Podcast appearances and mentions of Michael Brennan

In this episode, Phil Treadwell talks with Michael Brennan about redefining leadership and making intentional impact. Michael emphasizes that leadership is a verb, not a noun; it's about taking action, not holding a title. He encourages listeners to "lead up" regardless of their role and to say yes to opportunities that create growth. They discuss how consistency builds trust over time and how small actions, like a thoughtful text, can make a big difference. Michael Brennan is the president of Nationwide Mortgage Bankers (NMB), overseeing sales and operations across 47 states. He leads the NMB Affinity Platform, a financial wellness initiative built on strategic partnerships. Previously, he was president of Movement Mortgage, where he helped grow the company to 5,600 employees and $33 billion in annual volume. Michael is also active in philanthropy, supporting global nonprofits and serving as a key partner in John Maxwell's EQUIP Foundation. 01:30 Meet Michael 06:20 It's Not How It's Always Been 10:15 Lead Up 13:20 Leadership is a Verb 16:55 Never Say No 22:05 Consistency Compounds 24:50 Part of the Impact 32:20 Send That Text Connect with Michael: Website | LinkedIn BE IN THE ROOM WHERE GROWTH HAPPENS: M1A Mastermind Group If you are enjoying the MME podcast, please take a second and LEAVE US A REVIEW. And JOIN the M1A Text Community: 214-225-5696  

This conversation explores the experiences of young golfers Logan Reilly, Ben James and Michael Brennan transitioning from amateur to professional play, focusing on their recent competitions, travel experiences, and the importance of fitness and time management in their training. The discussion also highlights their reflections on significant tournaments like the Scott Robertson and offers advice for aspiring young golfers.

In this episode of Strong Home Safe Families, host LeslieChapman-Henderson speaks with Dr. Michael Brennan, Director of the National Hurricane Center, about the upcoming hurricane season and the importance of preparedness. They discuss the evolution of weather communication, the challenges of forecasting storm surge, and the significance of knowing evacuation zones. The conversation emphasizes the need for reliable information sources and the unpredictability of hurricanes, highlighting lessons learned from past storms like Hurricane Ian, Helene, Milton, and more. The episode concludes with a lightning round of meteorology basics, providing valuable insights for listeners, especially those new to the hurricane topic.Topics Origins - Dr. Michael Brennan's Journey in Meteorology (0:55)Evolution of Multi-platform Weather Communication (2:25)Navigating Competing Information Sources During Hurricanes (4:13)Understanding #HurricaneStrong – Start with “Know Your Zone (7:48)Challenges of Forecasting Storm Surge and messaging (11:08)Messaging for the Expected and Unexpected in Weather Events (15:54)Lessons from the Catastrophic Losses in Hurricane Helene (23:00)Lightning Round: Meteorology Basics (29:47) Resourceswww.noaa.gov#HurricaneStrongKnow Your Evacuation ZoneEmergency Board UpConnect With UsDr.Michael BrennanLeslie Chapman-Henderson

Michael Brennan is the CEO of the e61 institute, an economic thinktank focused on solving some of our nation's biggest societal issues today! Michael previously spent 5yrs as the Chair of the Productivity Commission for the Federal Government. You can check out Michael's work here: e61 INSTITUTE – e61 Institute is a not for profit economic research institute. We combine innovative data with state-of-the-art tools from economics, data science and statistics to answer the most important economic questions facing Australia. ​ e61 was born from a motivation to bring together problem-solvers from academia, industry and government to push the knowledge frontier so that we can tackle the big problems facing our society.The content discussed in this episode is general in nature and doesn't take into consideration the individual circumstances of the listener. Any listeners should consider their personal situation and seek professional advice and assistance if needed.

Mobile Rolling-Chris Barsby has the latest Harness news with Jason Lee, Michael Brennan and Pat Croghan.

As the pressures of tariffs continue, and some beverages remain off-limits in Saskatchewan, what sort of toll is it all having on Saskatchewan brewers? Michael Brennan, president & CEO of Great Western Brewing Company Ltd., joins Evan to offer a local perspective on tariffs hitting his industry.

In this episode Dr. Oord engages with the new book from Michael Brennan entitled Flourish: An Open and Relational Queer Theology.  Michael Brennan will be one of many speakers at the upcoming Open and Relational Theology Conference (ORTCON25) June 30 - July 4.For information and registration visit:  https://c4ort.com/ortcon/

Matt previews public hearings and work sessions for the week of March 3, 2025.Public Hearings:LD 46, HP0010An Act to Establish a Grant Program to Increase Postsecondary Educational Opportunities for Students with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities or Autism Spectrum Disorder - Rep. Kelly Murphy of Scarborough - EmergencyLD 198, SP0085An Act to Prohibit the University of Maine System Campus Police from Issuing a Citation or Summons Related to a Parking Violation to a Visitor of the University of Maine System - Sen. James Libby of CumberlandLD 375, SP0170An Act to Require the University of Maine School of Law to Provide an Online Degree Program - Sen. Trey Stewart of AroostookLD 377, SP0133An Act to Establish a University of Maine Medical School and to Dedicate Funds from Raising the Cigarette Tax to the School - Sen. Joseph Baldacci of PenobscotLD 457, SP0190An Act to Fund Climate Resiliency Projects Related to the Repair of Campus Infrastructure Used for Active Transportation and Outdoor Recreation - Sen. Anne Carney of CumberlandLD 471, SP0210Resolve, to Establish a Pilot Program to Expand Intensive English Language Learner Programs - Sen. Joseph Rafferty of YorkWork Sessions for March 5, 2025LD 34, SP0053An Act to Increase the Minimum Salary for Teachers - Sen. Teresa Pierce of CumberlandLD 71, HP0035An Act Regarding Special Education Funding - Rep. Kristi Mathieson of KitteryLD 98, HP0063An Act to Include School Counselors in the Educators for Maine Program - Rep. Michael Brennan of PortlandLD 181, HP0114An Act to Modify the Calculation of Pupil Counts Used for Determination of School Administrative Unit Operating Costs - Rep. Will Tuell of East MachiasLD 193, HP0126An Act to Fund Students in Maine Schools Who Are Experiencing Homelessness - Rep. Marshall Archer of SacoLD 501, HP0330An Act to Fairly Fund School Administrative Units for Economically Disadvantaged Students - Rep. Kristen Cloutier of LewistonWork Sessions for March 6, 2025LD 74, HP0038An Act to Update the System of Learning Results Review Timeline - Rep. Michael Brennan of PortlandLD 78, HP0042An Act to Require Elementary School Students to Learn Cursive Writing - Rep. Joseph Underwood of Presque IsleLD 360, SP0151An Act Supporting the Dirigo Reads Literacy Program - Sen. Joseph Baldacci of PenobscotLD 370, SP0162An Act to Raise the Minimum State Standard for Mathematics Education for a High School Diploma - Sen. James Libby of CumberlandLD 396, SP0182An Act to Provide for a Later Starting Time for High Schools - President. Matthea Daughtry of CumberlandLD 543, HP0362An Act to Enhance Maine's Wildlife Conservation Efforts and Preserve Maine's Sporting Heritage by Requiring Hunter Safety Education in Schools - Rep. Donald Ardell of Monticello

