Mike Chesterfield
VP of Weather Presentation and Data Visualization, the Weather Channel
New tools for talking about the weather
Mike Chesterfield is the VP of weather presentation and data visualization at the Weather Channel, where he has won two Emmys for his work in immersive mixed reality (IMR).
Chesterfield loves predicting the future. When he was 6, he asked his dad to leave Disney World in the middle of the day because he saw a storm in the clouds. To his dad’s surprise, thunder roared as they reached the park’s monorail.
Chesterfield studied meteorology in college but did not like being on camera. He considered bringing his forecast and data-modeling skills to a career in finance. A Chicago TV station offered him a position as a meteorologist and weather producer. He enjoyed his first week so much, the rest was history.
Now at the Weather Channel, Chesterfield helps find new techniques for meteorological storytelling. He works with a team of 18 to create graphics and immersive environments used in shows such as “America’s Morning Headquarters” (AMHQ). He also produces content for livestreaming on Facebook and YouTube, as well as social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.
By Agnes Cheung
I tell people that I was born a meteorologist but raised as a journalist in my professional career. In my third or fourth year at my station in Chicago, producers taught me that people consume information through good storytelling. It changed the way I produce content. That’s when I began considering myself a meteorologist who is also a journalist. Good communication is such a critical piece as a meteorologist.
With the ability to stream different content all at the same time on various platforms, we have to change the way we tell stories. We were learning new technology while producing for our traditional TV channel. It was scary and exciting — change is never easy.
I like the high production value of these new platforms. They are much more efficient in the sense that I only need one or two people, not the 100 people in single-feed traditional broadcasting. So my thought process is completely different. When it takes less resources to create content, we can produce more of it. We no longer have to make choices on who to focus on; we can better identify the stories.
New Ways to Warn of Dangers
One of my challenges as a meteorologist has always been to communicate the dangers of the biggest storms — and there are no bigger storms than hurricanes.
One of the deadliest factors for hurricanes is storm surge, the rise of water level after the storm. For years and years I had tried to communicate surge dangers to the public. We tried different graphs and charts, and people were not getting it. People were drowning. We would go in after a storm and all too often, people would say, “If I knew it was going to be that bad, I would have left.”
I was weather producing when Hurricane Sandy made its final approach to the Eastern coast in 2012. The water levels kept rising and rising, and soon we saw pictures of water taking over homes and streets. It was clear that the water was doing tremendous damage and that it was going to leave a trail of destruction in its wake.
Then it occurred to me that everyone was focused on the wind speed when in fact it was the power of the water that was bringing the biggest threats to life and property.
The question we all started asking was, “How can we get people to respect the storm surge?” Showing a flat map was not going to cut it. That sowed the seeds for the idea of a storm-surge immersive environment, which we eventually called Surge FX.
We developed Surge FX in June 2018 using a gaming engine called Unreal Engine, in anticipation of the hurricane season. I wanted people to experience what it would be like if they were to stay at home while the storm surge was impacting their area. We could bring billions of data points into this new graphics-generating system and produce very high-end graphics in real time — no more waiting for weeks or even months to render out final graphics.
At our final test, I ran through probably 100 different scenarios. What would the rising water levels mean to viewers? How would a car float at each level of the surge?
Then I thought, let’s do it all, let’s go up to 10 feet. On the return monitor, I saw myself next to the wall of water and I realized, “Oh my gosh, this is it! This is going to be the new way to present information to our audience.”
When Hurricane Florence was approaching in 2018 with an expected 12 feet or more of storm surge, it was very nerve-racking. We knew the storm-surge simulation was working. What we didn’t know was how we’d do with the new process: producing the graphics in real time and turning around the latest forecast information fast so that the audience could understand it as quickly as possible.
Cracking the Code
It was a new learning curve, new cameras to operate and a new studio to navigate. Our talents had to present in a new area that was just green. We didn’t know how everything was going to come together until we were on air.
In a sense, once Florence came, the graphics work was done. I went home to get some rest before the next 12 hours of work began. My wife saw the new graphics, not on the Weather Channel, but on one of the late-night shows. Storm-surge simulation made it all the way to mainstream media and people were talking about it!
It really wasn’t until probably several weeks later, after we had gotten past the hurricane coverage, that I had a chance to decompress, to truly realize what it was that we did. In my career I’ve always been one to move forward and never look back, so it was a new feeling to take a couple minutes to look back and say, “We did something, and not just different, but better.” That was cool.
It was one of my proudest moments. Finally, we found that one missing piece that cracked the code. That feeling of accomplishment was so much greater. People were finally heeding the warnings.
How to Talk About Climate Change
After Florence, we started thinking about other meteorological stories and had an “Aha” moment with climate change. The hardest thing to tell about the story of climate change is that it is very slow, yet people want to see it in action. That makes it very difficult to communicate the dangers. Some of the largest impacts are 50, 60, or 70 years down the road — though not that things aren’t already happening. But now we have a way to show the future.
We used data from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. We also looked at sea-level rises.
We simulated what things look like now in Charleston, South Carolina, and what they would look like in 50 years if there are no mitigation efforts. The old historic downtown Charleston would essentially be underwater. That’s in 50 years, that’s within some of our lifetimes. I hope to be alive in 50 years, and that’s just crazy!
When I first started at the local station 25 years ago, we used a projector to project a slide for live TV. The talent would stand in front of the projected map and point to it. As big as the map was, it was basically chalkboard level. With new technology, we can now change our storytelling method.
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, but I think being able to show what the future looks like is worth even more.