Michael Bettes (born January 9, 1972) is an American television

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

and storm chaser who works for

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather forecas ...

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. He was a co-host of '' AMHQ: America's Morning Headquarters''.Mike Bettes, On-Camera Meteorologist
/ref> He hosts

Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a Far-left politics, far-left militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organiz ...

TV. Bettes has been an on-camera meteorologist for TWC since 2003, and is also an occasional fill-in weather anchor on ''

The Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was ...

''. Bettes hosted ''

Abrams & Bettes Beyond the Forecast ''Abrams & Bettes Beyond the Forecast'', commonly abbreviated ''Abrams & Bettes'', ''Beyond the Forecast'', or ''A&B'', is a weather program that was produced by The Weather Channel. History Launched 25 September 2006, the show was named for its ...

'' from 2006 to 2009, and ''

Your Weather Today ''America's Morning Headquarters'' (formerly ''Your Weather Today'', ''Morning Rush'' and ''AMHQ'') is an American morning television program on The Weather Channel. Airing every morning from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern Time, the program ...

'' from 2009 to 2012. When it was relaunched as '' Morning Rush'', he hosted it into 2014. The program was relaunched again in March of that year as ''

America's Morning Headquarters ''America's Morning Headquarters'' (formerly ''Your Weather Today'', ''Morning Rush'' and ''AMHQ'') is an American morning television program on The Weather Channel. Airing every morning from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern Time, the program ...

''. Bettes also formerly hosted '' Wake Up With Al'', from (2009–2014). Bettes is a field reporter for The Weather Channel and is lead field meteorologist for ''The Great Tornado Hunt'', the annual show that summarizes the nation's tornado seasons, . Bettes accompanied scientists for TWC coverage of

VORTEX2 The Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (or VORTEX) are field experiments that study tornadoes. VORTEX1 was the first time scientists completely researched the entire evolution of a tornado with an array of instrumentati ...

. He also has reported live from

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...

, and other tropical cyclones, as well as floods and winter storms. He was caught in the EF3 tornado on May 31, 2013 in El Reno, Oklahoma, but survived; at least four people died that day. A year later, he and his crew returned to the Great Plains to forecast and report severe weather as part of the 2014 Tornado Track.

Early life and education, early career

Born in

Tallmadge, Ohio Tallmadge ( ) is a city in Summit and Portage counties in Ohio, United States. It is a suburb of Akron and part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 17,537 at the 2010 census. Tallmadge was founded in 1807 and is the sec ...

in 1972, Bettes attended local schools when growing up. He graduated with a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

atmospheric sciences Atmospheric science is the study of the Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study of ...

from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

(OSU). He worked as chief meteorologist for

WLOS WLOS (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Asheville, North Carolina, United States, broadcasting American Broadcasting Company, ABC and MyNetworkTV programming to Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina. It is owned by Sincl ...

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...

, and as weekend meteorologist at

WSYX WSYX (channel 6) is a television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC, MyNetworkTV and Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to TBD station WTTE (channel 28, owned by Cunningham ...

WTTE WTTE (channel 28) is a television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States, airing programming from the digital multicast network TBD. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broad ...

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

and

WKEF WKEF (channel 22) is a television station in Dayton, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC, Fox, and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Dabl affiliate WRGT-TV (channel 45) under a local ...

WRGT WRGT-TV (channel 45) is a television station in Dayton, Ohio, United States, affiliated with the digital multicast network Dabl. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast ...

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...

. Following that, he started work for The Weather Channel.

Tornado incident

Bettes was one of several storm chasers struck by an EF3 tornado in

El Reno, Oklahoma El Reno is a city in and county seat of Canadian County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 16,989, marking a change of 1.55% from 16,729, recorded in the 2010 census. The city was begun shortly after the 1 ...

in 2013. The storm rolled and tossed his

SUV A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a car classification that combines elements of road-going passenger cars with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive. There is no commonly agreed-upon definiti ...

approximately into a field. The roof collapsed and his crew suffered major injuries: driver Austin Anderson broke several bones. They were later found by

Reed Timmer Reed Timmer (born March 17, 1980) is an American meteorologist and storm chaser. He is known for starring in the Discovery Channel reality television series ''Storm Chasers'', as well as in the documentary film '' Tornado Glory'' and in the ser ...

and his

SRV Dominator The SRV Dominator is the name given to a series of vehicles used for Reed Timmer, as featured on the Discovery Channel series ''Storm Chasers'' (SRV stands for Storm Research Vehicle). In April 2013, Reed Timmer, designer and operator of all thre ...

team, who were storm chasing for Oklahoma City's

KFOR-TV KFOR-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside independent station KAUT-TV (channel 43). Both stations share studios in Oklahoma ...

when they spotted Bettes' wrecked SUV, and saw

markings on it. They stopped to assist

Oklahoma Highway Patrol The Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) is a major state law enforcement agency of the government of Oklahoma. A division of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, the OHP has traffic enforcement jurisdiction throughout the state. OHP was legislat ...

and other first responders, but had to leave to escape the back end of the storm. In another incident, the same tornado killed

TWISTEX TWISTEX (a backronym for Tactical Weather-Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes Experiment) was a tornado research experiment that was founded and led by Tim Samaras of Bennett, Colorado, US, that ended in the deaths of three researchers in ...

storm chasers

Tim Samaras Timothy Michael Samaras (November 12, 1957 – May 31, 2013) was an American engineer and Storm chasing, storm chaser best known for his field research on tornadoes and time on the Discovery Channel show, ''Storm Chasers (TV series), Storm C ...

, his son Paul, and colleague Carl Young of

South Lake Tahoe, California South Lake Tahoe is the most populous city in El Dorado County, California, United States, in the Sierra Nevada. The city's population was 21,330 at the 2020 census, down from 21,403 at the 2010 census. The city, along the southern edge of Lake ...

. Amateur storm chaser Dan Robinson of

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

escaped the tornado with a few injuries. He was a few hundred yards ahead of the TWISTEX crew. Local resident Richard Charles Henderson was killed in the same area as the TWISTEX crew after deciding to chase the storm. Henderson had sent a picture of the twister to a friend using his cell phone just before the storm struck him. Billy Prater, a

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...

student, together with his father and a friend, sought refuge under an overpass when the storm changed direction (such action is strongly discouraged in these situations). They were lucky to survive.

Career timeline

*19??—1998:

weekend meteorologist *1998–2003:

chief meteorologist *2003–present:

**2003–present: Field reporter **2006–2009: '' Abrams & Bettes: Beyond the Forecast'' co-host **2009: ''

Weather Center Live ''Weather Center Live'' (previously named ''Weather Center'' from its relaunch in March 2009 until May 2011) was an American weather news television program on The Weather Channel. Airing in various timeslots throughout the daytime (and sometim ...

'' co-host **2009–2014: '' Wake Up With Al'' segment correspondent and fill-anchor **2009–2012: ''

'' co-host **2012–2014: '' Morning Rush'' co-host **March 2014–January 23, 2015: ''

'' co-host **August 2015–present: ''Weather Underground TV'' *2007–present:

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

**2007–present: ''

'' fill-in weather anchor **2007–present: Special reporter

Personal life

Bettes is married to Allison Chinchar, a freelance

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

meteorologist.

References

External links