Matt previews public hearings for:Judiciary Committee:LD 537 An Act to Prohibit the Doxing of a Minor and to Authorize a Related Civil Action - Rep. Melanie Sachs of FreeportEducation and Cultural Affairs Committee:LD 34 An Act to Increase the Minimum Salary for Teachers - Sen. Teresa Pierce of CumberlandLD 71  An Act Regarding Special Education Funding - Rep. Kristi Mathieson of KitteryLD 98 An Act to Include School Counselors in the Educators for Maine Program - Rep. Michael Brennan of PortlandLD 181 An Act to Modify the Calculation of Pupil Counts Used for Determination of School Administrative Unit Operating Costs - Rep. Will Tuell of East MachiasLD 193 An Act to Fund Students in Maine Schools Who Are Experiencing Homelessness - Rep. Marshall Archer of SacoLD 501 An Act to Fairly Fund School Administrative Units for Economically Disadvantaged Students - Rep. Kristen Cloutier of LewistonLD 74 An Act to Update the System of Learning Results Review Timeline - Rep. Michael Brennan of PortlandLD 78 An Act to Require Elementary School Students to Learn Cursive Writing - Rep. Joseph Underwood of Presque IsleLD 315 An Act to Add a Personal Finance Course to the State Graduation Requirements in High Schools - Rep. Ed Crockett of PortlandLD 360 An Act Supporting the Dirigo Reads Literacy Program - Sen. Joseph Baldacci of PenobscotLD 370 An Act to Raise the Minimum State Standard for Mathematics Education for a High School Diploma - Sen. James Libby of CumberlandLD 396 An Act to Provide for a Later Starting Time for High Schools - President. Matthea Daughtry of CumberlandLD 543An Act to Enhance Maine's Wildlife Conservation Efforts and Preserve Maine's Sporting Heritage by Requiring Hunter Safety Education in Schools - Rep. Donald Ardell of Monticello

Joe Madsen's visit to a doctor results in a street photography photo book project that could be described as lifesaving. Husband and wife team James and Karla Murray are bookmarking the great bars of NYC, and Valérie Jardin discovers the most extraordinary personal stories photographing centenarians. Also, today in the mailbag, Cody Shultz on the phrase imposter syndrome, Anja Poehlmann introduces the concept of a long portrait, Bob of the Desert flourishes in Arizona, more mystery sofa sightings in nature by Marshall Rimann and Chris Pillings, Gert Jan Cole finds a creative life truism and Michael Brennan is finding comfort in his portrait of a truly great man, plus the assignment for November is set by Lynn Fraser and Jacquie Matechuk. Links to all guests and features will be on the showpage, my sincere thanks to MPB who sponsor this show and the Extra Milers without whom we wouldn't be walking each week. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

In this episode of The Patti Brennan Show, guest host Michael Brennan, CFP and son of Patti Brennan, joins Patti to chat about recent conferences she has attended. Michael actually runs the show today! From New York to Las Vegas, Patti has been traveling, speaking with, and interviewing some bright minds. This podcast focuses on today's most relevant issues, with Patti sharing insights gained from her experiences with remarkable people in the industry. Don't miss out on this episode of The Patti Brennan Show!  

In this episode of The Patti Brennan Show, guest host Michael Brennan joins Patti to discuss the Presidential Cycle Theory. The concepts of the sophomore slump and the third-year bump are particularly intriguing. Michael explores whether the Key Financial team can align rates of return with the sitting president, analyzing if returns truly correlate with presidential terms. Don't miss this insightful episode of The Patti Brennan Show!

Multiple counties along Florida's west coast suspend emergency response as Hurricane Milton makes landfall as a dangerous category three storm. Bill Karins, Jesse Kirsch, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Stephanie Gosk, Craig Fugate, Michael Brennan, Sam Brock, Jason Dougherty, Art Delacruz, and Dana Griffin join the 11th Hour this Wednesday.

National Hurricane Center Director Dr. Michael Brennan explains Hurricane Milton's rapid intensification, the storm's track, and when to expect impact.

National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan describes the rapid intensification of Hurricane Milton.

Florida is bracing for a direct hit from Hurricane Helene, a powerful storm that's strengthened to a Category 4 with 130 mph winds. Helene is expected to make landfall Thursday night, but many across the state have been feeling its effects all day and preparing for the worst. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Michael Brennan, the director of the National Hurricane Center. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

  Here's a revised version of your text: In this episode of The Patti Brennan Show, guest host Michael Brennan joins Patti, Rory, and Matt (from our planning and investing team) to explore the impact of an election year, including the uncertainty it can bring to the market. Together, this insightful group dives into election-year statistics, myths, and everything in between. And this is just the beginning! With so much to cover on this topic, we'll return with Part 2 as the election draws closer. Be sure to catch this episode of The Patti Brennan Show!

In this episode of The Patti Brennan Show, guest host Michael Brennan joins Patti to discuss the symposium that Michael attended at MIT. Michael was beyond excited to travel to Boston to be with so many brilliant minds. He learned so much about the latest and greatest discoveries regarding retirement and its stages. The four pillars of retirement focus on what people are most concerned about - purpose, health, family, and finances.  Join us for an informative conversation about longevity, otherwise known as life planning.  Don't miss out on this episode of The Patti Brennan Show!

Mike Brennan has returned to the show to discuss the album The Sign from Ace of Base! Is it his favorite album? No! But he came ready to talk about it all the same. We also got into some other stuff.

Making Fun A Habit Series30 days to add fun to your creative practice. I will be going through Mike Brennan's Make Fun A Habit workbook and help you make fun a habit. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike on my other podcast Find A Podcast About and talking about his podcast Creative Chats. This workbook leads you through steps to rekindle the fun in your life and get you in a space where you are your most creative. This is a 30-day book and I will be tackling each day as if it were a week and providing you insights on how you can use his ideas in your creative practice. Each chapter is broken up with a short story, questions to ponder, action items, and tips. In this episode of the Create Art Podcast, host Timothy Kimo Brien discusses the importance of making creativity enjoyable and habitual, inspired by Michael Brennan's book 'Making Fun a Habit.' Timothy shares insights from over 30 years of experience in arts and education to help listeners tame their inner critic and create more frequently. He explores creativity's basics and building blocks by asking key questions, setting creative routines, overcoming obstacles, and engaging in community activities and challenges. AssignmentQuestionsWhat do you enjoy creating? Why?What would it look like to have a regular routine of creating?What are your objections and obstacles? How can you solve these?Action ItemsStart a daily creativity journalTake a class or a workshopJoin a creative communitySet a creativity challenge for yourselfExperiment with different mediumsDon't be afraid to share your workTipsFind something that you enjoy creatingSet aside some time each day to createDon't be afraid to experimentDon't worry about being perfectShare your creations with othersTrack and measure what you createReach Out To The PodcastTo reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.Email: timothy@createartpodcast.com YouTube Channel: Create Art Podcast YT ChannelIG: @createartpodcastTwitter: @createartpodCreate Art Podcast Newslettertimothybrien.substack.comSpecial MessageIf you have found value in this podcast, please share it with a friend as that is the best way to discover new podcasts. I want this to be a 5-star podcast in your eyes so let me know what you would like to see. Speaking about sharing with a friend, check out my other podcast Find A Podcast About where I help you outsmart the algorithm and find your next binge-worthy podcast. You can find that podcast at

Graham Creech and Kevin Haime are live from the Commissionaires Open at Eagle Creek, where they're joined by tournament director Andy Rajhathy, then catch up with Michael Brennan who is fresh off the course shooting a 4-under 68

Mike Brennan is on the show to discuss Candlebox, a band whose earnest sincerity demands that we approach their 1993 self-titled album from a place of honesty. Mike is more than up for the task!

