Nash Roberts
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Nash Charles Roberts Jr. (April 13, 1918 – December 18, 2010) was a
New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
-based
meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
widely known for the accuracy of his
hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its ...
forecasts.


Career

He began his career in weather as an officer of the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. He worked for Admiral
Chester Nimitz Chester William Nimitz (; 24 February 1885 – 20 February 1966) was a Fleet admiral (United States), fleet admiral in the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Co ...
in the Pacific. Roberts was on the first plane to enter the eye of a tropical system near the
Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
. This method is still used today by the "
Hurricane Hunters Hurricane hunters, typhoon hunters, or cyclone hunters are aircrews that fly into tropical cyclones to gather weather data. In the United States, the organizations that fly these missions are the United States Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather ...
" of the
Air Force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...
based at
Keesler Air Force Base Keesler Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in Biloxi, a city along the Gulf Coast in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. The base is named in honor of aviator 2d Lt Samuel Reeves Keesler Jr., a Mississippi nati ...
in
Biloxi, Mississippi Biloxi ( ; ) is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. It lies on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast in southern Mississippi, bordering the city of Gulfport, Mississippi, Gulfport to its west. The adjacent cities ar ...
, to measure and record internal conditions in hurricanes in the
Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...
, the
Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...
and
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
to help predict their development and path. After leaving the navy in 1946, Roberts opened a meteorological consulting business in downtown New Orleans, catering to oil companies, drilling firms and other businesses whose operations depended on weather conditions. He told
WWL-TV WWL-TV (channel 4) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Slidell, Louisiana, Slidell-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL (channel 54). The two stations share st ...
anchor
Angela Hill Angela Patrice Hill (born January 12, 1985) is an American mixed martial artist who competes in the women's Strawweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). She was formerly signed with the Invicta Fighting Championships, where ...
he had never envisioned working in television and refused offers to do so until a local advertising executive offered to finance his visiting
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
to observe the weathercaster of that city's
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
affiliate station at work. After seeing this, Roberts reasoned he could do the job and accepted an offer to begin TV work on a consultant basis. Throughout his career at several New Orleans stations, he insisted on never being a direct employee of any station but a contractor, to preserve his independence in forecasting, and worked out of his own company's office rather than on station premises when not on camera. On October 1, 1951, he began broadcasting on
WDSU-TV WDSU (channel 6) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on Howard Avenue in the city's New Orleans Central Business District, Centra ...
. Roberts was the first full-time weathercaster in the
Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the Southern United States. The term is used to describe the states which were most economically dependent on Plantation complexes in the Southern United States, plant ...
and one of the first to use
radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...
on
television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
weather broadcasts. Roberts continued as a local forecaster on New Orleans television and radio. His calm guidance during these storms made him legendary to people throughout southeast Louisiana. He was the only local forecaster to accurately predict the paths of
Hurricane Betsy Hurricane Betsy was an intense, deadly and destructive tropical cyclone that brought widespread damage to areas of Florida, the Bahamas, and the central United States Gulf Coast in September 1965. The storm's erratic nature, coupled with ...
in 1965, which hit the New Orleans area directly, and
Hurricane Camille Hurricane Camille was a powerful, deadly and destructive tropical cyclone which became the second most intense on record to strike the United States (behind the 1935 Labor Day hurricane) and is one of the four Category 5 hurricanes to make ...
in 1969, a storm that devastated coastal
Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...
. After departing WDSU in November 1973, he moved to then-new Newscene 8 at WVUE-TV in January 1974 for 4 years, then to Eyewitness News at WWL-TV on March 20, 1978. As he aged, he gradually cut back his schedule, giving most of the day-to-day weathercasting chores to younger meteorologists Al Duckworth, who had been at WWL since becoming its first chief meteorologist in July 1968, and Dave Barnes. In later years, Roberts was the favorite forecaster in the area, especially among older viewers, to the point where competitors good-naturedly referred to him as "the Weather God". After his retirement, he would be brought back as a special consultant when hurricanes threatened in the Gulf. By the late 1980s he seemed to many like a figure from an earlier era, as he eschewed computer graphics and other modern special effects in favor of a simple black marker and paper map. Nash retired from the
Eyewitness News ''Eyewitness News'' is a style of television presentation that emphasizes visual elements and action videos, instead of the older ,"man-on-camera" style of newscast, and is most prominently featured in the New York City metropolitan area. Hi ...
anchor desk in February 1984, but would come back during storms to help calm and educate the locals during hurricane season, sometimes to the visible resentment of the station's younger weathermen, especially when Nash's experience, intuition, and pen and paper yielded more accurate predictions than their computer models. He accurately predicted the path of
Hurricane Georges Hurricane Georges () was a powerful and long-lived tropical cyclone which caused severe destruction as it traversed the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in September 1998, making seven landfalls along its path. Georges was the seventh tropical storm ...
in 1998, while all the full-time on-air meteorologists of the area, namely Bob Breck of WVUE and Dan Milham of WDSU, predicted an incorrect track. Roberts finally retired from even his special hurricane appearances in July 2001 (in part to help take care of his wife of over 60 years, Lydia), and that same year donated his papers to
Loyola University, New Orleans Loyola University New Orleans is a private Jesuit university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Originally established as Loyola College in 1904, the institution was chartered as a university in 1912. It bears the name of the Jesuit foun ...
. He was fully retired, and had not been seen on TV in several years by 2006. Roberts and his wife evacuated in advance of
Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...
in 2005, the first time he had left town for a hurricane. Roberts figures prominently in a 2006 book about Hurricane Camille, ''Roar of the Heavens'', by Stefan Bechtel.


Personal life

Lydia and Nash Roberts had two sons, four grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Lydia Roberts died in June 2007.


Death

Nash died on December 18, 2010, after a lengthy illness at 92.


References


External links


''Times-Picayune'' article, July 25, 2006


* ttp://library.loyno.edu/assets/handouts/archives/Nash_Roberts_Hurricane_Papers.pdf Nash Roberts Hurricane Papers Finding Aid at
Loyola University New Orleans Loyola University New Orleans is a Private university, private Jesuit university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Originally established as Loyola College in 1904, the institution was chartered as a university in 1912. It bears the nam ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Nash 2010 deaths Culture of New Orleans American meteorologists Television anchors from New Orleans 1918 births