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Everything Weather Podcast
A conversational, educational, & educational weather podcast about everything weather. Exploring the world of weather, now every other Monday.
Everything Weather Podcast
RUSH-ing the Weather Limelight with Justin Godynick
In this episode of the Everything Weather podcast, we talk with Justin Godnick, a broadcast meteorologist at NBC 10 Philadelphia. We discuss Justin's journey into meteorology, his experiences with significant weather events, and the evolution of weather technology. Justin shares insights on the impact of tornadoes in New Jersey, his love for music and how it intertwines with his work, and the challenges of being a TV meteorologist. The conversation also touches on the role of aviation in understanding weather and the future of AI in meteorology.
Justin's Social Media:
Instagram - @meteorologist_justin_godynick
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About the Everything Weather Podcast
A weekly podcast where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather and the many things that connect to it, and have a little fun along the way. The podcast is hosted and produced by Kyle David, a meteorologist and digital science content producer based in New Jersey.
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Hello and welcome to the everything weather podcast, where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather and have a little fun along the way. I'm your host, Kyle David. And today on the podcast, we're excited to have Justin Godnick. Justin is a broadcast meteorologist with NBC 10 Philadelphia, a New Jersey native and an experienced pilot. If you've seen any of NBC 10's 3D weather graphics, then you've seen Justin's handiwork, as he's also experienced with making virtual weather graphics come to life. Hey, Justin, and welcome to the podcast.
Justin Godynick:Hey, pleasure to be here from the only quiet place I have in my world, which is my car.
Kyle David:Thank you for coming on. I'm looking forward to having the conversation with you about your experiences, about the weather, and having a little fun along the way as well. Speaking of fun, we have our first fun game for you, which is, What is on the weather person's playlist? So you could dive into some of the songs that you listen to while you're working in the weather world, or in the weather mind space, or Just in your everyday life. So what's on the weather person's playlist, Justin?
Justin Godynick:I like a lot of classic rock and metal mostly 80s and 70s classic rock Van Halen definitely because there's a lot of that in the original twister soundtrack Love rush a lot of weather people love rush. I found that to be a common thread among broadcast meteorologists It's just the nerdy band. They're into science. So are we A little Metallica, Beatles, Zeppelin, Floyd, a lot of the classics, so just rock music gets me going. Been playing guitar now for about two decades, too, so it coincides with that.
Kyle David:From some of those bands that you mentioned, where there's, I know it's hard to do as a music lover, but what are some of your favorite songs that you like to listen to from those bands? The
Justin Godynick:song that was in the original Twister by Van Halen, I believe, is Human Beings, and that one is just solid. It's great for a run, just great to be outside, gives you some energy. A rush, a spirit of radio, a fantastic song, Limelight, which kind of tells the story of, to a lesser degree, our profession of being on TV and things that go along with it. Beatles, every single song. Greatest band in the world. They always will be. So it's not really hard to choose any song from there and just pick them all. Every Zeppelin song too, Floyd, same thing. They're monsters of music. And music really gets me going. I ended up getting my master's and I didn't get it in meteorology. I got it In Broadcast and Communication, I wrote my thesis on rock music and why it's so important.
Kyle David:Interesting. Now, before I talk about some of the favorite songs that you like to play, thesis that you did on rock, did you connect weather to that or was it just purely rock?
Justin Godynick:No, I didn't. I didn't add any weather. My argument was that as rock music Music is dying, which it is, it's going away, it's, uh, different genres are replacing it, uh, a little antiquated. Uh, things like the big charity events that these rock musicians did for years are also going away. I tied the fact that, uh, there's a benefit to having that type of music because it provides those charity events, uh, Live Aid, Live 8, Farm Aid, you can just think back to all those. It's an interesting thesis, but it ties in with my love of music.
Kyle David:Yeah, it's, now I'm thinking about that, you're right, we are seeing a decline, those specialty events, and I wish that was more of a thing, and then there's also, with just the music in general, and I'm not a music expert, so, take this with a grain of salt, but I feel like music is a way of connecting people emotionally that no other medium of communication has that power to
Justin Godynick:do. Yeah, fully agree with that. I can define my mood by what I listen to. First nice warm spring day, I like putting a Grateful Dead on because it's just like really relaxing, peaceful music. I open the sunroof in the car and the windows and put on some Grateful Dead on a nice warm spring day. That first day that's like 65, 70 with sunshine.
Kyle David:I can't complain with the music choice. That's a pretty good band. Now, one more question about your music playlist, what you like to listen to and also play as well, what are some favorite songs that you like to play on the guitar? Ah,
Justin Godynick:there's a lot. I've been in about four bands now. I'm playing for decades. Going back to Rush, they really challenged me. Anything by Rush is. Difficult Iron Maiden. It's fantastic. You get these triplets. It's like doing it hard to keep up. And then the Beatles, of course, Blackbird, beautiful song, not too hard to play, but just a fantastic sound to it across the universe of the John Lennon Beatles hit from the late sixties. So yeah, really anything that's challenging or sounds beautiful. That's really appealing to the ear. You do any like finger tapping. I forgot what the name is like Benzen. Oh yeah, of course. Any Van Halen play. Dream theater, uh, anything that's a little bit more complicated. Yeah, that's fine. You got to distortion up to really get that going good and be plugged into the amp.
Kyle David:For sure. Yeah. And before we get too far into the music conversation, let's get into the weather story that I ask everybody about on the podcast in the business. We talk about it, about the day's weather, but in the context of this podcast, I talk about what got you interested in the weather. What. Got you to where you are today. So yeah, let me ask you, Justin, what is your weather story? And what got you interested in everything weather?
Justin Godynick:Oh, I'll tell you, uh, the wizard of Oz, the tornado scene in the beginning, it was a movie that I was shown at a really young age. And it had a big impact on my life two ways weather, of course, from the tornado scene, but also the hourglass of the witch had the big hourglass. And I know a lot of people now are more attuned to the Wizard of Oz with wicked being so popular and knowing the story. But anyway, I started a collection of egg timers and hourglasses because I just thought that was really cool, too. So that movie really impacted me. But from the weather side. It got me into weather, being interested into it, and then, of course, my childhood growing up in Jersey at the shore in the 90s, we had a lot of great snowstorms. We really did. 92, 93, the winter of 94, of course, the blizzard of 96, which was just Awesome. I got out of school for five days, I was in elementary school at the time. My favorite storm of all time, the Boxing Day Blizzard 2010, day after Christmas, incredible. At the shore, I think we got over 30 inches, but the start of all of it was the Wizard of Oz. My mother was going to school For her doctorate, it was the early nineties and she would take me to the school library. It was Georgian Court in Lakewood, New Jersey. There was nothing for me to do. So I would just take books on weather, really couldn't read too well, maybe six or seven years old. Some of the larger words, of course, the science y stuff, uh, couldn't understand, but I would just photocopy on the black and white photocopy machine for a dime each pictures from the books and put them all up in my room because it was the only thing I could do to keep from being bored while my mom was studying for her doctorate.
Kyle David:Now of those books that you were scanning in the library, what's one that particularly stands out to you and has influenced you today? There was one on
Justin Godynick:the Edmond, Oklahoma tornado, must've happened like late 80s, because the book was pretty like new at that time, and it just had awesome pictures, tornado pictures, it was all things tornadoes, but it was specifically on that one tornado that came through there, and Edmond, Oklahoma, all the Foundations of the houses were built of wood. Uh, they ended up rebuilding them all brick and everything. And, uh, what a difference it made for that community because it wiped it off the map and they just totally rebuilt the right way, uh, to survive, uh, another tornado outbreak. Uh, and I thought that was really cool. And I also thought from reading that book, of course, uh, if we knew a tornado was coming, it would make a big difference. It would help people a lot. It would save lives. Right. And at that time. They talked about a lead time of maybe five minutes, Doppler radar was a thing, but it was in its infancy, tornado warning systems were not great. It was really. The early nineties, probably late eighties was the first point at which we really could as meteorologists start warning of a tornado coming. And now our lead time over 20 minutes, it's fantastic what we've done in that short amount of time, 30 years or so.
