7/31 - 6pm - Wills' Send Off, Memphis Severe Weather

Tom Wills' retirement after 40 years was well celebrated on WAVE 3 Sunrise and WAVE 3 Listens this morning. Well wishes from both current and past WAVE staff ranged from sincere to downright hilarious, but all were in good taste. Tom judged my seventh grade science fair project at the Louisville Regional Science Fair in 2004, and I must say that he was very kind to all of the participants. (For those wondering, my project on the Doppler effect didn't win that year. Next year's project on floppy disk data loss due to electromagnetism did win 3rd place though.)

WAVE introduced Tom's replacement this morning, Christie Dutton from Lexington, Kentucky. She's worked in Hopkinsville, Lexington, and Cincinnati, so she's no stranger to the region. Her last meteorology position was with WXIX Fox 19 in Cincinnati, and you can read her bio here. She starts broadcasting next week after some training. The thing that intrigues me most is where her broadcast meteorology certificate came from: Mississippi State University! I certainly wish her well and hope we continue getting more MSU meteorologists in Louisville in the future!

Memphis had quite a few problems with severe weather yesterday, including an EF1 tornado that damaged numerous homes and businesses just east of town. 12,000 MLGW customers lost power just after the storm as well.
[WMC 5 Memphis]

7/30 - 4pm - Heat Easing in the Northwest

The Northwest has been hammered by extreme heat over the past week or so. The Portland and Seattle areas have seen all-time record high temperatures in the 100's this week. The National Weather Service offices in those areas have certainly had their hands full trying to keep up with all the records broken, along with issuing Excessive Heat Warnings. Luckily, the forecasts for both Seattle and Portland seem to have temperatures easing into the 90's today and 80's tomorrow. Click here to see a record temperature report from the Portland National Weather Service office.

Take a look at yesterday's storm reports from the SPC:


Notice all the tornado reports in Eastern Colorado, an area that was hit pretty hard earlier this season. Seven confirmed tornadoes touched down in this area yesterday, causing minor damage. [NWS, CBS4 Denver]

Tornadoes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania caused quite a bit of damage yesterday. The confirmed EF2 tornado in Sussex County, New Jersey damaged farm buildings, but luckily caused no injuries. The tornado in Stroudsburg, PA was also an EF2, but caused two injuries and damaged homes along with farm buildings.
[NWS, SPC]

Looks like it could be a bit wet for retiring WAVE TV meteorologist Tom Wills' Louisville Bats baseball game this evening. Scattered storms are forming along the Ohio River now and more rain is coming up from the south. Looks like the game may start out dry, but rain could set in later in the evening.

7/29 - 7pm - Comings and Goings

There are only 9 days left until I go down to Mississippi State University. It's extremely exciting, but at the same time I'll miss being in Louisville. In any case, I'm happy to be at one of the best places in the nation for meteorology!

Meteorologist Tom Wills officially retires from WAVE TV on Friday after 40 years of service. In honor of his career, the Louisville Bats will be hosting a "Tom Wills Night" during their game against the Toledo Mud Hens starting at 7:05pm tomorrow. It looks like there may be some storms in the area during the game tomorrow, but it should be a great time either way! Tom Wills' replacement will be announced on Friday morning during WAVE 3 Sunrise.

Kentucky's new Mesonet system (a network of automated weather reporting stations) is slowly coming online. This is great for Kentucky because it will allow for greater monitoring of micro-scale weather phenomena and should give residents in rural areas better access to current conditions in the region. Click here to go to the Kentucky Mesonet's website.

4/26 - 9pm - Tom Wills Retiring at WAVE-TV

After 40 years at WAVE-TV, meteorologist Tom Wills has officially announced his retirement. While it won't happen until June, Mr. Wills will be missed in both the meteorology community and within Louisville as a whole. Luckily, he might come back to the station once in a while to do fill-in work.

I met him once at the Louisville Regional Science Fair back in 2004. I had my seventh grade science fair project on the Doppler Effect and Tom Wills was one of the judges in the earth sciences category. He was a real approachable guy and said not one bad word about my project, even though it was in the wrong category (I needed to be in physics) as I later found out.

40 years is a long time to be working at any one place, especially in the broadcast business. I'll miss his good cheer on 84 WHAS in the mornings when I'm up early for school, but hey, he doesn't have to wake up at 2:30AM anymore! To read the full article that ran in yesterday's Courier-Journal, click here. To read Kevin Harned's blog entry on Wills' retirement, click here.