that forecasts are a lot better. I mean, when I started, you know, we've gotten the die facts chart to the printer coming out and doing the the highs and the lows and the fronts by hand. Yeah. I it's just it's so different. But also I think by relying so much on the data and the models, it's easier to miss things too, because that you really have to know the biases. You have to know that, this model has been performing so poorly and it's not gonna happen. And that's just a lot to know. Yeah. I mean, we're we're gonna be needed for years to come. Or maybe that's just the the Dunning Kruger effect hitting me and I I think I'm more important than I am. I'm glad I taught you something. You did. There's no way I'm gonna remember it, but you know it's really easy and you'll and you see when you meet somebody that thinks they're very smart and there's an air of superiority about them, and they're not. That's the but the key is there are very smart people and And they carry that air of superiority. That is not the Dunning Kruger effect. It's somebody who's not smart who thinks they are. That's that's it. Okay, I was gonna say, like, what how do you know if you don't have it? Like you're identifying these people, but you're walking around with Dunning Kruger, too. Yeah. Now, again, usually it's people who are not very self-aware. I know you, you're very self-aware. So you do not have this problem. And you admit you your first thing you ever say is, I'm curious. someone who has the Dunning Kruger vet says, I know it all. Gotcha. And their podcasts aren't gonna be good because he's just gonna be like, Hey, here's my opinion on everything and they're gonna drone on for an hour and it's gonna be so boring. Those podcasts are pretty popular, Anthony. I don't know if you've ever listened to them. But if you're smart, you can do that. Again, if you're smart now, the the So I wanna make sure you understand that being smart and thinking you're superior is very different than not being smart and thinking you're superior. Yeah. That's a bad combo. okay. Well, you are smart and but you're also curious. So I want I want you to tell me what should I cover next? Like you're always giving me great podcast ideas. One of them I love, love, loved was Killing Pluto. That was like one of my favorite episodes ever. Yeah. Well, that was that one was me. Cause I there were so many in when I worked in LA, you meet the most fascinating people and the scientists there. And so one of the cool things in LA and what they do is they you have a whole day training. At Caltech for the for earthquakes, earthquake training. So you know, I mean, it's just it's a one-day dive on everything earthquakes. And it's so fascinating. And I remember walking by and then the the teacher hit me in the elbow and said, You know who that is? that's the guy who killed Pluto. And I'm like, I know, I I've heard about this. And I so I'm like, knock on the door, and I just start talking to him. And asking them questions. And he was the the way he was with me was the way he was with you on the podcast. Cause he's just I don't want to say he's an all shuffs kind of guy, but he's so brilliant, but he doesn't wear it. And so it was just fun asking him questions and having the stories about kids, especially right after he did it, the kids and the hatred the kids would throw at him for you killed Pluto, man. Yeah. And but he leans into it. Like he wrote a book like I killed Pluto. So he leans into it. Now he does. Yes. Now he does. 'cause it's been a while. So now he be and because he's been proven right. Hey, it's not a planet. Yeah. and then the whole Planet X thing, that was so fascinating. Yeah, I know. I'm kind of weighing that out. Like that seems like a near future. I'm gonna have him on on this show. The one talk I'd love you to do, just getting back to earthquakes, is with Lucy Jones. Yeah. just because she is the earthquake lady. And while you've had other people on for earthquakes, she's the one who did her whole thesis on Earthquake prediction, why it can't happen, why we'll never be able to say in three days the San Andreas fault's gonna go. Why that'll never occur. And and why you can say there's trends or there's things, and it looks like we're going to see something. the the randomness, she is so good with that. And she's really good at emergency management talks too. So she's fascinating. Okay, cool. I have to think, I have to I I have to think I always So I'll run across something and then usually I text you and say, Hey, what do you think of this? Yeah. and they're always good ideas. Well, Anthony, is there anything else you want to share? What's going on with you? Anything we should be looking out for? You've got a blog, right? yeah, Anthony's Weather Lab. and so I'm always writing stuff there. it's so you know, honestly, as you know, with with broadcasting is so difficult now because you're asked to do so much. So you have the television, you have the streaming, you have the social media. You have the vertical videos, you have articles. And so it's like trying to keep up with everything is really, really difficult. And also, as you mentioned, without a producer, you know, how saying, hey, I have this idea. Can we make this graphic? So if I have an idea, I have to make it. Yeah. so everything takes time and it's really it's it's a hard time with the the workload to try to stay up on everything. So you have to really pick what's most important. Well, I hope you keep doing the blog because you're a great writer, you're a great storyteller. In fact, you do some good storytelling on air too. I is that was there a an award sitting close to you there that's what is that? Let's see. I just got goodness I just got this in the mail. yesterday. So this is it's an international award. This is a telly. It's the gold telly. So it is first place and it is 2026 Garden in the Gulf, a reef rescue mission. and I was the host of this show. I went, I got to go scuba diving in the Gulf with people from Noah, Moody Gardens, the flower garden banks, marine sanctuary. And it's the most healthy coral reef in the world. It got its name because these fishermen were looking down in the water and they saw what looked like flowers at their grandmother's house. So they named the flower gardens. And so you got it. It's a full night trip. It's 120 miles off the coast. And it's a hundred to one hundred and twenty feet deep, but it's just beautiful, gorgeous. And the work scientists and Noah are doing to preserve this reef, but also what they can learn from this reef that helps keep other reefs healthy. Really, it's really fascinating. But that's the story we did. But we got to go diving. I got to go down 120 feet and just the life and everything you see, the coral reefs and also lionfish are invasive, really bad, beautiful fish, but they're really, really bad. interesting. So that was Just yeah. Cool. Well, we're gonna check it out and I will link to it so we can all see this award-winning piece. Anthony Giannis, I hope you'll come back on Atmosphere again, will you? Yeah. man, now that we can do this, heck yeah. Yeah, I know. Great. awesome. Well, thank you so so much for coming on today. This was a lot of fun and I'm so glad that we finally got it done. Three years later, you're finally a guest on the podcast. Thank you to Anthony Giannis for joining me on this episode of Atmosphere. I had so much fun recording this episode and just getting to chat with a friend about weather for an hour. Anthony has been such a great support and sounding board as I've been building this podcast. And speaking of supportive friends, I also want to give my friend Joe Martucci a shout-out. Joe is a fellow certified digital meteorologist. He turned a layoff into a budding business and has been a great resource for me as I build my own. He's the owner of Shoreley Safe. You heard Anthony and I talking about flood insurance today. Well, the Shoreley Safe program helps save you money on your national flood insurance policy premiums, figure out what roads to raise from tidal flooding, give you America's best flood mapper, and more. You can find out more info or get your town or county to sign up. at surelysafe.live. If you have any questions about today's show or weather in general, you can always find me on social media. On Facebook, I'm Meteorologist Emily Gracie. And on Instagram, just search Atmosphere Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow Atmosphere on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts so you never miss a new conversation. I'm Meteorologist Emily Gracie. Thanks for taking the time to slow down, stay curious, and explore the atmosphere.