Kyle David:It has, yeah, the, the technological developments that have happened in the last 20 years, or even just the last 10 years have been impressive, not just for weather forecasting, but also communications in general. And you remember a time where. We didn't have access to things like social media or I don't believe dual pole radar was a thing back then. What was that like to experience that transition from the technology of your age growing up and studying the weather to what it is
Justin Godynick:now? Basically, when I was growing up, the Bible or the Holy Grail of weather was the weather channel. That was our access to weather. We had access to a radar through it. We had access to Extended forecast, you would leave the weather channel on, and that's how you were able to get into this technology and partake in it before the internet. I remember when the internet first got going, 1994, 95, 96, I had like a 28 8 modem with the dial up and uh, everything, and I would go on. And NBC, 10, who I now work for, and NBC4 in New York, both had the radar on their website, and it was really good. It was cool because you could access the radar interactively, and that was the first time I had ever seen that. And at that point, as like a 10 year old kid, I was like, this is tremendous. I can now actually look at the radar. In real time, I don't have to wait for the local forecast, which was how the Weather Channel, uh, presented it to us. Uh, so yeah, before the internet, it was the Weather Channel. That was it. It literally to, to tie it back to the music, uh, a lot of people say before the Beatles, there was only Elvis, and then after the Beatles it was everything. Right? So before the. You had the weather channel because there was no other way to access those radars. And after the internet, of course, and during the internet, we're still in it. It opened up so many doors. It was amazing. So cool for a young kid into weather to have all those options and resources. Even the weather. gov Noah's site. When I first discovered that, I was like, Whoa, look at this. Everything I want, everything I need is here.
Kyle David:Yeah. I'm sure if younger, you had the tools of today, you would be. Going down the rabbit hole in terms of how much information is out there. It's just impressive, but going back to Your experiences with the blizzard of 96 growing up watching the weather channel and then eventually news 12 I'm curious. Are there any role models that you watched at the weather channel news 12 that have Influenced your way into the weather
Justin Godynick:world Oh my goodness, yes, so many, some of whom I got to meet, which is really cool along the way, but if I think back to the original Weather Channel that I watched growing up, Bruce Edwards, Mark Mancuso, Dave Schwartz, Charles Lempke, I can name them all from the 90s, those folks just had such an impact on me, and they were all meteorologists, they were all excellent at what they did, great communicators, so And then, on the local stations, I was very lucky. I grew up in a part of Jersey that's right between Philly and New York, so I got all the Philly stations and all the New York stations. I could watch Glenn Hurricane Schwartz on NBC 10, uh, C8, which I did, of course, and then hop on over to Joe Whitty on NBC 4 New York, Chris D'Amino as well over there. Of course, our Roker, come on, the guy is like the godfather of whether he's a legend. I unfortunately have not met him yet. I have met Hurricane Schwartz. I've met Chris Amino, Joe Witte, Bill Henley on our channel, Channel 10. Somebody I certainly watched growing up. He started there back in 94 and 95. So. Is a big influence to me, I would say those four were just really big influences on me and people I would watch constantly because having both regions and the channels available allowed me to have the best of both worlds, Philly and New York weather, and there's just some names that came out of both of those cities that are just absolute legends and always will be when it came to News 12 when I first started Watching News 12, where I ended up working there for a decade, what inspired me to want to work there was News 12's Traffic and Weather, which was on channel 61. It was different. It wasn't on channel 12. You wouldn't see their faces. It was just that they would talk and sometimes live, sometimes recorded, but they were just so good. There was a guy named Jeff Mendelsohn, who's still a good friend of mine today. I just remember hearing him, watching him on there, uh, give the weather reports, uh, a guy named Jay Engle, Jim McFadden, Rich Van Allen, these were rock solid meteorologists who I listened to as I got through my early teenage years and relied on because they provided such a good, solid forecast. Uh, later on, of course, uh, when I started watching these 12, uh, Gregoria, James Gregoria and, uh, Dave Curran, really big influences and just known throughout New Jersey and the tri state area. Meanwhile, I'm still watching my Philly and, uh, New York network station, so I just had it all. I was really lucky. I just had so much TV on, so much news. And I was watching the news for the weather at stay up and watch the 11 o'clock newscast a lot of times on Philly station and New York and just wait for each weather to come on, which were at different times, which was cool. So I can get both perspectives and that was cool to be slightly different forecast, not huge 70 mile difference between two cities, maybe 80 miles, but still. You're getting a different perspective and, you know, it's from people that I really looked up to and appreciated.
Kyle David:Yeah, and you were in the middle between the New York and Philly Metro. You got all of the weather information for the area. That's rare to get that in that young age.
Justin Godynick:There's a weird like Goldilocks zone in New Jersey. If you're familiar with Jersey Shore, Monmouth Ocean County, Mercer County, you're technically in the Philly market, but Gets all the New York stations, Middlesex County. There's a couple of counties just get all the stations. So yeah, no, I was really fortunate to be in that area. So I just got to expand the people that I could look up to and the people that I really relied on for their forecast because of course I didn't know anything about the equations of motion or any of the really advanced stuff, which. To be quite honest, you know it as well, as a meteorologist, we don't use that on a daily basis, ever.
Kyle David:Every time I hear it, it gives me flashbacks to my senior level, junior level meteorology classes. Dynamics, thermodynamics, oof.
Justin Godynick:It's tough stuff, yes. It's tough stuff and I almost dropped out once or twice because admittedly, I'm not a big math guy. Math was never anything that came easy to me. There's always something difficult that had to be worked on and put a lot of work into. And eventually I have the analogy of taking like a textbook and just sticking it into my ear and pushing, pushing until it went in of math equations. Eventually it went in and my brain started acclimating to doing some of the more advanced math. I got better at it, but that was not easy. Uh, initially, for sure.
Kyle David:Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that too, because there's, in the weather world, math is pretty challenging. You've got calculus courses, like, five semesters of calculus. But, I want to go back to what you mentioned. You said you almost dropped out once or twice. Talk a little bit more about that, and how you overcame the math.
Justin Godynick:At Rutgers, you need to maintain a certain grade point average, like in any school, to stay in a program. And there was one semester where Uh, I was taking, uh, it was an environmental science course that was specifically dealing with flow rates and differential calculus of, like, emptying tanks and water. I forget the exact course, but oh my goodness, was that difficult. You're using, uh, the top level calculus that we learned. To do equations and figure out how long it takes a tank to empty and I ended up getting a C in that course and also that semester, I believe I had a Diffie Hugh itself going on, a lot of C's and the grade point average almost, I got a warning letter from Rutgers, like if this happens again, you're out and I'm like, Whoa, I don't want this to happen. I put so much work in this already. I think at that point I was already far more than halfway through my, my college career. So that was something that. I really had to battle, so what I did, math wise, to really get better at math, I would take the textbook, the solution manual, myself, and go into the math lab, where most schools have a math lab, right? You have professors sitting around in between their classes, or perhaps you have grad students who are sitting around, and they can help you. Uh, that's why they're there, they sit at desks, so I would just go in two, three hours at a time to the math lab, and just Turn my phone off. Nobody would bother me. And I would just do the problems over and over again with the solutions manual. So I knew what was wrong when I did it. And the only way to learn that type of stuff, in my opinion, at least how my brain works is, uh, you have to put in. Maximum effort and repetition. Uh, it's the only way you can't sit in a classroom for 45 minutes, an hour and a half, however long the class was and expect to come out of there knowing how to do calculus, it's not going to happen. There are brilliant people who are gifted. Who can do that? My best friend is one of them. I'm not. So the way I did it was brutal study sessions. Whenever I had the time, two, three hours in the math lab and ask questions, go up to the grad students, the professor sitting there and be like, Hey, I got this. What did I do wrong? And eventually got to the point where I wasn't an expert, but I got pretty good, right? Diff eq. I actually got an A in that class, which was awesome. But Calc two, calc three, big struggle. Had to withdraw from calc two, three times before I passed it. And that's how hard it was for me.
