Speaking His Mind, Beyond the Forecast

A profile of the Weather Channel’s Bryan Norcross.

In 1992, then a weatherman in South Florida, he became the breakout star of Hurricane Andrew when he broadcast live for 23 hours straight, much of it from a storage room, at WTVJ, an NBC affiliate. Many residents credited his steady tone and resourceful tips (if you have ever huddled in a bathtub covered by a mattress, you can thank Mr. Norcross) with getting them through the storm. Afterward, some Floridians scrawled “Norcross for President” on their battered homes. Twenty years later, the trim, slow-talking Mr. Norcross, who now lives in Miami during the off-season, keeps his eye on hurricanes from the cushier environs of the Weather Channel, using television cameras, his blog and Facebook to issue technically detailed and often passionate reports about systems he believes pose high risk. To many self-described weather nerds, he is still “the most trusted hurricane human on the planet,” as a woman on Twitter recently described him.