As Hurricane Dorian looms, weather is still a passion for meteorologist Greg Fishel
When weather is in your blood, there’s no denying it.
That’s why when Greg Fishel starting posting thoughts on Hurricane Dorian on his personal Facebook page last week, no one who knows him was the least bit surprised.
In between posts about the New York Mets’ chances in the National League Wild Card race, Fishel, the chief meteorologist at WRAL until he left the station in February, started offering opinions based on National Hurricane Center reports — even throwing in some mathematical equations that likely few of his friends and followers understood.
Would the storm stall over Florida, Fishel wondered. He marveled at the storm’s strength as it intensified. He sometimes got very worked up, posting on Sept. 1 in all caps: “DORIAN NOW AT 908MB!!” (I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad.)
And then on Monday, when volunteer work on a mission trip had taken him to Beaufort, a bearded Fishel began posting videos from nearby Emerald Isle.
Comments indicate that friends and followers are very happy to see his face and hear his voice.
In Fishel’s Tuesday afternoon post, he noted that there’s a voluntary evacuation at Emerald Isle and that when he’s told to get out, he will get out — but he will try to stay as close to the coast as he can just so he can “experience being near one of these things without putting myself in danger.”
There is no commercial or financial angle to Fishel’s posts, he said.
Fishel told The News & Observer on Tuesday: “I still have a passion for the weather and after fighting social media tooth and nail for years I have finally decided to embrace it.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2019 at 3:12 PM.