Kyle David:If it makes you feel better, I have a friend who I graduated with. He took calculus to, I think, like, five times before he ended up passing. That's the tough one! Yeah. And for those that don't know a lot about calculus, I'm just, I'm really glossing over this, but I don't want to, like, bore you with the math. But basically, calculus describes how things change over time. And each level of calculus builds upon that to the point where you get to differential equations, where you're mapping out how Multiple things change with respected other things like time, space. It gets very complicated and the need that to get into the weather world, but not into the broadcast sense though. And on that note, how did you discover you wanted to go into broadcast and talk about the weather story in front of a camera?
Justin Godynick:Well, I knew I wanted to do meteorology since The Wizard of Oz, since I was three years old, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with it, and I didn't know what options I had. So I was at Rutgers about three years in, took me five years, not gonna lie, it was with all those withdrawals, sent me back quite a bit from calc. And a good friend of mine worked at News 12 as a graphics artist, part time, he was a Freelance as the term goes, so which in TV or really any job is just they call you when they need you and I said to him, Hey, is news 12 have any internships close to my house? I've been watching it since I was a young kid, thought that would be a cool place to just Intern and see if I liked it, right? Because I had no direction. So I signed up for the internship. My buddy helped me out. He went to, uh, whoever handled internships and said, Hey, I got somebody in Rutgers here, a meteorology student, and he's been watching News 12. Would you be interested? And they said, yeah. So they gave me the internship, which was great. And at the time. They said, do you want to be with James Gregorio or Dave Curran? And I knew them both. I had watched them both. And I said, well, what are the hours? And this is a recurring theme with me. Mornings and I do not get along. I did a decade of mornings at News 12. And I will tell you this, that's it. We're done with mornings. So they said, you can come in and be with James at 4 a. m. Till about 9am, or you can come in and be with Dave from about, uh, 2pm to, uh, 8pm or something to that extent. And I said, yeah, 2 to 8 sounds just fantastic. Let's do that. So I, uh, interned with Dave, just a fantastic analytical meteorologist and a very nice person who knows how to talk to people, knows how to, uh, be cordial, friendly, uh, give advice. Wonderful guy. There's no better way to put it. And thanks to him, I remember being in the studio. Day one of my internship and I'm sitting there, it's completely dark, it's 2 p. m. I get in there. At the time, I don't even think he got there till like 4 p. m. So I'm sitting there for two hours, cold studio. Of course I'm a little nervous because I'm like, what's going to happen here? I'm in the TV studio, like, they're like, just wait for Dave in there. I'm like, okay. He comes in, he's like, hey, how are you? Nice to meet you. Very friendly. Blights come out in the studio, we get to going live at five o'clock, a countdown, I hear it, you can wear the IFB in your ear, you can listen along with, with what cues you're getting, man, I felt alive, I'd never felt more alive, it's like five, four, three, two, one, we're live, and then I knew, I said, wow, I want to do, this is really cool, like, this is the coolest thing I've ever experienced in my life, this is awesome, let me do this, and that was it,
Kyle David:that's awesome, you, like, from the moment you heard five, four, three, two, one, you're like, oh, yeah, that's awesome. This is it. This is what I want to do.
Justin Godynick:Yeah, it definitely was inspiring. I thought back to all those forecasters and meteorologists I grew up with, and I just was like, wow, this is awesome. And here's the thing, to have the opportunity to be in a position where I could pursue that type of career path, it's not easy, right? Like, it's a very demanding and hard career path, um, but to be at least in the starting position as an intern in a TV station, it felt good. It felt good to know that Maybe I could go this way. I didn't realize the Myriad of obstacles, uh, to getting on TV. I mean, it, it, it's very hard at the time, uh, but it felt good to at least be in position to say, Hey, I have direction now.
Kyle David:And on the note of encountering those obstacles in the TV world, how did you navigate those as you were graduating college and getting out there into the real world for the first time? I,
Justin Godynick:I. I started, I had a plan. My plan was, because I didn't know any better at the time, to take, uh, my resume reel, which was basically just practice from News 12, every Wednesday I'd go to News 12, even after I graduated college, and Dave was nice enough to let me in the door and do an hour of practice, uh, and I'd save them to CDs, or I guess DVD, ROMs, whatever they were, and my plan was, To send them out to as many TV stations as possible. So I started doing that. And I also had a plan. My dad and I were driving down to Florida to visit some family, and I said, Hey, along the way on I 95, let's stop in Washington, D. C., let's stop in Charlotte, let's stop in Richmond, any city that was near I 95, and drop off one of these resumes, and one of these DVDs, and I'm like, that'll do it. If someone's going to like what they see, they'll definitely hire me. Did that, sent out a bunch. I barely got even back a thanks for your resume, uh, email. It was wild how hard it is to break into television. Because the catch 22 breaking into television is every one of these jobs requires a year, two, 3, 5, even 10 years experience, depending on the listing, you can't have that experience unless you're already in television. So to break in, very difficult. So I was out of college. I said they're probably not gonna work out in TV because I haven't heard a word back from anybody. Let me do something. So I started selling women's shoes at Macy's. Which was actually a lot of fun, and you made a commission, so it wasn't a bad gig for a 22 year old, whatever it was. But, of course, in my head, I'm like, hey, I have a meteorology degree now. I really should be doing something with it. This is what I always wanted to do in my life. So, I'm like, well, maybe if I get a master's, on top of that, it'll make me more marketable, or National Weather Service will open up or something, but I might as well continue my education, because Got to do something, right? I can't just sit in and waste away. So, I signed up for a master's program with the university in, in Jersey. And there's an interesting story to this. About two months, three months before my first class, Dave Curran actually reached out to me and said, Hey, there's a freelance job opening at News 12 Traffic and Weather on Long Island. Again, it's the one where you're not on screen, but your voice is. And I'm like, Oh my goodness. Yes. So I applied for it. I got the interview. I went up there and interviewed with a mentor and friend of mine now named Rich Von Ohl. And I remember Rich pulled no punches on that interview. It's just like, give me a forecast now, go two minutes, just go. Like, I didn't know what to expect. He's like, all right, you're here back in two weeks. And I'm getting back to my master's. So it had been three months and I was going through my first class of my master's. I'm sitting on my parents couch, still lived at home, of course, early twenties. And all of a sudden. I get a phone call from unknown on my cell phone. I'm like, Robo calls were becoming a thing at this point. So I'm like, I'm not answering this. Leaves a voicemail and I listened to the voicemails. Like, this is a rich one on from news 12. Could you call me back? And I'm like, whoa, call them right back. And they're like, yeah, we want to offer you the freelance position. I'm like, Whoa, like blown away. I went to class and I think the smile on my face never left my face the entire time I was sitting in class. I was just sitting there like, and you know, they have you talk about who. You know who you are, some facts about you in class. And I'm just like, I just got a job on TV because I, you know, like nothing else. I just got a job on TV. Oh my God. Like super happy. So that was, thank goodness. I did. That's how I broke in. It's amazing. That coincided with starting my master's. The good thing is, because I was freelance, and I didn't really know what freelance even meant, I just said yes, no matter what the job was, I didn't get a lot of hours, especially at first, I was the backup to the backup, whatever it may be, so maybe twice a month I was in, so I was still able to continue my education, I got the master's, which was wise, I'm very happy I went forward with that.
Kyle David:And to add on to that as well, that it in a way is a full circle moment, you started watching News 12 as a kid, now you get to Start working with them and you worked with them for quite a while. How did you feel about that? It was awesome. It
Justin Godynick:was real, really, really cool. Once I started getting some good hours there, getting on often, people would come up to me that I knew, people would come up to me that I didn't know. Go out to dinner, someone would come up to the table and be like, Hey, dude, he's the weather guy. I'm like, this is really cool because it was a really local area. I grew up in and everybody was recognizing me and relied on the forecast that I put out on that. I love that. That's what I set out to do once I knew I wanted to do TV. So I felt like I had accomplished that goal.
