Lon's Homepage

Welcome to my main homepage.
Within you'll find information about the things I do professionally and for fun.

Looking for my Forecasts and Outlooks page? Click here!

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"We are a way for the universe to know itself.  Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can,  because the Cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff."

  - Carl Sagan

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Land of the free, home of the brave; long may it wave ...

Tornado near Spring Valley, Texas on May 27, 1997.

I retired from broadcasting the weather on KWTX on January 28th of 2011. In case you're interested, here's a little more information about me:

In 1997,  I was involved in storm spotting and chasing during a tornado outbreak in Central Texas. I saw eight separate tornadoes that day (May 27, 1997), including the tornado at Jarrell, Texas which killed 27 people and destroyed an entire neighborhood.  I was at that time working full-time as an assistant district attorney in Bell County, Texas. As a result of my activities during the tornado outbreak, I was offered part-time employment by KWTX-TV as weekend weather anchor. For 3 1/2 years, I was working almost continuously, Monday through Friday as a prosecutor, and on weekends as weather anchor. After retiring from prosecution in 2001, I accepted full-time employment as a weather anchor with KWTX-TV in Waco. For six years I was the morning and noon weather anchor Monday through Friday. I became the Noon and 5pm weather anchor in 2007.  My interest in meteorology and weather goes back a long time, beginning during the 4th grade at Tyler Elementary School in Belton. My 4th grade teacher, Lillian Messer, helped generate my interest in weather through her interest in geography. After graduating from high school, I had a weekday weathercast on radio station KTON in Belton, Texas.

I am very fortunate to have an opportunity to pursue one of my lifelong avocations as a second career. In 2001, I completed 40 hours of meteorology courses from Mississippi State University and and received certification as a Broadcast Meteorologist. I now hold the coveted status of Certified Broadcast Meterologist from the American Meteorological Society as well as the Weathercaster Seal of Approval (inactive) from the National Weather Association. I'm also actively involved in meteorological research: an on-going project involves examining the production of tornadoes by tropical cyclones as they make landfall. I have narrowed the scope of my research in this area to the role of mid-level dry air intrusions. My manuscript describing the results of the research has been published in the AMS journal Weather and Forecasting. Here is a link to the article. [Note: viewing requires Adobe Acrobat.]

Me!

Click here to access some of my other tornado, storm and nature photographs.

 Click here to access my Tropical Cyclone section.

Click here to access my Weather Outlooks and Forecasts section.

 Click here to access my Recent Severe Events in Central Texas section.

  Now available ... "Jarrell 'Reprise' ... A New Look at the Unusual Central Texas Tornado Outbreak of 1997"! .

More links are available in my Severe Weather Outlooks and Forecasts section!

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