We need to right a terrible wrong. The world needs to know that Neal Murray is the true inventor of the Cosmopolitan - full stop. Don't believe what you've been told by others, we get the straight scoop in our interview with Neal. Listen in as he walks us through the history behind this iconic drink, how it got its name, how it became so popular, and a few other fascinating stories. Neal even walks Uncle Brad through how to make a proper Cosmopolitan. Trust us, you don't want to miss this episode. Please listen and please share his story. Let the truth be told! Cosmopolitan recipe (from Neal Murray) In your shaker add: 2 oz Vodka (Neal likes potato vodka, and so do we) 0.5 oz Lime Juice 0.5 oz Triple Sec (Brad used Cointreau and that turned out excellent, but it's higher proof) 0.5 oz Cranberry juice (Neal likes Ocean Spray as it's a little sweeter, and so do we) 0.5 oz Simple Syrup (1:1) Shake for 20 seconds Strain into Martini Glass (no need to double strain, Neal says the ice crystals are good in here, and he's right!) Your drink should be a beautiful pink, not red! Michael the painter's reference is Michael Brennan. Neal had a beautiful painting by him sitting behind him during our interview. Be on the lookout for Neal's youtube channel and website.  The Art of Drinking IG: @theartofdrinkingpodcast  Jules IG: @join_jules TikTok: @join_jules  Website: joinjules.com Brad  IG: @favorite_uncle_brad This is a Redd Rock Music Podcast IG: @reddrockmusic www.reddrockmusic.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

P.M. Edition for Nov. 6. After one of the most intense bombing barrages in the war in Gaza, Israel is deepening its push into Gaza City. And former President Donald Trump clashes with the judge, as he takes the witness stand in his civil-fraud trial. Corinne Ramey reports. Plus, WSJ science and climate reporter Eric Niiler speaks with National Hurricane Center director Michael Brennan about why hurricanes are getting stronger more quickly. Annmarie Fertoli hosts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Max Defender 8 Meteorologist Leigh Spann discusses the latest on Tropical Storm Idalia and what we may expect in the Tampa Bay area if it maintains the predicted track National Hurricane Center Director Dr. Michael Brennan has the latest on Tropical Storm Idalia, where it's at, what it's predicted to do, and what it means to be on the ‘dirty side' of the storm. NewsRadio WFLA National Correspondent Rory O'Neill gives us the latest on Tropical Storm Idalia and what the National Hurricane Center is saying about the storm. NewsRadio WFLA National Correspondent Erin Real gives an update on the labor unions and how the strikes are going in Hollywood and the various industries across the U.S.

Host Steve Saltzgiver is joined by Scott Rood and Michael Brennan in this week's episode of "The Fleet Success Show" to discuss NAFA's 100 Best Fleets list. The fleet experts - and 100 Best Fleets judges - give inside tips on what fleets need to demonstrate to make the list, and how it can benefit the fleet operation.Have feedback on the show? We'd love to hear it! Send us your comments, questions, and feedback anywhere on social media @FleetSuccess, or send us an email at podcast@rtafleet.com.Want a copy of “The Fleet Success Playbook”?  Reserve your copy today!Don't forget to share the show with your colleagues and friends, and of course, subscribe to "The Fleet Success Show" anywhere you listen to podcasts!

Two guests join Chris Lang on this special U.S. Open preview episode. Hear from Isaac Simmons (starting at the 3:23 mark), one of two VSGA members who qualified for the championship. Michael Brennan was the other. Then, U.S. Open Championship director Charlie Howe joins (starting at the 26:05 mark). Howe discusses his path from Virginia Tech soccer player to his current role with the USGA and gives some good intel on Los Angeles Country Club, a first-time U.S. Open host.

