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About Da Weatha Man

Charles E. Roop

Age: 23 Birthplace: Ocala, FL

Current residence: Gainesville, FL Relationship Status: Long-term relationship

Height: 5'10" Weight: 130 lbs.

Current Employment: Bagger/Cashier at Kash N' Karry in Gainesville, FL

School: Junior at the University of Florida

PAST

me in 1994

Roop has been interested in the field of meteorology since the age of nine. It started in the summer of 1993 by curiosity. The question of why it rains so much in during the summer came to his mind, mainly because it spoiled his summer afternoon plans. He started to watch the weather on television and actually became hooked. The more he watched, the more he wanted to know about it. Later on, he started to read and watch show’s like The Weather Classroom, a program made by The Weather Channel.

Roop moved to Summerfield, just 20 miles from where he used to live in Ocala in the fall of 1994. Then, two months after moving there (Saturday, January 7, 1995), a tornado touched down about five miles or so from the new manufactured home he just moved into. It was later classified as a F2 tornado (winds of 113-157 mph) and it killed one person. Twenty other persons were injured and 66 mobile homes were torn apart. Here is Roop’s account of being just miles from danger:

I woke up at about 5 AM with lightning frequently flashing in my window. Wanting to know what was up, I turned the TV on to the Weather Channel. The “red screen” was on and it said something about a “Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Marion County.” Before the message was done scrolling, the cable goes out. I left the TV on thinking that the cable was going to come back on and it was just temporary. Well, the power went out after a few minutes of waiting. My mom then came into the room and we looked around with our flashlights. We pointed the light outside the window where we found shingles all over the backyard. There was also a leak in my moms’ room near the center of the house. The wind was still blowing and I had no idea of when it was going to stop. Later, the sun came out and I got a better scope of the damage that took place. A friend at the time, Becky, had three sheds instead of the original two she had. Turns out that one flew from the yard behind her and flew into her yard. Going up US Hwy 301, me and mom seen power lines down and figured those were the lines that go to our house. Power returned at about noon and the media brought shown us a better look at what we missed.

The active 1995 hurricane season brought some damper weather to Florida and brought Hurricane Erin close to Summerfield. The hurricane season also spoiled half of his vacation in the Daytona Beach area in late August 1995.

In 1996, he started tracking hurricanes by getting advisories from local television media and the Weather Channel. He started exploring other options of receiving weather information and discovered the NOAA Weather Radio program. The Radio Shack 7-Channel weather radio with alert was his birthday present and came very useful.

The year of 1997 came with more excitement as he started getting into severe weather photography. Pictures weren’t all that like some professional storm chasers have taken, but it was a start. He started with an old “freebee” camera. That summer, he found out about a new weather radio technology called S.A.M.E. or Specific Area Message Encoding. Radio Shack was the first weather radio manufacture to come out with a S.A.M.E. capable radio. He got that for Christmas and along with that, he got a CB radio (Cobra HH35) and a police scanner (Radio Shack PRO-2044).

Mamatus with distant thunderstorm in Spring 1997. Taken by Roop with "freebee" camera.

In 1997, Roop went to the National Weather Service office in Melbourne, FL for their open house. That was the first time Roop actually came in contact with a meteorologist.

NWS office in Melbourne, FL NWS Doppler radar dome

The year also started the El Nino season, which was expected to be very potent.

The El Nino continued through the end of 1997 into winter 1998. The major story of it was the Central Florida tornado outbreaks that killed 42 people when tornadoes, has high as F3 status (winds of 158-206 mph), wrecked havoc on lives in that area. Roop paid close attention to the weather. Heck, he even wrote his own weather statements on his spare time.

The summer of 1998 came and Florida was considered a dry bowl. Fires broke out all over the place and covered Marion County in thick smoke. In July, it started to rain again and storms came back. That was when Roop put his camcorder, which his mom purchased for him in May (Panasonic PV-D308), to some good use. He got lots of lightning and storm footage.

