Q&A WITH MIKE BOYLAN OF MIKE’S WEATHER PAGE

BY JERRY BONKOWSKI

Mike Boylan lives for speed and power, be it tracking the natural fury of some of the world’s most powerful hurricanes as the owner and publisher of Mike’s Weather Page, following NASCAR or racing radio-controlled cars. Pole Position spoke with Boylan about the intriguing science of hurricanes. Here are some excerpts of that interview:

FIRST OFF, WHEN IS HURRICANE SEASON IN THE U.S.?

It’s technically June through November, but it’s more like eight months. The peak months are August, September, October and a little bit of November.

WHAT WAS THE LURE ABOUT HURRICANES THAT SPARKED YOUR INTEREST?

I went to school at the University of South Florida for marketing, and was taking some HTML classes for websites. In 2004, we had four storms out here. It was very active. When (Hurricane) Charlie was coming right toward Tampa Bay at the time, it was crazy trying to find anything on the internet.

We were trying to find spaghetti models and radar and I just got frustrated. So I put together a website to throw these links and images together for myself, I called it Mike’s Weather Page, shared it with friends and fam ily for like a year or two before I even bought the domain (MikesWeatherPage.com, also known as Spaghettimodels.com as well as the same name on Facebook).

(The Weather Channel’s) Jim Cantore calls my website a “one-stop shop.” And once social media got into it, it really grew. We’ve now got more than 2 million followers and people rely upon you, even a guy like Cantore, all the major networks, all the major weather predicting ser vices and so much more.

THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A FUN LITTLE HOBBY, BUT YOU WERE ABLE TO TURN IT INTO A CAREER THAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING NOW FOR NEARLY 20 YEARS. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

I never dreamed it. To be quite honest, my ad diction level to hurricanes is the same today as it was when I started it. I’m self-taught, I always tell everybody. I really make a claim that the people that follow me never stress that I’m not an official meteorologist, or that I’m just a weather hobbyist.

WHAT’S YOUR NORMAL DAY IN HURRICANE SEASON, WHEN YOU’RE NOT ACTIVELY CHASING THEM ON THE ROAD? You have to be obsessed. I wake up at five o’clock in the morning and first thing I do is roll over (to his laptop), look at the weather models and start posting and do a video and will do these updates in Instagram and other social media, usually all the way to all levels of storms.

YOU’RE NOT A CERTIFIED METEOROLOGIST, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, YOU’VE BECOME MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN TRAINED METEOROLOGISTS. DID YOU EVER THINK ABOUT BECOMING A FULL METEOROLOGIST?

I’ve gotten this far doing stuff most meteorologists sometimes can’t, like using a lot of pictures, sharing my life, which can be crazy. The last few years, we’ve met so many fans. It doesn’t matter where we went, there were so many good people, good family people. (If he became a certified meteorologist) I think the personal aspect would probably lose a little bit. What it has done more than anything is it’s made me be able to communicate to people a bazillion times better. I mean, now, when I’m talking about storm surge, I’ve seen storm surge. When we’re talking about Category 4 or 5 winds, I’ve seen those. It’s helped me just be able to communicate more about (a storm’s) potential effects.

DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS FOR PEOPLE THAT MAY FIND THEMSELVES IN HURRICANES?

The common thing with hurricanes is you hide from the wind, and you run from the water. Roughly ninety percent of all hurricane deaths are water-related. That’s a huge number. So with wind, I position myself to not be around water, and I feel safe with my choices now.

HOW DID YOU REACT DURING THE DEVASTATING CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE IAN IN LATE SEPTEMBER?

It was very rough. There were a couple chasers that went to Fort Myers where the surge came and they lost everything. Like they were clinging on to the second floor of buildings because the water came in 10-, 15feet high. Vehicles flooded and washed away and you’re stranded. And the islands down that way, the roads got washed out.

Sponsorspotlight