The new director of the National Hurricane Center, Mike Brennan, joined the weather team this week for an in-depth discussion on all things hurricanes. From the biggest concerns, the latest forecast and communication improvements, to the impact of climate change, it's everything you need to know as hurricane season 2023 gets underway. We want to hear from you! Have a question for the meteorologists? Call 609-272-7099 and leave a message. You might hear your question and get an answer on a future episode! About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. Episode transcript Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically: Hello, once again, everybody. I'm meteorologist Sean Sublette. And welcome to Across the Sky, our National Lee Enterprises weather podcast. Lee Enterprises has print and digital news operations in 77 locations across the country, including in my home base in Richmond, Virginia. I'm joined this week by my colleague Matt Holiner in Chicago. And both Joe Martucci and Kirsten Lang are taking some time away from the office. Matt, we've got a great yes. This week, National Hurricane Center director Mike Brennan, we're going to talk all about not just what's upcoming this hurricane season. We talk about trends. We talk about communications. Man, there's a lot of stuff to get to today. Yeah, we really did cover a lot of them because we were so happy to actually get him on the podcast. I mean, this time of year he's doing so many interviews in preparation of hurricane season. So we're like, Yes, we got him. And so for the short amount of time that we had him, the 30 minutes, we throw as many questions as we could at him and really did cover everything. And, you know, he just took over the job recently in April. So, you know, it's a bit of a learning curve for him. But he has been with the hurricane center for years and it has been working with him. And you can tell that he's he's just filling right into the role and got all of our questions answered. So it was a fantastic episode. Absolutely. So let's get right at it with National Hurricane Center director Michael Brennan. And we welcome Mike Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center in South Florida. Shortly after getting his Ph.D. at NC State and his time at the NOAA's Weather Prediction Center in suburban D.C. He began as senior hurricane specialist at NHC in 28 and was selected as Hurricane Center director earlier on this year. Dr. Brennan, thank you for joining us and congratulations. Thanks, Sean. Great to be with you. Now, before we talk about the upcoming hurricane season, step back a little bit. Tell us what got you excited and into the weather in the first place. Yeah, I think like most meteorologist, pretty well bitten with the weather bug at a pretty early age. Something I've always been interested in. I grew up in southwest Virginia, a place with lots of interesting weather, you know, all four seasons at winter weather. It was pretty interested in that, you know, very flash flood prone area, heavy rainfall, remnants of hurricanes, severe weather. So it was a pretty interesting place to grow up. You know, I think one pretty formative moment was a 19 November, 1985, the flood of record in the Roanoke Valley in southwest Virginia. Still, the flood of record, the remnants of a tropical storm that made landfall on the Gulf Coast came up. It rained very heavily for several days, had five or six inches of rain on, I think it was November 5th or sixth that year. And the whole hydro system sort of went into flood and my grandmother lost her home in that event. So it was pretty, pretty impressionable. I was about eight at the time. So, you know, and I think as I got older, I sort of dawned on me that I could actually make it. Yeah, there's a there's a career to have in meteorology if you want to want to do that. I think probably by the time I was 11 or 12, I sort of recognized that and just decided to pursue it from there. Well, we're glad to have you and very happy that you're there at the Hurricane Center. Looking forward to this coming year, whatever it may bring. Can you talk a little bit about what kind of changes have any regarding public and experimental products? I might be coming out of the Hurricane Hurricane Center for for this season? Sure. Yeah. Probably the most notable one is our tropical weather outlook, which is sort of our flagship situational awareness product that we issue every 6 hours to talk about systems that could go on to become tropical depressions or tropical storms in the Atlantic. The period that we cover in that product is now extended out for seven days under the future. It's been five days for for many years we've been experimenting with seven day Genesis forecasts for the last three or four seasons. And they're they're pretty reliable, which means that if over the long term, if we say a system has a 70% chance of development, about 70% of those systems go on to develop so that they're statistically reliable. And so this year we pushed that time window out to seven days. So to give people just a little more heads up, a little better situational awareness that, hey, this is a system, the Hurricane Center is watching, that what could go on and become a tropical depression or tropical storm during the next week. Not every system is going to be in the outlook seven days in advance, though. We still have systems that are difficult to forecast formation, especially when you get out of the deep tropics. But for those systems are more competent and we hope to be giving people more lead time this year going back to those outlooks than once something gets developed into the Atlantic Basin, Gulf or the Caribbean. Talk about how track and intensity forecast have improved over the last 20 years because most of the metrics I've seen show that the track intensity, the track forecasts have just become stellar. But we still have some work to do with intensity forecast. How is that kind of gone last last 20 years or so? Yeah, if you go back and look, say, since the year 2000, our track forecast errors, say for example, at three days or about 65% lower than they were at that time. So you can see our three day track forecast error is now below 100 miles, which, you know, if you would've told somebody that it was more like 250 miles back in 2000. So that's been a tremendous improvement there. And we have for many decades, we've seen the track forecast steadily improving all the way from the 1980s and nineties up till today. And we still continue to see that improving. On the intensity side, that's the story for many years was that the tracks are getting better, but the intensity forecasts are not. But that's really not true anymore. We've started to see significant improvements in our intensity forecast here. And if you look just at our three day intensity error now compared to 2000, it's about 50%. It's about half of what it was then. We're down below ten, about ten knots. Used to be around 20 knots. So we're making progress there. That's pretty much new in the last 10 to 15 years. And we're also making progress in rapid intensity events where we cut our 24 hour forecast error in half for rapidly intensifying systems just in the last like four or five years. And Mike, with the tropical weather outlooks going out to seven days, I think that raises the question, are we at the point where we're going to expand the forecast cones when we have an active storm out to seven days? Is that happening this year? Are there any plans in the future? Not this year, but it's something we've been experimenting with. We've been making six and seven day track and intensity forecasts in-house for the better part of the last four or five years in evaluating them, trying to see when we're going to be ready to make those public. You know, on average, the average errors are pretty good. They're they're pretty close to what the average five dayers were or better than the average five dayers, where we reduce the five day forecast back and I think 2003. But the challenge with seven days is you get about 10% of those cases where the errors are really, really big. And you know, you think of a system where you it's forecast to recur, but it doesn't recurve or you can end up with errors of six or 700 miles a day, seven. So we want to try to be very careful about introducing those forecast and even more careful about how we convey them in a graphical way. I'm not sure we want to just extend the current cone out to seven days. You know, maybe we do something different. So we're working with the social science community on sort of what the cone graphic might become in the next few years, and that'll probably be part of how we go on and convey the six and seven day forecast information at that time. Yeah, Mike, I know there's been a little bit of a buzz to have more of a dynamic statistical cone, if you will. In other words, you know, there's always been, well, this is what our average era is. So this is where the cone is. Yeah. But that that doesn't always work the best. How how is that discussion going along? Yeah, you could tell us about that. I think that's part of a broader discussion we want to have about, you know, what's driving our probabilistic products, not just the cone, but the probabilistic storm surge information and the probabilistic information about tropical storm and hurricane force winds. Right now, you're right, they all use basically historical errors over the past five years or so. You know, what are the typical errors at day one, two, three, four or five in terms of track intensity, How much does the size of the storm vary? We want to start moving towards incorporating real time uncertainty information from ensembles into those into those products. So that's that's a goal that we want to try to work toward. I think it'll probably come first for track because that's where we have the most reliable ensembles. Now we can use global ensembles from the European that GFS that can can start to capture the uncertainty in the track forecast. They're not perfect, but we probably have and we have information we could extract from them getting to the intensity and the structure. Information is going to take more time. We're going to have to have a, you know, a bigger and right now we don't really have a dynamical model hurricane ensemble that really can, you know, capture the uncertainty and the structure and the intensity of the storms. That's something we need to work towards. But my guess is it will be a gradual process over the next several years, maybe 5 to 10 years, where we start to phase in more dynamical uncertainty, information into those types of products there to be able to convey, you know, what the uncertainty is of this particular forecast case. And Mike, I know a lot of people are familiar with the National Hurricane Center, at least hearing the name, but I don't think they know a lot of the details about the hurricane Center. So how many people work at the National Hurricane Center? And then does the staffing change based on during hurricane season and outside of hurricane season? And then if you have multiple storms in the Atlantic and Pacific, does your staffing change even within hurricane season? Yeah, well, certainly the staffing changes on a given shift depending on the levels of activity. But we have about 50 federal employees that work at the hurricane Center. We also have some contractor support. We also have folks from FEMA and from the Air Force that work in the building with us to help coordinate emergency management messaging on the femicide and also help coordinate all the aircraft reconnaissance tasking from the Air Force and Noah, from our Air Force employees that work in the building. So we also have a year round operational Marine forecast branch called