John Gerard is a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist with over 30 years of television experience. He holds the distinguished seals of broadcasting approval from both the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Weather Association (NWA).
John has been on the air for some memorable weather events such as tracking Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma across South Florida, a legendary April snowfall in Tennessee, and the Miami Tornado that struck downtown Miami and Miami Beach in 1997. His work that day is included in a special presentation on tornadoes produced by the Discovery Channel that still airs worldwide several times a year.
John has a passion to inform and educate. You’ll find that he designs his presentations in a way that is user-friendly. In fact, he developed a college-level curriculum entitled “Principles in Broadcast Meteorology” where he teaches meteorology and communications majors how to take complex subject matter and formulate a cohesive, sensible presentation that all can understand. He’s been a Lecturer at the University of Miami (Coral Gables, Florida) since 2007. He enjoys visiting area schools talking about the weather and expressing to young people the importance of “just saying no” to drugs.
John was born and raised in Levittown, New York but says he’s lost most of his accent due to spending so many years in the Midwest and the South. Despite the demands of a TV meteorologist, John has found time to work as a public address announcer for a professional hockey team and coach youth soccer (that is until his kids grew up and realized he didn’t really know a thing about soccer). He has also led a Saturday morning youth sports ministry at his church for several years.
John comes to San Antonio after spending 17 years on the air in Miami at WTVJ (NBC) and WPLG (ABC). He began his forecasting career right out of college (S.U.N.Y. Oswego) in 1979 by forecasting for weather-sensitive industries like airports, municipalities, snow-removal companies, golf courses, amusement parks, major league baseball teams and movie studios. He made the switch to television and radio in 1983 when he was named Chief Meteorologist for WTVW (ABC) in Evansville, Indiana. He has also been Chief Meteorologist for WATE (ABC), Knoxville, Tennessee and WLWT (NBC), Cincinnati, Ohio. John has been called upon to deliver expert testimony in weather-related legal matters. He is also a member of the S.U.N.Y. Oswego Alumni Association.
He loves just about all sports, going to the gym, eating out, going to church, and cutting his own grass! “Anything that’ll get me outdoors” he says. John can be reached at johngerard@woaitv.com.