Kyle David:Absolutely. And continuing on the full circle moment, too, because you've gotten to cover a wide array of weather events during your time in News 12, including the Boxing Day Blizzard, which you mentioned earlier. And then you had also mentioned watching News 12 during the Blizzard of 96. What was that feeling like, and how has that shaped your profession today?
Justin Godynick:Well, it's Amazing, 96, it was still mainly the Weather Channel for me, right? I would hop over News 12, I think it had just launched, and also NBC 10 Philly I was watching during 96, like, a lot. So, we'll say it's more the Weather Channel and NBC 10 Philly that I watched during 96, because especially Philly being hit the hardest by that blizzard, it was really cool to get that inside view of what was happening in Philly. Not too far from Philly, but at the shore. Slightly different snowfall amount. We still did very well. Uh, but I want to talk about Boxing Day, because that's really interesting. So, uh, that ironically enough was my very first shift, I believe, on News 12 was leading up to that, or perhaps it was one of my first or second shifts. It wasn't deep into my career. And they said, uh, Justin, can you work that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? And when you're a freelancer in television, You learn something pretty quick. There are no holidays. So, you say yes, and if you don't say yes, I'll find somebody else. So I said yes. So I worked a double. It was a double shift, Christmas Eve into Christmas Day. Uh, and I'm sitting there Christmas Eve night, and my boss actually came in, uh, to leave gifts for everybody, which is really nice. And he saw me and he saw my face. He's like, what's wrong? Everything okay? Just start now. And I'm like, can I help you? I'm like, look, you're going to think I'm crazy. I'm just starting out as a meteorologist here. I don't want to sound alarmist, but there is this snowstorm coming and it's really a big deal. I'm like really a big storm. And he's like, Well, you're the meteorologist in the chair. Yeah, that's true. But I don't want to put the totals that I see because they don't seem like they could happen. Like, I don't believe what I'm looking at. I really didn't. So, I started out Christmas Eve night by posting some totals, 6 to 12 inches. Like, it's modest, it's okay. People are going to believe it. The National Weather Service doesn't even have the winter storm watch out. Uh, maybe I'm going nuts, maybe this is where my TV career starts and ends, whatever. So, I got out at 11 p. m. Christmas Eve night, and I went, I had a hotel room, I slept for three hours because the morning shift on Christmas Day started at 3 a. m. So, did I sleep at all? No, no, there was no sleep. I was just checking my phone, uh, going to weather, weather. gov, the NOAA site, to see if they were issuing. So, I, I get up, get into the studio. Start putting the hits on for 4am and the winter storm watch finally goes out. And I'm like, good, deep breath. And I'm reading their winter storm watch and they're like 12 to 18. And I'm like, Whoa, okay. They're seeing it too. This is getting real. I'm like, if they're saying it, I can say it. So I up it to 12 to 18. There's a forecast model we used to have back then called the RPM rapid precision model. It's just kind of done away with a couple of years back. The RPM was putting out 32 inches of snow for a large stretch of the Jersey shore up to Northeast New Jersey and onto Long Island and. I never once said that 32 inches in my forecast, but as we all know from that storm, those numbers verified. It was incredible. I got home about six hours before the snow started on Christmas Day. When I left Long Island where News 12 traffic and weather was located at about noon. I got home at 3 p. m. Snow started about 9 o'clock that night. What a storm, biggest one I'd ever seen. And I, 96 was number two, but this was number one. The drifts were so high. Uh, it was like a scene out of a movie. Open the garage doors, all darkness, darkness, darkness, darkness, gets to the top of the garage door, a little beam of light shines through. That's how high the drift was. You had to walk through the drift, your whole body to knock it down to get out into the driveway. We ended up with about 30, 32 inches of snow. I was 25 years old and I was walking in that snow and my heart hurt, like, wow, strain of walking, how deep that snow was. So yeah, that's that story. And I'll never, ever forget that. And one thing I want to mention, my parents were nice enough to come with me up to Long Island and spend that night to make it feel more like Christmas. And that meant the world to me because that. It's tough. You're starting out, you're young, away from family and friends on a big holiday. That was really cool.
Kyle David:That's actually awesome to hear that your parents came out to Long Island to make it feel more Christmassy. It was nice. I'm sure the 32 inches of snow was an unexpected Christmas gift for not just you, but everybody else watching as well.
Justin Godynick:Oh, it was, uh, the ultimate snow party. I could not have been happier. I took a picture of a car. You could just make out a little sliver of the side of one of the windows. And that was all that you could make out. I had my flip phone, 2010, whatever. And I was like, I'm still getting a picture of this. This is great photo. And I still, every December 26, I post that photo and say, remember when. You
Kyle David:still have that photo too. I do. Oh, wow. That's awesome. And I'll just add a little bit on as well, cause I was in New Jersey for that event. Granted, I was 10 at the time, so details may be a little blurry, but I do remember waking up the next morning and seeing these big snow drifts above my head. Now, at the time I was probably like maybe a couple feet tall, but it was impressive and a very impactful event for. The area as well.
Justin Godynick:Yeah, would something like that happen again? It is possible, but you just think about how long it's even been since we've had a big storm in Jersey, Philly, New York. It's been quite a while, right? Probably back to 2020 was a pretty active winter, but even farther back, 2016, 2018. So. They're not easy to come by, and we were spoiled in the 90s, in the 2000s, especially the 2010s, which was the snowiest decade on record. Uh, and here we are faced with reality in the 1980s, and I don't remember it because I was very young, but it was a very dry and snowless period with very cold temperatures, and this winter reminds me of that. We're getting a little taste of the 80s here, so they can't all be winners, but we thought they could be because we were so
Kyle David:spoiled. We definitely were at least some of us. I wasn't alive for the most of the 90s to say Oh, we were definitely spoiled But definitely we've seen a decrease in those big snow events as of late and we've even scratched the surface about your experience Forecasting for the area your time with NBC, Philadelphia We're gonna take a quick break right here, but we'll get back into that conversation In just a little bit. Don't go anywhere. On this day in weather history, we go back to February 17th, 1938, where a devastating tornado tore through Rhodessa, Louisiana. On the evening of February 17th, 1938, severe weather across the Arklatex region of the United States brought heavy rain, strong wind gusts, and one tornado that tore through parts of northwestern Louisiana and eastern Texas. Most of the areas where the tornado tracked through were rural. So many of the details to this day are still up for speculation. Even the track of the tornado is still uncertain as historical accounts contradict each other on the exact path the tornado took. However, around 9 45 PM local time, the tornado tracked through the oil town of Odessa, Louisiana, with little warning, the tornado ripped up the lumber and corrugated metal. from buildings. It used them as high speed projectiles to inflict further damage across the area. As the tornado tracked away and eventually lifted, the twisted remains of the town were soaked by heavy rain and darkness. But from what people could see with lighting equipment and lightning flashes, The town's twisted remains were sobering. The corrugated metal sheets used as a cost effective construction material in the oiled town influenced the town's high casualty rate from the tornado and widespread destruction. The tornado injured up to 40 people and claimed the lives of at least 21 people. The tornado also leveled the entire southeast portion of the town, causing 5. 6 Adjusted for today's inflation. Hello and welcome back to the everything weather podcast. I'm your host, Kyle David. And today on the podcast, we're joined by Justin Godnick. He's a New Jersey native who's lived through the blizzard of 96, the Boxing Day blizzard. He's currently a meteorologist with NBC10 Philadelphia, an experienced pilot, and he does a lot of stuff with weather graphics there that we're going to talk all about in just a minute. But, before we get back into that conversation, I have another fun game for you, Justin. Alright. Guess the top five years with the most tornadoes for New Jersey. I've got the top five years with the most tornadoes for New Jersey. Your job is to guess what years are on the top five list. With that said, are you ready? Okay, let's do it. All right. Take a stab at it. Give a year. Let's see if it's on the top five. 1989. Already strong out of the gate. That is number one, um, 17 tornadoes in 1989 for New Jersey. So you've got the number one spot. We've got two through five left. All right. 2023. You've got 2023 is in the number three spot. It's actually tied for another year, year 2023 had 13 tornadoes. Let me think
Justin Godynick:back here. Um, 2021.