Taffy, the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch, which issues high seas forecasts, Marine forecast and warnings year round 24 seven Inside and outside of hurricane season. And then we have the hurricane forecast operations that pretty much are running from May 15th to November 30th. But you're right, the level of staffing, especially on the hurricane operations side, is pretty variable because it's it's sort of a activity dependent workload. You know, sometimes we have quiet periods where there's no storms. There might be one storm. We typically have two people scheduled for every shift, regardless of activity. But then we can supplement that staffing when we do get the three or four storms or we get to a big, you know, land threatening storm internationally or in the United States, the workload goes up a fair bit because there's more data to look at from aircraft. There's more coordination to do in terms of international coordination for watches and warnings, internal coordination with the National Weather Service for U.S. threats. So, you know, sometimes we have it can get really, really busy. We have a storm surge unit that activates when we have storm surge threats for the U.S. and internationally as well. So they sort of have an operational piece. So it's not, you know, for a big U.S. landfall threat, we might have five, six, seven people out on the ops for, you know, doing all the different parts of the job which go from data analysis, somebody doing the forecast, doing the coordination, doing the messaging and getting the word out to everybody. So back to that point about what you do during the course of the hurricane season, I think when I was still an undergrad in I believe it was Bob Sheets was the director at the time, once told me that you're actually busier outside of hurricane season than during hurricane season. Is that still the case and why? I think we're as busy, at least, you know, because the off season is is where we do all of our outreach, all of our training for emergency managers, for meteorologists. We have go to hurricane conferences. It's sort of where we do the the yearly run up to the hurricane season. Some of it's just reminding people we have a hurricane awareness tour where we take hurricane hunter aircraft out to different parts of the country. You know, it's it's interesting. This has sort of been the first year where we've gotten fully back into our in-person outreach and training post-COVID. But we still are keeping a lot of the virtual stuff we did during COVID. So we're adding on more and more outreach that we, you know, really wouldn't been able to handle before because there's only so many people to go around. There's only so many weeks, there's only so much travel. But when you have an ability to do virtual outreach, that sort of really expands your your reach and your scale. So we have you know, it's you know, we have outreach that's going to go all the way into even into early parts of the hurricane season. Now, the the the effort to reeducate people, remind people of the threats is constant. We have people moving to hurricane prone areas every year from areas where they don't have hurricanes. Other hurricane prone areas haven't had significant impacts in a long time. But people forget pretty quickly what the what the risk might be. So there's a continual education effort to that that we undertake in the off season. It's not just that, though. We're doing the post analysis from all the storms from last year, writing up all the tropical cyclone reports, working with the modeling community to improve our forecast models that go into effect for the next year. So there's always a continual focus on improving the products and services that is heavily, you know, heavily skewed toward the off season or the outside hurricane season time. And then sticking with the staffing theme, you know, one of the buzzy things that just keeps getting brought up and brought up in so many different aspects of society these days is artificial intelligence. So I'm curious, is the Hurricane Center currently using any artificial intelligence? Are there plans to implement it in the future? We're starting to dabble in it a little bit. We have some some intensity models that are using things like neural networks to try and, you know, pull in different sources of information and come up with different ways to create consensus forecast for tropical cyclone intensity. But I think, you know, that's an area where we're going to have to move going forward into the future simply because the human forecasters ability to absorb information in the time that you have to do the forecast is somewhat limited. And as observations continue to increase and especially model output, you know, you could imagine five, ten years from now we're going to have orders of magnitude more models for forecasters to look at. You're going to have to have some sort of tools that are going to be able to synthesize that information, give you different clusters of solutions to look at, figure out how the human is going to interact with all that data going forward. So I think I could certainly be a part of that as we move into the future. I imagine that's a tool unlike any tool that could be used very well, and sometimes it could be used not so well. So we'll we'll see how that goes. I'm going to take a little bit of a break, then we'll be right back with more with National Hurricane Center Director Mike Brennan on the Across the Sky podcast. And we're back with National Hurricane Center Director Mike Brennan on the Across the Sky podcast. And we're getting into hurricane season on the 1st of June, and there's a lot of buzz, as there always is, about what kind of the season we're going to have. Now without getting too specific, You know, Mike, in general, when we have a positive insight or an El Nino that tends to inhibit tropical cyclone, a hurricane formation, that's that's kind of a baseline. Yeah. But what other kinds of things are out there in terms of clues to what kind of a season we may have in the Atlantic basin? Yeah, and you're right, El Nino and La Nina are two of the biggest is one of one of the biggest factors we see and sort of modulating overall activity in the Atlantic, especially in the deep tropics. But there are a lot of other factors. The Atlantic basin is very warm this year, which would normally be indicative of a potentially busier season. We've been in this active area for many years now, going all the way back to the mid 1990s, and we don't see any signs that that active era has come to an end, certainly based on the last few years of activity. So what we're likely to see this year is just competing factors. Yeah, we don't know how El Nino is going to evolve, how quickly it's going to strengthen, you know, does it does it come on quicker? Does it come on slower or how strong is it going to be? How does that interplay with these other factors in the Atlantic basin in terms of seas and other factors that might be more favorable for an active season? So I would emphasize that, you know, we don't know what the season is going to look like, but we've had plenty of hurricane impacts in the United States and El Nino years and otherwise less active years. We've had major hurricane landfalls, the biggest killer in the last ten years, and tropical storms and hurricanes in this country, as is rainfall, flooding, which has very little to do with how strong storms are. So even if you get weaker systems that don't go on to develop or even become a hurricane, you can still have significant rainfall, flooding impacts. So again, we try to keep people focused on the hazards. And, you know, we always say that it only takes one storm affecting you to make it a bad season where you are. And that's the message we put out there, regardless of what any seasonal forecast might say. And best that we can, we try to re-emphasize that message as well. Yeah, only, you know, I think run from wind, hide from water. I believe it's something along those lines the other way around the run from the water. I hide from the wind. That's it. That's kept me. Thank you very much. But yeah, the water really is is the long term threat. Regarding the outlooks, as you said, it only takes one. So a lot of people have asked, you know, what's what's the value in doing these outlooks? Yeah, I kind of say, well, it's a good exercise and in understanding the right and I imagine there there are other, you know, partners, if you will, that benefit like insurance companies. But who who else may benefit from doing these types of outlooks? Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, there certainly it's a valid scientific effort because, you know, the more you understand about how the basin scale activity works on a season, you know, that may lead to better understanding of how things work on an individual storm scale. And then certainly, you know, utility in trying to predict these larger longer term seasonal the sub seasonal trends. Yeah, there should be a tremendous amount of interest and overall hurricane activity in the basin from insurance companies to the maritime shipping industry. There's so much commerce that moves around on the waters that, you know, are affected by potentially all hurricanes, whether or not they, you know, ever make it to land or not. So, you know, in just general situational awareness, you know, there is benefit in saying, hey, hurricane season is about to start. Here's what here's what we're looking at for this season. It's again, it serves as a really good reminder and sort of a big messaging boost to say, hey, hurricane season is coming, here's the outlook, here's how you can use the outlook, here's how you should use the outlook. You have to get into the details, use it the right way. I mean, looking beyond the outlook, is there something in particular from a preparation standpoint that is concerning for you and this season in particular? Oh, every season you're you're worried about people being complacent. I think again, we've seen a tremendous migration of people in this country moving around the last few years. During COVID, after COVID, we've seen a lot of people moving to hurricane prone states from other places that may or may not be hurricane experience, may not know what the risk is. I mean, I think that's that's always my biggest concern is that you go into hurricane season and people don't know what the risk is, especially if you live in a storm surge prone area. If you don't know, you live in a storm surge area and you might be asked to leave your home, then your whole preparation plan doesn't work. You know, you have to know now if you're going to be asked to potentially leave your home in advance of a storm. So you can make that plan. Now, figure out where you're going to go, how you're going to get there, what you're going to take with you, all those types of things that you need to figure out now. And I think just again, the complacency and the focus on potentially too much focus on how strong the storm is from a wind perspective now, you know, we think we can have tremendous storm surge events from so-called weaker hurricanes that they're big and slow moving, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, but also in other places. The rainfall threat, as I mentioned, has almost nothing to do with how strong a storm is from the wind perspective. And those are the hazards that that really are the deadliest. And what we want to try to hit on as hard as we can. Yeah. Have you noticed any other kinds of long term trends in tropical cyclones slash hurricane development? And, you know, there's a little of the research I've seen that shows that, you know, they're holding their strength that farther north, their latitudes, perhaps that their their forward speed is beginning to slow down in the mean, which also lends itself to heavier rain and flooding. Right. Do you see some of those trends even operationally? Or what could you speak to to those longer term trends? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, in a warming climate, I think we're most concerned about increasing risk from the water hazards we know that with sea level rise, we're going to see more storm surge, worse storm surge and storm surge in addition, occurring and moving into places where it hasn't been experienced previously. And you think the sort of the best consensus now is that by the year 2100, in some places, storm surge in a nation will be 2 to 3 feet higher than it is now. So you're going to have an increasing risk from surge, which puts more people in evacuation zones, which means you have potentially more people you have to move out ahead of a storm. And the other thing we're seeing is the heavier rainfall. We're already seeing that in hurricanes and in non hurricane, extreme rainfall events are getting worse. They're getting more frequent. We know a warming atmosphere holds more moisture. And it really has to do with how hot, how fast that rain falls in a given area and what the previous, you know, soil moisture conditions are, how that runoff, you know, plays into effect. And we know that that's going to be driving an increasing risk of rainfall, flooding as well. And again, rainfall, flooding is sort of the equal opportunity hazard. It can happen. And everywhere, you know, not just landfall locations, but hundreds of miles away, days after landfall and topography and urban areas. So that risk is is somewhat concerning. The other longer term trends are really less certain in terms of changes in storm intensity. You know, how that will evolve in a in a in a changing climate. So we're trying to keep the focus on those those particular water hazards where we are more confident in how those trends are going to play out. And Mike, as you look ahead at the next five, ten, 15 years, what do you think is the biggest challenge facing the National Hurricane Center looking forward? Well, I mean, I think we've got a few things. We've got an increasing risk and we have, you know, increasing population in hurricane prone areas so that even as our forecast are improving and they are the pace of growth, the number of people that we have to move, the amount of infrastructure along in hurricane prone areas is also increasing maybe even faster than the forecast or increasing. So so we're in a race, you know, against population trends and exposure. That is that is that we're trying to keep up with. I think a lot of it is is again, messaging how do we get through to people about what the hazards are, How do we get people to take action? Because in many cases, the forecasts are good enough now with enough lead time for people to try to generally take protective action. But we see that there are people you know, we know from social science, there are groups of people that are really hard to get to move. And, you know, when we see that play out in every event, you know, one of the great ironies is that the forecast information is so much better now, but people's but the way people consume information is so much more complex. We don't know what messages they're getting or they're getting conflicting messages from a variety of sources. So we have to stay active in that space in whatever emerging communication trends and communication platforms that come up. And we can't leave the old ones behind either. People still watch local television, people are on social media, people are on Twitter, Facebook, other platforms. We have to meet them where they are and we have to keep expanding into those new areas so that we can keep our voice out there and help sort of the hurricane community, you know, have everybody focused on the same message. And and I think those are some of the challenges we face going forward. Yeah, communication is such a huge part of the story. And before we wrap up, just stepping back a little bit, you know, I think for many meteorologists, I know we have a lot to listen to this podcast. I think a lot would say that perhaps their dream job is to be the director of the National Hurricane Center. So was this your dream job and how can you describe the experience that you've had over the last while taking over this role? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a job I've been interested in for a while. So, you know, I'm not sure I ever thought I would get here. You know, when you start your career, you have no ideas about where it might go. And but, you know, things things worked out well for me. And I was in the right, you know, a lot of it just being having the right experiences and having being in the right place at the right time to to take advantage of opportunities. But yeah, I mean, I'm just so excited to step into this role. There's so many things that, you know, I'm so proud of the staff that I lead at the hurricane Center. We've got just got immensely talented people that work there, and they're so dedicated. I think, you know, I think the National Weather Service in general has the best mission in all of government to protect lives and property. It doesn't get any clearer or any more motivating than that. And I you know, the Hurricane Center has such a huge piece of that when it comes to tropical storms and hurricanes. And we've seen that play out. So many times over the last few years. And, you know, we learned lessons. Things aren't perfect. You know, there are challenges. But I think we've seen our role make a difference so many times in these multiple landfalling events in the last few years. You know, it's just a reminder of how important the work we do is. And that's really motivating and inspiring and carries us forward into into the upcoming season. Yeah, no question about that, especially in this day and age with information all over the place. You know, the staff of the hurricane of the Hurricane Center has been very consistent over the years. And I know as a member of the of the weather and climate enterprise, we're very grateful for for the work that you and all the staff do there at NHC before we let we let you go because we know you're busy, are there one or two other key messages you really want to drive home to the public, not just about the hurricane season in general, but things they really need to remember when they're taking in a product from the hurricane center. I've tried to tell people the cone is important. Yeah, but look beyond the cone cone is that everything? There's other things going on. What other kinds of messages do you want to be sure to get out there? Yeah, that's a great one. The cone is kind of like the cover of a book. It's sort of a high level overview of where the center of the storm's likely to go over the next few days. But it's not going to tell you about your risk from storm surge or rainfall or even necessarily tropical storm or hurricane force winds. There are lots of hazards associated with hurricanes. They're complicated events and that's what makes them challenging to communicate. You have different hazards occurring in different places at different times, and the scale and scope of those hazards can evolve during a storm. So focus on the watches and warnings. Focus on what your local emergency managers or government officials are telling you to do in terms of evacuation and preparation. Listen to your find your trusted sources of information through the media, your broadcast meteorologists, your other, your other folks and the weather enterprise that you that you trust and make sure you're connected to them. The other thing I want to touch on is after the storm safety, we lose almost as many people do, fatalities that occur after tropical storms and hurricanes as we do during the storm itself. A lot of these are due to accidents, electrocutions, heart attacks, carbon monoxide poisonings from improper generator use, you know, power issues, heat related fatalities. So when you're asked to evacuate in advance of a storm, it's to keep you safe generally from storm surge, but it's also to help keep you out of an area that might be completely devastated for weeks after where you're not going to have emergency services, You may not have power or water or medical equipment to to take care of yourself. And a lot of these indirect fatalities disproportionately affect older people who may have mobility or health issues that that make them less resilient in the face of the aftermath of a significant hurricane. So we want people to stay safe after the event. We don't want to lose them. And in those days and weeks after the storm, for sure. Mike, thank you so much. Before we let you go, working people find the hurricane Center online. Get real easy. Hurricanes, dot gov. That'll get you to the National Hurricane Center. If you go to Weather.com, that'll get you to your local National Weather Service office that we partner with to get the messaging all the way from the storm scale down to your community. So that's that's where you can start to to search for information. Thank you, Mike. Good luck this season and good luck with everything out there today as well. And take care. Thanks, John. Think about wow, that was a lot to get into. And we did it in less than half an hour, which is a small miracle. But I'm so glad he was able to touch on the communications aspect. He was able to talk about why these hurricane outlook outlooks are important. You know, the climate impacts, the real world impacts of the storm. And, you know, and this is something I hadn't thought that much to to discuss in my external communications map. But after the storm, how many people get hurt after the storm? I you know, I guess one of the things I thought of intuitively, but but I don't talk about. Well, yeah, you know, I think there it often does get overlooked. So it doesn't surprise me that you brought that in because, you know, we get people we so we're so focused on getting people out of the way of the storm. And then after the storm passes, a lot of people who did get out of the way are very anxious to go back home, see what the damage is. You know, what is the state of their house, get back there. But rushing back in after a devastating landfall or a hurricane or even if it's not that big of a hurricane, technically, maybe it's just a tropical storm that was over the same area and a lot of flooding. Think of all the flooded roads that are left behind. You really don't want people rushing back in because it does lead to injuries. It does lead death. So, yes, it's the aftermath and the recovery from it as well. You know, the one thing that that stood out to me and I thought it was so great, you know, with the discussion about the forecasts going, the one comment he made is that the forecast cone is the cover of the book. And I thought that was that was just a perfect way to phrase it, because the cone is not everything. Yes, it's probably the biggest thing. It's what you see the first and what everybody wants to see. But boy, there are a lot more details when you even just just glancing at the cone, there's a lot of details just on the cone. But then it's really going beyond the cone and all the impacts that are not explained on the cone. And so really, that's why I don't want people just to think they see the cone and All right, I know what's going to happen. It's like you need to get into the details and find out all the information because you're not going to get everything from the cone. There are a lot of details that need to be ironed out. So it's always like the cone is just part of the story. Make sure you get all the details. Yeah, I'm probably going to start to steal that line from him that it's that it's like the cover of