“Everything we do is about helping people stay safer …and ultimately saving lives, protecting property and businesses.” 

— Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist and senior VP, forecast operations, AccuWeather

By George Winslow

“When I was 3 years old, growing up in Philadelphia. I fell in love with snow,” recalls Dr. Joel N. Myers, founder and executive chair of AccuWeather, who has been called the father of modern commercial meteorology for his work improving how weather forecasts help save lives.

By age 7, he was keeping a diary recording the days when it snowed, and at 11, he decided he wanted to become a meteorologist. Soon, he was creating his own weather map and delivering his own forecasts to his family. 

“When I had just turned 14, on Nov. 6, 1953, the forecast was for a high in the low 50s and a chance of a shower, but I told my parents we’re going to get a snowstorm,” he recalled. “Nobody was expecting it, but I wound up pushing my bike home through heavy wet snow … It was at that point I told myself, ‘I can do this.’” 

Shaking Up the Forecast

To achieve his dream of starting his own weather forecasting company, Myers went to college at Penn State University, which offers one of the top meteorology programs in the world. There, he got a great scientific education and honed his media and entrepreneurial skills. By 18, he was giving weather reports on the student radio station, and in 1962, during his second year of graduate work for his doctorate, he founded AccuWeather. 

Over the years, this mix of cutting-edge science and savvy media skills would help Myers transform how weather is covered in print, radio, TV and digital. As Myers began building AccuWeather in the 1960s, he continued to immerse himself in the science of meteorology, teaching at Penn State until 1981, when AccuWeather had grown to 80 full-time employees. In addition to drawing on the latest academic research to improve the company’s forecasts, he hired Penn State students, some of whom would work with Myers until retirement.

Meanwhile, Myers continued to study ways to make weather forecasting more relevant and useful for his clients and the average person. In 1963, at 23, he began doing a regular seven-minute weather show on the public station WPSX-TV (now WPSU), using that experience and the company’s work for print, radio and ultimately digital outlets over the next few decades to transform weather forecasting.  

“What we did, and what I led, was a revolution in not only forecasting,” he said. “Forecasts in the old days were boring. … We wanted to not only raise the level of accuracy, but also, very importantly, communicate the forecast so that people understood what it meant.”

On the most basic level, that meant providing information to help people “get out of harm's way,” he said. “AccuWeather has saved over 12,000 lives globally through our superior warnings predicting hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes beyond what others offer. Our tornado warnings provide an average of 16 minutes of advance notice, versus eight from the National Weather Service.”

Even so, some major print and radio outlets rebuffed his attempts to improve their weather maps and forecasts. One AP graphics editor, for example, dismissed Myers’ suggestions by saying “no one cared about the weather.” 

“I told him, I do,” Myers recalled, and in the early 1970s, his persistence began to pay off when WARM Scranton became AccuWeather’s first radio client and ABC affiliate WPVI-TV Philadelphia its first TV station.   

“We wanted to not only raise the level of accuracy, but also, very importantly, communicate the forecast so that people understood what it meant.”

— Dr. Joel N. Myers

From Airwaves to Apps

In addition to helping transform the way weather is delivered in print, radio and TV, launching the first graphics system for TV meteorologists in 1987, AccuWeather was also a pioneer in digital media. Building on its work with major government agencies like NASA, the company launched its first websites in 1996 and an AccuWeather Mobile app in 1997. 

This long record of innovation has earned Myers and the company a host of awards and accolades over the years. Numerous colleagues also applaud Myers’ work with his alma mater, Penn State, where he served on the board for 39 years, the role he’s played in mentoring new talent and his laser-like focus on improved forecasting. 

“Everything we do is about helping people stay safer… and ultimately saving lives, protecting property and businesses,” said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist and senior vice president of forecast operations at AccuWeather. 

Closer to home, Myers says he often vacations or visits to Florida over the holidays with his eight kids, their spouses and grandkids. “My family and my wife are very important to me,” he said while on vacation with 18 family members. “I’ve been blessed in so many ways with my family and a career that has made me feel like I’ve never worked a day in my life, even though I work every day.”