Kyle David:You are correct. It is 2021. It's tied with that also had 13 tornadoes. So you've got the number four spot and the number five spot left. This only goes back to 1950s. You have 1952 present to worry about in terms of tornadoes in New Jersey.
Justin Godynick:Well, I can tell you one thing I was really strong on all those other years because I worked two of them and also just knowing 89. It's going to get hard now because I don't know the rest of them. I feel like the eighties had a year in there. Am I right? You're warm,
Kyle David:I'll give you that. Okay, okay. 92? 92 is actually a quiet year in terms of tornadoes. In terms of tornado history in New Jersey. Because there's three I know, and I know them well, but beyond that, not so great. And we'll get into that in a little bit, about your experience with that. But the number four and number five slots were 1987 with nine tornadoes, and 1973 with eight tornadoes. I knew the 80s was still
Justin Godynick:ringing in my head. Okay, well, that's you were very close. It's amazing, isn't it? How big some of those numbers are for New Jersey, where our average is three tornadoes a year. I think this year showed us and brought us back to reality on the fact that we don't get a lot of tornadoes here. And that's how it normally is. But we had those couple years. Over the last five, where we had so many that it felt like we were headed in a different direction in terms of getting more and more, but back to reality this year. Absolutely. And of the last, you know, five years,
Kyle David:2021
Justin Godynick:and 2023. I guess not this year. It is 2025 now. My, my mistake. 2024 is what I'm referring to as this year.
Kyle David:Time flies when you're doing a whole bunch of weather events and the weather in this area has certainly made time fly. It is interesting. And on the note of tornadoes, it's not just the amount of tornadoes, but the strength of them too. In 2023, we had the February tornado that went through areas of Princeton. We had the EF3 tornado that came through parts of South New Jersey. Including, for those that don't know this area, Weartown and Barnegad. Towards the Jersey shore and little known fact, you actually covered the Ware town tornado. So let's get back into the conversation about your current work by going there. What was it like to cover such a rare event in the Garden State? It was
Justin Godynick:wild because you're dealing with these tornadoes and you're also dealing with your family and your friends. Tornado Warnings. They are losing their minds because they're so rare. You're getting phone calls, text messages from family, close friends, saying, Do I seek shelter? What do I do? What's going on? Meanwhile, when you're doing a tornado warning on television, the FCC is not really paying attention I believe it is an FCC regulation or rule, when you go up, you don't come back down until that tornado warning drops. I may be incorrect on that, but I know that's how all television stations I've worked for have always done it. So, there's no commercial breaks. You talk until the tornado warning is officially brought down by the National Weather Service. So imagine talking, juggling the cell phone because you want to make sure that your family and friends know, especially with this one so close, that they should probably seek shelter. They should go into an interior bathroom, go in the basement, just do it. What harm does it? Is it gonna be to just. Be ready if this thing is actually coming towards you. And we had a, uh, tornado very close recently to, to where I grew up. And my family's all from Seagard, New Jersey. There's a tornado. I went right through the Seagard army base and that one missed my parents house by maybe three quarters of a mile. So they really, really get close to home. So you're trying to manage all that. So. It is absolute chaos. It is the hardest you'll work in TV. Plus, if I was in some market that was not my home market where I grew up, I wouldn't be as concerned about those text messages, those phone calls from friends and family, but these are people I actually care about, so I'm juggling getting the messages across to viewers while sending text messages to family and friends so they know That they should take this seriously, it is chaos, and a lot of these tornadoes verified, they weren't just willy nilly warnings that did not, and not to downplay a warning, but they actually verified, they were on the ground, wild, I want to touch though if I could, if I, I want to go back to that, uh, 2021 outbreak, because that was probably the craziest, um, coverage I've ever done, 2021. 2021. Of any weather at the time, we still had covid protocols. I was working out of my kitchen and I was live in my kitchen and I was tag teaming with Dave Curran, who was at the studio at News 12. I had worked the morning shift. I had been up since three a. m. And the tornado started around five p. m. And we tag team and I worked a double shift and I worked I just remember you have the first tornadoes were popping up. There was one in, in Ben Salem, PA, which, you know, is now part of my DMA, uh, very close to where I worked, uh, the town North of Philly. And then that crossed into Jersey and that's when all things just broke loose. Uh, there were tornadoes in the Southwest corner of New Jersey, Gloucester County, Camden County. But the craziest part of that night was I'm on air live television with Dave. And all of a sudden. My wife's phone goes off right on top of my house, tornado warning. You couldn't script it. You couldn't script it. Better for TV and the people watching and they still mention it on my Facebook friends viewers who still follow me are like I just remember that night like you literally got a tornado warning and you had to get off air and I had to practice what I preached. I went in the bathroom I had a newborn daughter and my wife and we went in the bathroom because literally that signature Was right above my house. It was insane. That was just absolute chaos. Tip of the cap to anyone, uh, in Tornado Alley, anyone in the Southeast who deals with that on a routine basis. Uh, here we don't, but wow, uh, the trial by fire, I learned how to really do live tornado hits, uh, from that 2021 session. And then when I got to Philly. Uh, it's almost like the tornadoes like following me. Uh, my first weekend in Philly, wall to wall warnings. We were live for two hours straight. I was live two hours straight away. I think we had like 16 warnings. It's unreal. Two weeks later, same thing. So yeah, I've had a lot more tornado experience than I guess your average Northeast meteorologist has. Because it's just been, it's been wild the last few years.
Kyle David:It certainly hasn't. I, I'm noticing a pattern here. Every time you start somewhere new, there's always something active going on. First day of News 12, you had the, the Boxing Day blizzard. Uh, first day at NBC Philadelphia, you had tornadoes ripping across the area. Well, I'll tell you, my first day
Justin Godynick:At NBC Philadelphia was the day that the wildfire smoke got so bad that the sky turned orange and we had those AQI numbers of 400. Everyone remembers that day. That was my first day at NBC Philly. And I drove home with a good buddy of mine who works at Fox 29 in Philly. Who's the director because we were commuting in together and we were driving home. You couldn't see the sun. It was just gone. Splotted out. Middle of the day. It's like 2 p. m. Unreal. We all remember that day. Just everything turned orange and you couldn't breathe well. So yeah, to your point, crazy things happened when I started new television stations.
Kyle David:Yeah, that's a definitely a day I certainly personally won't forget because I covered that during my time at a national network and boy, just driving into work. I couldn't even see 20, 30 feet in front of me because the smoke was that thick. This was just
Justin Godynick:insane. Wild. Wild stuff. Yeah. I guess the point is, weather is extremely unpredictable, despite how good we've all become at, at forecasting, and it'll always keep you on your toes. Uh, and it will always humble you.
Kyle David:It definitely will. Now, turning away from the crazy weather of the area to more normal ish weather. You've pretty much lived and worked in the same area for. Quite some time. The New Jersey area, New York City metro, Philadelphia metro. What are some things that you've seen over the last 10, 20 years that you've picked up on? Patterns, events?
