Alabama’s most beloved broadcast meteorologist made a visit to the Southside Public Library Tuesday, July 1.
James Spann was invited to the library as part of its summer reading program. Spann taught a large crowd of children and adults about meteorology, storm spotting and safety plans.
In a light-hearted, interactive and fun-filled presentation, Spann explained the ins and outs of his job and the instruments used meteorology.
“The hardest part of my job is predicting the future,” Spann said. “Guess what. Predicting the future is hard. The first thing I do every day is look at information from weather instruments all over Alabama.”
Spann went on to explain weather balloons, satellites, radar and maps, and emphasized the need to be able to find your house on a map.
“There are many adults who cannot find their house on a map,” Spann said. “Boy, we’ve got some work to do.”
Spann then gave a crash course in storm spotting. He showed photos of wall clouds, tornadoes, scud clouds and more. He showed the differences between the photos and quizzed audience members on the photos.
Spann showed an image of a tornado signature on radar.
“Every adult in this room better know where the tornado is in this image,” Spann said. “Even children may be able to find it. This is important. One day I won’t be here, and you’ll be looking at some app on your phone and you won’t have me to help you. You need to know how to do this.”
After the informative presentation, Spann then filmed the children for the ABC 33/40 Good Morning Alabama Kids Cam. After the presentation had concluded, children and adults lined up to meet Spann and take photos with him.
Following the event, Spann told The Messenger that he enjoys coming to events like this because he loves seeing children excited about science and learning.
“The fact that they can learn some science on a summer day is outstanding,” Spann said. “They love to talk about weather, and they love to learn about weather. Some of these kids, not all, but some of them are going to work in science one day. Someone got me excited about science when I was a child and the least I can do is return the favor.”
Spann said he wants everyone to know that storms are not something to be afraid of.
“A lot of kids have a phobia, like a clinical phobia of storms, and this just kind of starts a process by letting them know that without storms, we’re in big trouble. They are a vital part of the water cycle. So, we try to ease their fear. At the same time, information is powerful.”
Spann said that having the knowledge of storms and getting involved in the process of storm spotting helps turn the fear into curiosity. Learning about storms can also help people be prepared for severe weather events.
“We don’t want people afraid of storms,” Spann said. “We want them to know what to do during them.”
Spann went on to discuss the impact of the deadly tornado outbreak of April 27, 2011, had on him.
“I had to go through this entire grief process,” he said. “I didn’t talk about it for a while. I just couldn’t. You know, we lost 252 people that day and the warnings could not have been better. They just could not have been better, but we knew something was wrong and it was our lack of knowledge of behavioral science. So, I think we’re better now than we used to be. We learned a lot from that event.”
