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“How far is it? How fast, and which way is it moving?” he explains. He helped develop remote sensing instruments like LIDAR, an acronym for “laser detection and ranging.” The work focused on reading the pulses of energy reflected off tiny molecules of snow or rain. That seemed like a really fun way to make a living.” After graduation, he earned a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from Metropolitan State University there.ĭuring his last two years and after earning his diploma in1995, Hutch worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency in Boulder as a research meteorologist. “I had one taught by a former local anchor, and we toured the stations. “That steered me in this direction,” he reports. He spent his final years attending high school in Denver, where he had classes in broadcasting taught by local meteorologists. The family moved to Brainerd, Minnesota, as he started high school. I’ve been fascinated ever since by how the weather works.” “We were in school when there was a tornado warning,” he remembers, “I ran outside and saw it – right over our house.

It saves lives.”īorn in Billings, Montana, Hutch was “bitten by the weather bug,” as he says, in the 4th grade. Now we get smartphone video, and we learn about them almost instantly through social media. He adds a note of explanation: “The number of tornadoes is going up because more people, see, observe and record them. The yearly average on the North Dakota side has risen from 17 to more than 25 in just the last 25 years. “On June 10, 2010, there were over 80 tornadoes in our viewing area and over 100 in all of North Dakota and Minnesota,” he remembers. It was pretty awe-inspiring.” But it was far from the worst. “They seem to happen every three years or so. “We’ve had a handful of truly memorable events since I came to Fargo 15 years ago,” he says. Hutch was in front of the camera, ad-libbing every word of his long soliloquy based on data that Nathan was feeding him. Colleague Nathan Hopper was mostly behind the scenes, collecting reports and watching radar and bulletins streaming in from the National Weather Service. Hutch was on the air for more than two hours – a substantial chunk of time for commercial stations that depend on advertising revenue. While the worst of the storm collapsed before reaching Moorhead and Fargo, neighboring towns from Wahpeton and Fergus Falls to Alexandria were hit hard. Starting near Sioux Falls with violent winds that stirred up epic dust storms, the system moved north and east, with rising temperatures picking up moisture and dumping it in torrents across many of the 45 counties where Valley News Live viewers were watching the skies. One week ago, he was emphasizing “all.” A major regional storm system later dubbed a “derecho” turned his evening forecasts on KVLY and KXJB into a prime-time event. Here in the Red River Valley, weather tends to be an all-or-nothing thing. “We seem to get an extended period of dry weather, like last year, followed by an equally extended period of wet.

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“Our weather seems to go in waves,” the friendly 6’4” TV weatherman observes.

After nearly 30 years as a broadcast meteorologist in North Dakota, there’s not much that surprises him … except possibly when he forecasts all of it within just a few weeks. Drought that sears the fields and forests, and torrential rains that turn acres into impromptu lakes. The severe weather on Thursday, May 12, kept KVLY Chief Meteorologist Hutch Johnson live on the air for several hours as he tracked the wind, rain and tornados across much of the station’s 45-county viewing area.