Justin Godynick:When it comes to rain versus snow, there are defined lines that happen over and over again. Uh, especially living at the Jersey shore, you can never feel comfortable with a snowstorm coming thinking it's always going to be all snow. There's always a chance warmer air sneaks in and gives you a sleep bomb or the rain snow line creeps farther north. Establishing where those lines are. It's been my life's work. It really has. There are these little micro climates. Like, I can drive in my car west from the shore and look at the thermometer on my car and snap my fingers to the point where I know it's either going to go up or down based upon how far I am from the beach. Growing up about four or five miles from the shore itself, a lot of these storms have changed terrain. But then, when I finally moved out and got my own place, I lived a mile from the beach. And I was surprised that a mile from the beach is a lot worse than five miles from the beach. Like, there were times where my parents house, five miles from the beach, it was still snowing. And I'd go home, and it was raining. And I was in an elevation difference of 70, 80 feet. Uh, and that was just a wow moment for me. I'm just like, wow, the shore does not like snow. And it really, the ocean is going to kill your snow opportunities. You got to move farther inland if you actually want some snowfall. So I learned a lot about where the rain snow lines were going to set up. And you see these repeat patterns in terms of like summer. The sea breeze front storms, uh, are not to be taken as lightly as perhaps in years past because they often sit in the same areas and now cause flash flooding. A key example of that and an ironic example, uh, was my honeymoon. Um, I had my. 2010 Mustang GT. I love that car. Oh, man. V8 is such a cool car, and I left it at my parents house because they dropped my wife and I off at Newark airport to fly to Aruba where we had our honeymoon. So we're in Aruba, and I get a call from my dad, and he's like, you just want to let you know all our cars got destroyed. Seven inches of rain from a sea breeze front storm that just stalled, fell right on Their town their area and cause massive flash flooding the water in the on their street Which again always was well drained never had this problem was up to the above the mirrors on all the cars Yeah That's something these thunderstorms in the summer the ones that don't have any Movement at the upper levels to push them along They're a lot more dangerous than people give them credit for. And certainly it seems like they have become more numerous and the flash flooding has become more numerous in terms of flash flooding events in the summer from these usually benign thunderstorms. They're not severe, right? But they sit and they sit and they dump so much water. And that, that's ironic. So my car got totaled by a flash flood on my honeymoon.
Kyle David:Oh man. That, wow. The honeymoon should be like the happiest, one of the happiest days of your life. And it gets soured by the weather, ironically.
Justin Godynick:And now with kids and everything, that was my last chance at having a fast car like that. I had to get something practical with the insurance money after the car was totaled out. But yeah, my dad was like, I felt so bad calling you. I'm like, well, I gotta know. I wasn't coming home to a car, make some
Kyle David:plans. Yeah, I guess that's, that's a good to know rather than showing up and you see the flood damage. You're like, Oh, what? What the heck? What happened?
Justin Godynick:Why does my car smell like mold? These my floor mats weren't wet before. Why is there water in my cupholders? Why doesn't my car start? It worked before! Oh
Kyle David:man, that, that's, uh, I have a picture of that too. So I have supporting photos of all these crazy stories. Nowadays, it seems like the weather just keeps following you and impacting you and just shaping the way you
Justin Godynick:not only do
Kyle David:your work,
Justin Godynick:but also live as well. Yes, Sandy, you know, being the Jersey Shore guy too, and it was just, Hey, let's knock out his power for three weeks. I'll always say that, obviously I was one of the lucky ones, being so close to the shore. Structural damage we avoided, flooding we avoided, we just didn't have power for three weeks. The folks did a lot worse, uh, and had To deal with a lot of, uh, worse damage and, and issues, I certainly feel for them. So I'll never complain about that, but I will say that living through Sandy at the shore too was another event that just was, you'll never forget that. That's just, I just remember the one gust because I of course had to be outside, at least initially during that storm. And that one gust, it was a freight train type of roar and all the power went out. You just saw all the transformers blow up one by one on distance. It was just crazy. So. I don't want to live through another one of
Kyle David:those. And knock on wood, we get one of those in our lifetimes. Assuring that the weather does what it wants to do.
Justin Godynick:That is true.
Kyle David:But going back to your work now with NBC10 Philadelphia, generally stuck in the same area. Fun fact, James Gregari, the person who You could have interned with during your time at a news 12 now works there with you. It's almost another full circle moment there. First off, how did that end up happening? And second off, how has that relationship evolved?
Justin Godynick:Well, a little fact, we actually have five ex News 12ers from Jersey who work at NBC 10 now. So we have, uh, a lot of folks that I worked with and it's really cool to interact with them in a new setting, different city, but stay in general area so you still know the ins and outs. How it evolved was I wanted to expand my career beyond News 12. As I was growing my family, I wanted some new opportunities in television and I always wanted to work in the Philly market. That was my main goal. I had worked in, uh, New York City, um, for about a year, freelancing in New York. One, that was a, a great experience, but Philly in terms of, um, getting in and out with a car, uh, in terms of taxes, in terms of expense, and just in terms of, I always liked the vibe of Philly, so I really wanted to work there. At the time, there was a job open at, uh, a competitor station in Philly, and I actually went through several interviews there, and I thought I'd be landing there. I also applied to the NBC of Philly in Boston, because they had an opening. And they got back to me too. So I had the one station in Philly and I had the Boston station who I was talking to. Unfortunately, the, the one in Philly, I moved on to another candidate. I went through five interviews there. So that's just TV always, you never know, but Boston, uh, invited me up and I eventually ended up taking that job. And I thought I'd be moving the family to the Boston area. I was up there about nine or 10 months. My wife had our second daughter right before I moved. And at first it was just going to be me going up there and I was going to commute. Basically live up there four days, five days a week, drive home to Jersey two days a week and back and forth. My wife had a lot of complications, my daughter had a lot of health issues too, it was just really unfortunate and it was tough. I was in Boston and my wife was taking care of a newborn and my other daughter with health issues, calling me crying. There's so much pressure on her. She was so strong, right? And I was up in Boston. I just felt like the worst husband in the world because I had to work and I had no option. A friend of mine at NBC in Philly, he worked there as a meteorologist. He said to me, look, I'm, I'm leaving the position. I'm moving. And I'm taking a new job. Uh, you should apply here. I know your s situation. It's, uh, they're both NBCs. Maybe they can transfer you down or, or they'll, uh, understand your situation and move you. So, I had only worked at NBC Boston for three months, and I hated to even go into the news director's office and, and broach the topic, because I loved working there. They were wonderful people. They were so supportive. It was such a great team. But, long story short, They, they encouraged me to apply, uh, they gave me a good word down to Philly, and after some interviews in Philly and talking to some folks, they did offer me the position down in Philly. So, I said yes in a heartbeat, of course, and I was back home. And as much as I really love Boston, you can't beat Boston. Being home, my parents, my wife's parents, my friends, all the support. And also my daughter at the time was going to CHOP, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for, uh, treatments with her issues. So Philly made so much sense. So luckily her health issues have totally corrected themselves. Our last visit to CHOP was maybe two, three months ago, just to clear her. And yeah, everything is in a much better direction now, but that is the kind of wild story of how I. Went from one station to another all within about an eight month time frame.
Kyle David:Wow, that's just a lot in that eight month span and on that note of everything going on with your family that the television world in itself is inherently hectic because if you're a morning meteorologist you're waking up at 1, 2, 3 in the morning and You have very odd hours, regardless of the shift, so how do you balance the TV life, the demands, the challenges of that, and also the demands and challenges of your case with family and social life as well?
Justin Godynick:I, uh, a really big tip of the cap to NBC for being so understanding and supportive. There are a lot of stations out there, a lot of station groups that would not have been as supportive and understanding, and they were. Lockstep supportive awesome and like totally allow for family to come first and you just don't see that much in TV world So it's really cool to be working for him.
Kyle David:Sounds like they're a very good employer, too Maybe you stick with them until you end up retiring. Hopefully I would
Justin Godynick:hope so.
Kyle David:That's the dream For sure. Yeah. And now let's go on a positive note and talk a little bit more about your current work, because we just barely scratched the surface with the introduction. You do weather hits for NBC 10 Philadelphia. You do 3d weather graphics too, which is a pretty cool thing. I want to touch upon that just a little bit because that's a new technology that has come out. I'm sure you love making all these different weather graphics. So I'm curious, what has been your favorite weather graphic that you've worked on, and what's been the most challenging one that you've worked on?