Hurricane season came and Erin and Georges was the story. Erin came close enough to sound a few tornado warnings for the Marion County area. For Georges, Roop and his cousin who visited did mock weather reports with the video camera. For graphics, Roop used The Weather Channel.

Roop needed a better way of gathering weather information instead of waiting for the weather channel and the 6 o'clock news. For Christmas 1998, he got a Web TV (now MSN TV) terminal. After a while, he discovered he couldn't do much with Web TV like you could with a PC. So, in spring 1999, Roop got his first Windows PC.

In March 1999, he got to go to one of Marion County's emergency expos and talked to a couple of Meteorologists from the National Weather Service office in Jacksonville, FL (the one that covers Marion County as it's CWA).

Picture of a hail stone from a storm in Summerfield on May 7, 1999. This stone was about dime sized.

Unfortunately, lighting took out the first PC and a brand new one was bought and put together just in time for school to start in August 1999. A month later, that info gathering was put to the test for Hurricane Floyd. That storm caused the largest peacetime evacuation ever in U.S. history. Roop was nervously watching satellite images as the category four storm approached the Florida area. Roop and his mother evacuated the mobile home in fear of direct landfall. When they got to a nearby hotel, the storm started to turn towards the north. They headed back home the next day.

Roop still continued to gather as much as he can about severe weather, mainly via the internet, his new hobby. He also met a few "weather nuts" on the 'net via AOL. One of those is Jackie, from Tampa Bay, FL, who he met in December 1999. Roop also considers her one of his good friends and since meeting, kept in constant touch.

At age 16 (spring 2000), Roop attended the Hurricane Expo where he got to see inside and out of one of the the "Hurricane Hunter" C-130 planes.

In the summer of 2000, Roop attended a Cape Canaveral American Meteorological Society local chapter meeting. He seen a presentation from a class of 2000 Cocoa High graduate. He shown a possible way, by doing research, to predict Florida's short-lived and weak tornadoes via Doppler Radar.

Hurricane Gordon in 2000 and Tropical Storm Gabrielle in 2001 came by the area putting Roop on the edge with some footage. The most intense was Gabrielle, which came close to Summerfield. The power in his neighborhood was knocked out for about 29 hours.

Before Gabrielle, he got to job shadow with a television meteorologist. Chief Meteorologist Bill Quinlan of WCJB-TV in Gainesville, FL allowed Roop to follow him as he does his job. "I enjoyed it and it made me want to be a meteorologist even more."

Me and Bill Quinlan at Job Shadowing (02/01/2001)

In January 2002, Roop went to the American Meteorological Society first annual Weather Fest. Roop got to educate himself about his interest. He even met former National Hurricane Center Director, Dr. Bob Sheets.

Roop met a storm chase group in West Palm Beach at a get-together. The chase group, Weathervine, showed videos and talked about storm chasing. Roop even brought along a music video mix of some storms he had taken with the camcorder.

A few weeks later, Roop took a SKYWARN basic spotter class that was done by the NWS in Jacksonville, FL Warning Coordination Meteorologist Fred Johnson. it was presented by Alachua County, FL SKYWARN.

May 13, after months of Thursday classes held by the Silver Springs Radio Club, he passed his technical license Amateur Radio exam. Roop was issued his license and call sign, KG4TLG, by the Federal Communications Commission on May 20, 2002.

In December 2002, Roop was accepted as a student member in the American Meteorological Society.

PRESENT AND FUTURE

Roop graduated from Lake Weir High School May 25, 2002. Now, he's a college sophomore at Central Florida Community College to work towards his A.A. degree. However, after a long battle with the rigorous math and science classes and a falling GPA, he will only be pursuing to study journalism. However, his interest in meteorology still persists.

He was accepted to the University of Florida in May and started classes Jan. 8. He is majoring in journalism, but is also considering a second major in geography.

GET IN TOUCH WITH CHARLES:

E-Mail: Thewxmanjeckel_83@yahoo.com