JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – It’s 4 p.m. on a Wednesday, and Mark Reynolds is watching the weather on a radar screen. On the job for the past hour, all has been quiet on the set at WJHL-TV 11Connects.
Reynolds – the TV station’s chief meteorologist – stands mesmerized by unseasonably warm weather. But that could change, Reynolds warns.
This weatherman knows.
He’s stood in snow and in hurricanes. He’s tracked tornados. Just last summer – live, on the air – Reynolds warned local viewers what was whirling in the sky.
“Here,” Reynolds said, cueing up a digital image of a funnel cloud from a tornado that hovered above Kingsport, Tenn.
The formation looks scary.
“I think it’s beautiful,” said the self-professed weather nut.
On the air since 1984 at WJHL-TV, a Bristol Herald Courier news partner, Reynolds, 47, this week celebrates his 25-year anniversary of forecasting weather in the Tri-Cities.
Often, Reynolds speaks at schools and community events. He is known, as well, for his charity work with the March of Dimes and the Red Cross. In 2010, he said, he hopes to organize a benefit for local animal shelters.
Since coming here, Reynolds has witnessed various highs and lows, including the coldest temperature on record in the Tri-Cities – 21 degrees below zero on Jan. 21, 1985.
Growing up in Ohio, Reynolds attended college at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla., and worked for a TV station, too, in the Sunshine State at Jacksonville. Then, visiting at friend at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., Reynolds took a drive over the mountains and discovered Johnson City. Reynolds fell in love with the town and decided to move here.
Today, he’s a Gray, Tenn., resident and well recognized for having his forecasts appearing in four mediums: radio, newspaper, television and the Internet.
Not so long ago, before all of the modern radar, Reynolds remembered simply studying charts and predicting weather patterns. Today, he still studies charts – the old-fashioned way, helping make forecasts for up to 10 days.
“I get to see everything,” he said. “It’s like looking into the future.”
Tornados, of course, are unpredictable. And while the Tri-Cities is not exactly a “tornado alley,” Reynolds wants locals to know that the threat of tornados is real in the area.
“It’s happened, and it’s going to happen,” he said. “People think, ‘Oh, we’ve got mountains. It’s never going to happen again.’ ”
Reynolds keeps tornados, storms, the wind – everything – in mind when he travels, even on vacation.
“Weather is a hobby,” Reynolds said, smiling. “You can call me a weather nut … The weather always goes with you.”
jtennis@bristolnews.com| (276) 791-0704
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