the book. And you can't judge the entire book by the cover. There is so much more to dig into. I think that is something we're going to see more and more as we go in the decades to come is as our forecast ability does get stronger to be able to resolve these finer structures within the hurricane. Because as you know, and we saw this with Ian last year that are one side of the hurricane, even if you're within ten or 20 miles of the eye wall is very different than the other side of the hurricane. You know, you've got an offshore wind versus an onshore wind and the impacts are very, very different. So we have to remind people it's not a point. All the impacts are not within 20 miles. It's a beast. It is just the cover. This is just a starting point. We pay attention to all the impacts that come with storms like these, you know? Well, you know, the other thing I think that's worth mentioning is that the 2023 hurricane season is already underway because there was a storm in January. It was just re identified. They did a post analysis, the National Hurricane Center identified a storm on January 16th that actually impacted Newfoundland and Nova Scotia with 60 mile per hour winds. Well, it turns out that was a subtropical storm. So we've already even though it didn't get a name, it's already our first storm, the season. So we're already sitting at one storm watch already. So our first named storm is going to be Arlene. But technically when Arlene comes around, it's going to be the second storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. So it's no more about, well, when hurricane season starts. No, it has officially begun. We've already had one storm. Yeah. And we remind people that even though hurricane season season starts on the 1st of June and goes into November, they can and do occasionally come outside of the season. But the core of the season is mid-August to mid-October. That's when you really need to to bring your awareness up to its its highest level is during that 8 to 10 week period there in late summer and early fall. Okay. So with that, we're going to close up shop for this week. Big thanks to Michael Brennan for taking time with us, the director of the National Hurricane Center. We've got a few more things coming up in the pipeline. I know Joe's not here, but I got to plug his dog eating contest. So we've got that working. We also talked to Mike that is here in Richmond about sports betting and and especially baseball to a lesser extent football weather. We're working on a couple of other climate e things I'm hoping that will come through more on those coming up hopefully next week or two but for right now Matt Holiner is in Chicago, meteorologist Sean Sublette in Richmond, Virginia, thanks for joining us for the Across the Sky podcast.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The number of billion dollar weather disasters in the United States has jumped in recent years. Lead Scientist on the NOAA quarterly report, Adam Smith, talks about how they arrive at those figures, what types of disasters are most expensive, and what part of the country is most vulnerable. We want to hear from you! Have a question for the meteorologists? Call 609-272-7099 and leave a message. You might hear your question and get an answer on a future episode! About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. Episode transcript Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically: Hello, everybody. I'm meteorologist Sean Sublette and welcome to Across the Sky, our National Lee Enterprises weather podcast. Lee Enterprises has print and digital news operations in 77 locations across the country, including in my home base in Richmond, Virginia. I'm joined by my colleagues from across the sky, Matt Holiner in Chicago, Joe Martucci at the Jersey Shore. Our colleague Kirsten Lang continues to take a little time off in Tulsa for a few weeks. Gentlemen, we've got a great guest this week. We've all heard about the billion dollar disasters report. Adam Smith from NCI. That's Noah. National Centers of Environmental Information is joining us to talk all about this, because this this is fascinating stuff. I mean, some of this can get very complex and deep into the weeds. So Adam does a really good job, I think, talking about how they come up with this data and why it's relevant. Yeah. And most of us across the country have been hit by some billion dollar disasters since they've been tracking this year, going back to, I believe it was 1980. So it's something that probably has impacted you, whether you remember it or not. So we were happy to have Adam on in the end to drop his knowledge on us here for our podcast. And really what caused us to reach out to Adam is when they came out with their report at the beginning of May, looking at just the for the first four months of the year, we've already had $7 billion disasters and that's the second most all time if they've started keeping records in 1980. And probably what's more remarkable is if you look at the average number of billion dollar disasters for the entire year from 1980 to 2022, it's $8 billion disasters in the entire year. And we've already had seven in the first four months. So that is not what we want to see. But that's been the recent trend because if you look at just the last five years, 2018 to 2022, we've had $18 billion disasters on average. So in the last five years the average is 18. When you go back to 1980, the average is eight. So there is a clear uptick in the number of billion dollar disasters. So we had to get Adam on that talk about, yeah, fortunately he was telling us so much of this was driven by a very recent uptick in tropical cyclones slash hurricanes. We also talk about the droughts. You know, there's long term drought that until this past winter has been plaguing the western United States. So we get into all those things. We'll also talk about, you know, some of the intricacies of this and why it's sometimes the data is misinterpreted. So we'll get to all of that as we begin our conversation with Adam Smith at the National Centers for Environmental Information. And we welcome Adam Smith, visible scientist at the Climate Sciences and Services Division at the Noah National Center for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina. He is the lead researcher for the quarterly Billion dollar Disasters Report, and he has been involved in the nexus of climate and weather risk for more than a decade. Adam, welcome and thank you for taking the time with us on the podcast. Thank you for having me. So I wanted to started at the big level because a lot of this stuff is kind of esoteric or for the home listeners, home viewers. So take us at a top down level. Our is this kind of stuff quantified in terms of this disaster? Is this amount of money? This disaster is this amount of money? You aggregate this up. So at the bigger level, how was this done? So to do this type of analysis require is a broad array of public and private sector partners. For example, the insurance and reinsurance industry, of course, even the catastrophe modelers also federal agencies like FEMA, USDA, the National Interagency Fire Center, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Energy Information Administration, and at the state level, of course, state agencies and management authorities, they have a lot of data pre and post disaster. And so we're looking at quantify in total direct losses across about 16 different asset classes using the combination of that public and private sector data. So this would be insured, under-insured and uninsured damages to homes, to businesses, to government buildings like schools, the contents of all of these structures. Even time element losses such as business interruption or loss of living quarters. When you're out of your home lost, being repaired or rebuilt. But there's other assets even that the private sectors that often pay attention to as comprehensively, for example, public assets, roads, bridges, levee systems, even the Department of Defense, military bases, electrical grids are also something we look at as far as damage that's also a public private partnership and damage to to vehicles, to boats, to offshore energy platforms. And finally, the agriculture sector, of course, is heavily impacted by heat waves, cold waves and drought. So we look at crops, livestock being calls that increase in particular with drought damage to commercial timber, often with hurricanes in the southeast and wildfire fighting suppression costs. So those are the 16 different asset classes that we have homogeneous data over space and time. Going back many decades. That's consistently available. But it's equally important to know what we are not able to capture. So that would be things like non-market losses to environmental damage, environmental degradation, a natural capital, those type of losses, mental and physical health care related costs, which are likely substantial in the downstream ripple effects outside of a hazard region. There's also not quantified, so you could say this is a conservative but solid baseline estimate. Another piece of the puzzle would be one of the first key transformations we make would be the reciprocal of the insurance penetration rate, which varies by asset, by region and by hazard. Because we're looking at hurricanes, severe storm events like tornado hail and high wind events, heat waves, cold waves, winter storms, wildfire drought and urban flooding and river basin flooding. And some of those are very discrete events. And M.S., a day to day, three days like a severe storm complex or a hail storm. But some we treat more seasonal like droughts and wildfires because they're often slow onset events that get more impactful, particularly in the fall as the West dries out, as we've seen many times in recent years. Hey, Adam, it's Matt. So looking through April of this year, there were seven confirmed $2 billion assets. But what I noticed is underneath that, you lost three more potential billion dollar disasters. And I'm just curious, what is the difference there? Why are there three additional ones that could not be confirmed yet? You have seven confirmed billion dollars of three additional ones that cannot be confirmed yet. So what's the what does it take to become a confirmed billion dollar disaster versus these preliminary ones? Yes, that's a great question. This is this is a new feature we just added in recent months based on user feedback and requests. So that has to do with the data latency across all these different public and private data sources. We partner with the data latency, basically a fancy word for how long it takes a data to mature and stabilize. That varies based on the size and the impact, the intensity of an event. So we like to probe. Probably one month is about the bare minimum for the smallest billion dollar disaster event, like a hailstorm in Colorado, for example, whereas hurricanes could take many months, you know, six months or more. As we've seen in Florida, often times the claims process continues and continues. So this provides this section you're talking about the potential billion dollar disaster events. It kind of pulls back the curtain a little bit to say what events are we looking at as far as the data maturity that may be added to the list in the coming months? And correct me if I'm wrong, but if those three were confirmed, that would put us at ten through the first four months of year, which would be a new record because the current record is $8 billion disasters in 2017 and 2020, right? That would be correct. So these are not yet confirmed, but if they were all confirmed, we would be on a record base. That's correct. I mean, I'm going to parlayed and said more of a, let's say, 30,000 feet view of this where we've been over the past couple