Justin Godynick:When I was in Boston, NBC, I used to have a decent amount of downtime on some of my shifts, uh, in between weather hits. Because when you're in TV, there are often some longer breaks, but you make up for it during the time you're actually doing the live. So what I would do during those longer breaks is I would really try to learn this new 3D weather graphic stuff called augmented reality is really the term for it. So I would practice at it and it's, it's pretty tricky at first. You are truly a graphic designer when you're doing it, right? Like you have these 3D objects, a square, a sphere, uh, very basic things and you need to mold them into what you want them to be and, and have motion, right? So. You have a whole studio to have them have their motion through. So I worked to get better and better at it in Boston. And I'm glad I took that time because one of the things that Philadelphia is looking for is somebody that knew how to do it pretty well and look. You know, I have a friend, and say his name, because he's one of my best friends, Mike Rizzo is his name, and I've done Mike for many years, and there is nobody better than Mike Rizzo at doing augmented reality graphics. He is the absolute, undisputed king in my mind, and a tip of the cap to you, Mike. But Mike gave me a lot of good tips, and pointed me in the right direction, and thanks to him and the time I had, yeah, I got pretty good at it, right? And so now, I'd say my favorite ones that I've made involve either precipitation falling in the studio or flooding occurring or one I really like it's like a travel one you have airplanes that are just flying out of the screens flying around the studio and back in you can do incredible things with these graphics and It really gave me a renewed passion for doing graphics, because the 2D stuff that a lot of the computer systems that do weather graphics, it's really only two Baron and WSI are the two big ones that a lot of the TV stations use. And I've used WSI mainly my whole career. I've had a little experience with Baron, but the WSI 2D graphics, it just got boring to me. I'll be honest. Right. But once the 3D stuff came around, the augmented reality, I'm like, this is so cool, I could do some really cool stuff and integrate things. So one of my very first augmented reality graphics, and still a favorite of mine to this day, it's a golf forecast. And I brought my golf club in from home and made it so I can interact with the ball, hit the ball, goes in the hole, and then the forecast pops up. And that was just cool, and people at home really liked it, right? Like it really hit a note with the viewers, and that's all that matters as long as they like it, right? It doesn't matter what I'm doing on air as long as it's something that they like and they're tuning in for. Yeah, that's been a whole new chapter in kind of expanding a skill set. One thing. If you're in television, you cannot let moss grow, like you can't sit around. You have to be active. You should always try to learn new skills and new things. Even folks 20 years ago, social media wasn't a big deal. Now it is everything, right? For television, it's just as important as your broadcasts. Like you want to be doing both. Expanding the skill set. Big advice to anybody that's looking to start out in TV
Kyle David:and on the note of expanding out your skill set. We mentioned this in the intro a little bit. You're also an experienced pilot as well. And that's related to the weather, but it that's like its own dedicated thing. There's a lot to it to become a pilot and stuff. So I'm curious, how is that experience in the aviation world connected into your meteorology experiences and your work with NBC 10?
Justin Godynick:Well, it's cool because when I took the pilots, the exam, I have two licenses for the private pilot, which is a single engine aircraft, like a Cessna, Cherokee, and also the drone license, which is a pretty similar test. And when I took the test, my instructor at the time, great guys named Joe, and he, he would always joke with me. He's like, if you get a single weather question wrong, uh, he's like, I'm going to, and I didn't luckily, uh, but half the test is weather. So. You have a huge leg up having a meteorology degree going into aviation because how weather is like the most important governing factor other than simple control of the plane, you could have the best control of the plane. If you fly into a thunderstorm, you're in big trouble. So weather is so important. So yeah, it was a seamless connection. I don't fly, um, Small planes anymore now, just because it is expensive, uh, and having a family and everything kind of priorities are important. It's something I'd love to get back into. The hours are always there. It's always in my logbook. I would have to go back for a little bit of training to get my license back, um, because it lapses every two years. It was awesome, and I did it because I was afraid of flying. I used to get on commercial flights, and I hated it, and I said, there's two things that you can do to fix this. You could either. Get on a commercial flight and be soaked in sweat and nervous every time you hit turbulence, or you could become a pilot so you understand all the things that are going on and the forces and what a difference it made. Getting tossed around in a little single engine plane really gives you a new experience for the word turbulence. So, when you get on a commercial plane now, you're just like, eh. It really helped me alleviate my fear of flying and being on planes.
Kyle David:Well, I actually didn't know you were afraid of flying. And it was
Justin Godynick:ironic that I guess I was, because I understood all the physics, right? Because, but I guess more experiencing it as an actual pilot and flying the actual plane gives you a very different appreciation from looking at equations on a whiteboard. And that really helps to leave it. And before that point, I had been to Europe. I had been on some longer flights, Hawaii, stuff like that. But it was never comfortable. It was always. Once I got the pilot's license, I really, uh, had that fade away. Thank goodness.
Kyle David:It's a good thing that's faded away. And that's certainly one way to get some real world weather experiences is flying through that. And just curious in the television world, you also play the role of a scientist exploring all different topics and stuff. How has your aviation experience played a role in how you cover weather events on the ground and tell the weather story? Well,
Justin Godynick:what's really cool is. You, when you're a pilot, you're more concerned about what's going on up above, uh, 5, 000, 10, 000 feet in the area you're flying. And a lot of folks are focused with what's happening on the ground. It really ties in well to the fact that what's happening up above is so much more important than what's happening on the ground. for weather. As you and I know, it could be 32 on the ground, but it could be 50 up at 5, 000 feet. It's called an inversion, right? Warm air above. A particularly cold autumn day, and it might be 32 in the cloud deck, and you have to watch out for icing that could occur. So, It really gave me an appreciation for the levels of the atmosphere and understanding what's happening above and why that matters so much more, which I already understood as a meteorologist to a point, but this reinforced it.
Kyle David:Yeah. You've had so many different weather experiences. Uh, it's just astonishing how much weather has been in your life, Justin.
Justin Godynick:It's wild and I never expected, to put it lightly, Hurricane, Superstorm, whatever you want to categorize Sandy as, um, something I never expected really. I think a lot of us were complacent, not thinking that could happen around here. Um, Irene the year before had certainly made us even more complacent. These big blizzards, the 30 inch snowstorms, that's just, there's parts of the country that get snow regularly, uh, very regularly, that don't have storms like, that, I, I would certainly say that the craziest thing is the tornado stuff, because, again, that's not a New Jersey thing, that's a Kansas thing, that's a Louisiana thing, a Florida thing, that is not a New Jersey, thing or a Eastern Pennsylvania or the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. The one tornado that crossed over literally the road I would take to get to Long Island to go to work. Wild.
Kyle David:Yeah, I forgot about that tornado too. That was, what, 10 years ago? 10 plus years ago? That was a while ago,
Justin Godynick:but yeah, that's just so many crazy things. And I guess it speaks credit to meteorologists that as the weather gets crazier, We're here to help gives us a career path forward, even with AI and everything else that's, that's popping up here. Um, you know, even looking at, I think AI certainly is a threat to many people's careers. But if you look at how the Euro AI has been doing, um, not well,
Kyle David:and I'm happy about that. I'm glad you brought that up too, because not only have you witnessed a whole bunch of Technologies come forth evolve. We're in an age where there's a lot more evolution of tools, not just in the weather world, but in general with a I and a whole bunch of different new technologies that are coming out. They may we may not even fully be aware of. So on that note, what advancements? Are you most excited about and what's kind of worry you the most about the weather world?
Justin Godynick:Oh, definitely AI worries me for so many reasons. It's hard to compare it to something else, but maybe compare it to like nuclear power, which is very beneficial, right? But it has its dangers and when those dangers occur, they can be disastrous. So AI is something that we just need to be so careful of in general, and I think if you're going to start replacing any human being with AI, uh, especially at something as advanced as predicting the weather, which we're not there yet, thankfully, but, uh, you could see it happening one day, that's risky, that's dangerous, you have to be very careful with that because this is something where people's lives are really at stake, so, you know. Having a human being in the seat really matters. It's the same thing as, as fly by wire, right? In commercial flights, yeah, uh, pilots these days, once they get up to altitude, they don't have to do much. And the plane flies itself. But I don't know, let's say one of the engine fails. You want a human being in a seat. If you're not, you don't want a computer trying to fly the plane. So I think it applies the same way to weather. I really hope the day never comes that we're replaced.
Kyle David:It's hard to see that right now. The way things are developing and you always need somebody to understand what's coming out and what's going on to communicate that as well.
Justin Godynick:Yeah, it's a big concern,
Kyle David:but
Justin Godynick:eventually you have to think about it in the long run and extrapolate it out. If you start replacing everybody with AI, what good is humanity, right? Like you can't, there has to be a break on this somewhere, a limit on this somewhere. And I just hope that. Brighter minds than us can figure that one out. You're certainly brighter minds than myself.
Kyle David:Well, I think you're a pretty bright mind. So don't discount yourself.
Justin Godynick:I appreciate it, but there has to
Kyle David:be a stop on that somewhere. On that note, what's the one thing that excites you the most about what's coming out right now in terms of advancements?
Justin Godynick:I would just think the ability to have more guidance, more model guidance and faster solutions to it, a Euro. Intermediary run now that goes out 144 hours, which eventually will be all the way out to 240, 360. That stuff's very exciting because we need more options. We need more things to compare. We can't just have a couple of models. Like even look at our American model, the GFS. Really underperformed so far this winter, despite upgrades, right? So nothing's perfect. So the more models we have, the faster we can run them with more computing power, the better. In terms of more advanced satellites, all that's helpful, but really the big revolution is a, if you think about it, there really is nothing else that isn't just an improvement on existing technologies.
Kyle David:Yeah. Not just in the weather world, but with. Everything in general. It's exciting and scary. Like you said, I got one more question before we get into the last tried and true segment of the podcast. And this is an open ended question. It leaves the floor open to you a little bit. What are some parting words that you want to give to listeners? Any last things that you want to add on some myths you want bust or Last parting comments before we get into it.
Justin Godynick:Number one myth I want to bust is heat lightning is not a thing. Heat lightning is just lightning that's too far away and you can't hear the thunder or the sound from it. So myth busted. Advice to anyone that wants to enter the television meteorology field right now, realize it's an industry in flux and realize that there will be sacrifices that you'll have to make, holidays, time with your family and friends, you'll have to work very hard. Um, so before taking that plunge. It is a tough time to be in the industry, so be aware of that. That's really it. On a positive note, being a meteorologist is awesome, and, uh, there is a, a feeling of satisfaction to that every day going into work, and I'm happy about that.
Kyle David:That's the only thing that matters in life, and there's a saying, if you love what you do, you'd never work a day in your life.
Justin Godynick:You see, it's very true
Kyle David:and that's true, not only for the weather world, but any other listeners who may not be in the weather world or are looking to get into the weather world. So it's a good advice there, Justin. With that said, that is the end of our conversation, but not the end of the episode. We've got whether or not this is the end of the podcast where we get to quiz you on things weather related, not weather related. With that said, Justin, are you ready to kick it off? Let's do it. Fire away. Alright, first question. This is whether or not your first question is related to famous guitarists. Who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times and known for songs like Layla? Is it A. Jimmy Page? Eric Clapton. You're confident in your answer. Do you want me to read them all? You don't have to. Just Eric Clapton. I'll read them off for our listeners. The answers were A, Jimmy Page, B, Brian May, C, Eric Clapton, or D, Chuck Berry. And right out of the gun, you're correct. It is Eric Clapton.
Justin Godynick:Layla was from the Layla album itself by Derrick and the Dominoes. 1970? Oh, now you got me. I don't know what year it was released. And little known fact, Dwayne Allman played the slide guitar part on the outro of the song Layla at the
Kyle David:end. Little known fact there. So we're not only playing games, we're also getting some other trivia from you, Justin. You got it. Alright, this is whether or not your next question is related to New Jersey snowstorms. In which year did the Snowzilla winter storm occur? Was it A. 2010, B. 2015, C. 2016, or D. 2018?
Justin Godynick:Snowzilla. I never heard of that. I'm gonna go with 2016 because that was a really big blizzard and North Jersey got like 30 inches plus widespread with that one.
Kyle David:2016. Before I ask if it's your final guess, it also went by Winterstorm Jonas. 2016. You are correct. It was 2016. It dropped nearly two feet of snow throughout New Jersey on the 23rd and 24th of 2016.
Justin Godynick:I remember it while trying to get my car to drive up to Edison. Oh my goodness. It was something else. Almost rivals the Boxing Day blizzard. It was close. That was a nice
Kyle David:storm. And probably the last big snowstorm of this area. If you are a listener of Along the I 95 corridor.
Justin Godynick:I'll tell ya, we, uh, we at the shore had a nice little, uh, 17 2022, but it was within about 5 miles of the beach. That was the same storm that went up to Boston, and gave Boston its biggest daily snowfall on record. In 2020. Little, little, uh, I always have to add something.
Kyle David:Well, I'm pretty sure you're gonna be able to add something to this next one. This is whether or not your next question is related to the band. Who replaced John? Rutzy as the band's drummer in 1974. Was it a, was it, I don't need the
Justin Godynick:choices. It's Neil Peart. And oh my God, is he a fantastic, amazing drummer? Probably the greatest drummer to ever have graced the earth. Amazing.
Kyle David:All right. I'll read the answer choices off and I'll tell you. I can't even tell you if you're right or wrong because you are right. You're very confident in the two. But for those listening, the answer choices are A. Alex Lifeson B. Jeff Jones C. Neil Part or D. Geddy Lee and the correct answer is Neil Part and probably, yes, one of the best drummers in the rock metal music genre. Ever. Uh, he is well missed. Rest in peace to Neil part. All right. This is whether or not your next question is related to New Jersey tornadoes. New tornadoes are making another appearance in the podcast on average. How many tornadoes occur in New Jersey each year? Three, eight. Should I even bother reading off the answer choices? It's three! Alright, uh, I'll read them off anyways for our listeners. So, the answer choices are A, 1, B, 3, C, 5, and D, 7. The correct answer is 3. Should I even read the answer choices off for the last one? Do you want me to? Let's see, let's see, go ahead. Alright. This is whether or not your last question is related to motorcycles, which motorcycle manufacturer is known for creating the iconic Sportster model. Is it a Kawasaki, B Harley Davidson, C Honda, or D BMW? The
Justin Godynick:Sportster. So the Harley Sportster, which I actually test drove one of those. So I'm going to go with Harley. Final guess?
Kyle David:Yeah. You are correct. It is the Harley Davidson Sportster.
Justin Godynick:Oh, the 883. Beautiful bike. I'll tell ya, if I had the
Kyle David:money,
Justin Godynick:I'd own one of those.
Kyle David:Hopefully one day you'll be able to get that Harley Davidson Sportster. And on another note, this is a clean sweep of the Whether or Not trivia. So you got all the questions right. Not only that, you rapid fired with most of them. How do you feel about that? I
Justin Godynick:feel good. I mean, look, I know what I love and I love weather. I love music. I love motorcycles and right up my alley. So I think in all fairness, he gave me some, some softball, you
Kyle David:know? Ooh. Hey, you know what? Maybe I'll have you on again and we'll do some harder ones for you. Hey,
Justin Godynick:I appreciate it. Certainly not, certainly not a dig at the host. Thank you.
Kyle David:Well, I understand. Thank you. And with that said, that is the end of the episode. But before we go, Justin, how can people stay in touch with you and what you're working on at NBC10?
Justin Godynick:Yeah, social media is huge. My Facebook page is my favorite place to interact with people. Meteorologist Justin Godnick on Facebook, the same on Instagram, and on whatever it's called these days, TwitterX, uh, at jgodnick.
Kyle David:The ambiguous platform that Yes. Keeps changing names every day. This is true. And we'll make sure to include Justin's social media handles. In the show notes for you to go and follow him on social media. With that said, that brings us to the end of the episode. Thank you, Justin, for joining us on the podcast. And thank you to the listener for listening to the Everything Weather podcast. And we'll catch you on the next episode. Thank you.