of decades with these billion dollar disasters. And I'll note, I know you adjust for inflation so the numbers are accurate in terms of something in 2000 is the same as now. But also furthermore, you know, where are we seeing what types of events are giving us our biggest increases and as are anything that we've seen, decreases that over time as well, a lot of these different hazards have had frequency and cost trends that are really going in the wrong direction in terms of they're getting worse for different parts of our nation. So if you can remember, the last three hurricane season is 2020 through 2022 were quite active. I believe we had more Category four and Category five landfalling hurricanes on record in that period than most of what the record shows and heard. That and hurricanes to the point are the most costly of these extremes we measure and it makes sense are big, powerful storms. So we have a lot of assets, a lot of population in harm's way along the Gulf Coast, in the southeast. We've also seen a lot of inland flooding events, urban planning events, more in the 20 tens decade than we had in the 1980s, nineties and 2000s combined. It implies, of course, we have more population, more exposure, but climate change is putting its thumb on the scale for some of these extremes, like heavy rainfall in the eastern U.S. As we know, the costliest flaperon equation, everyone see increase in temperature. The water vapor increases and therefore it adds to the heavy rainfall potential, which we've seen. But of course, how we build, where we build the vulnerabilities there, the floodplains, those all go into the to the equations as well. But if we go to the West Coast, you know, we've seen four of the last six wildfire seasons have been pretty off the scale in terms of cost, really almost an order of magnitude more costly than the average wildfire season in place. Yeah, just over the last four decades. Last year in 2022, thankfully, wasn't quite as bad in much of the West, with the exception of a few states like New Mexico and and some of the north central northwestern states. Yes. So so there's a lot of trends are going in the wrong direction. But what I like to highlight is, well, we can learn from this. We can learn from one way wrong, what we can do better in the future because we know these extremes. We're going to continue with exposure, with vulnerability, with climate change, all in the mix. And so I think the key is to learn from them and to mitigate future damages. So looking at 2022, for example, the most costly events were a hurricane in impacted, you know, southwest Florida, but trapped across Florida. And so it had the trifecta of impacts, a storm surge, the very high winds, but the flooding also well inland and really across Florida, many places that are not properly insured for flood insurance. And so that was in excess of 100 billion is is in the top some of the top most costly hurricanes on record. But I think that what sneaks under the radar a bit was the the drought from 2022. It was very expansive and expensive from California to the Mississippi River. This was a $22.2 billion event, really is the most costly drought in the U.S. in a decade, dating back to 2012, which was a very impactful drought. We may still remember. So and drought also people focus on agriculture, aspects of the impacts of drought. But there's also the the the loss of hydropower in parts of the West and California in particular. And as we know, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, they were dredging parts of the Mississippi River to help open up the flow because the low flow was reducing the commerce, the traffic up and down the river. So, yeah, all these impacts from an impact from an asset point of view and from a socioeconomic point of view are multidimensional. And so we have to address our vulnerabilities. Yeah. Before we toss to break, I want to go back to the drought situation in the West because that is such a long evolution event. How our are you able to say, you know, well, this fits into this timeframe, You know, there's one drought or did the drought, you know, you know, we know it's a multi-year, almost multi-decade old drought or they ratification. So how do you decide, okay, well, the drought we're going to fit into this quarter or this specific calendar year, How do you kind of get through that? For example, back in was the 2016 or 2017, there was like a flash drought that impacted North Dakota, South Dakota and maybe Montana, I believe. And it was a more bust, a smaller, isolated, but a very intense drought, you know, d3d for drought conditions, which are the most severe, but since the year 2000, what we've seen more often is just large swaths of the West with, you know, half a dozen to a dozen states that are heavily impacted throughout their growing season of their primary crops, anywhere from D2 to D3 to D4 impacts. And a lot of the states are giving drought designations based on weather is data in the East or G-3 or higher in the West. And so we track, you know, using s and other great drought data and USDA crop insurance data. We track how the maturity of the the crop season correlates with the the drought intensity. You know, often what we've seen is drought in Tennessee with heat in the summer and early fall will spike right when the crops are most vulnerable. And so therefore it amplifies the crop loss and the damages. Also, we see certainly for the larger area droughts and the long duration droughts, which we've seen much since year 2000. In the West, different states will struggle with wildfire cattle feed costs. So we look at cost per ton for things like corn or hay, silage and just that the delta between that year's drought impact price increase versus the five year state cost per ton increase for those feeding commodities. So there's a lot that goes into it and drought is one of the more complex assets to to analyze for as an event. Yeah, because everybody gets a little bit differently I'm sure. All right. So we'll take a little bit of a break. And on the other side, we'll dig a little bit deeper into the weeds about some of the pitfalls and irregularities and difficulties in quantifying this information with Adam Smith from Noah and CGI on the Across the Sky podcast. Stay with us. And we're back on the Across the Sky podcast. Our guest is Adam Smith, the Noah National Centers of Environmental Information, talking about the billion dollar disasters, reports that that come out about every quarter. And I'm I want to talk a little bit about the methodology. So, you know, even when we adjust for inflation, it seems like growing population, that coincident increase in wealth development along the coasts, more people building on property. How do you handle all those things in the report? Historically, inflation using CPI, you A-Z as a means for doing so is what we do, and we adjust that monthly based on the end date of an event or for drought. We use the begin date. But I think a fair question has come up in recent years about adjusting for things like housing population, other assets in harm's way, because we do know that people are moving to the south and the southeast in the west, which are really hot spots for different hazards hurricanes, severe convective storms, drought, flooding, you name it. And so we are actually embarking barking this late summer into fall and looking at some of the different assets and trying to add some additional adjustments. We do actually normalize for things like population or state level GDP. In our mapping section, you can look at any combination of years, any combination of hazards, any individual disaster. Of the 355 separate billion dollar disasters over the last 44 years, you can look at state level analysis that does normalized by population GDP. We just haven't taken that through all of the different pools throughout the entire site. But we're going to do more work on that front. I think one of the challenges, though, is a lot of the literature does talk about using, you know, population density or housing density as ways to normalize. I think that's a start, but I don't think that's a complete answer because we are looking at 16 different asset classes that are highly variables in terms of their spatial distribution, how much the concentration and the value of those have changed where they've happened. So we really need to come up with a more robust strategy to deal with the normalization in a in a really comprehensive way. But we have partners at Treasury, federal agencies and academia that are also looking at similar questions. So this is an active area of research. And Adam know has been keeping track of these billion dollar disasters since 1980. But it does raise the question of why 1980? So why is that the start point and could we look back farther than 1980? Is it possible can we try and calculate, well, how many billion dollar disasters that were in the seventies or sixties, or is there something that's preventing that? Yes, in 1980 when we started doing this work, and I think the reinsurance companies like Munich Reinsurance and Sports Reinsurance have actually looked back pre 1980. But in the United States, looking at the public and private sector data, 1980 in terms of the beginning of a decade is really where we get the first consistent snapshot of the comprehensive homogeneous data over space and time. This was a good starting point. For example, I think the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program data really doesn't really get going until the late seventies, if I'm if I'm not mistaken. But, you know, if you look at some really extreme events like tornado outbreaks, which we had many in the 1970s, because they were so impactful, they killed so many people, they were there historical events, you could do some analysis. I think the caveat would be pre 1980, the farther you go back in time, the larger the error bars would be in terms of the uncertainty of the data in the assumptions and the impact those assumptions would make on the analysis. And so what got you interested in getting into these EO, registering these billion dollar disasters or even working within NCI memory? Always interested and, you know, climate and this kind of information. What what was your journey that brought you here? Yes. So I've worked at NCI since really beginning Charles in five. And this this was kind of a legacy project actually predated my time, of course. But the way it was structured, the data that went into it was it was a comprehensive it wasn't peer reviewed, it was embedded. It was it was not quite as comprehensive as it could have been. So we spent probably five years working at mini partners, developing different data relationships and understanding and writing some papers, having conferences, and then kind of made it more robust and did a reanalysis. But I think in terms of my involvement with it, I've always been kind of a, a natural interdisciplinary thinker. I like I like thinking in that problem space, chaos and uncertainty don't really scare me as much as it might other people. And so I think it's a challenge and it's in frankly, it's just interesting. It's fun to do. And as we've seen over the last seven years, from 2016 through 2022 and 43, these billion dollar disasters have cost over $1 trillion of damage to the United States. It took about 34, 35 years from 1980 through about 2014 to get the first trillion before we got the second trillion in the last seven years. So the point being, you know, there's a lot at stake here in terms of understanding the spatial dimensions of impact, the socioeconomic vulnerabilities and trying to bring that as just one of many different federal data tools to help people unpack and better understand the a data analysis and our tools, not the be all end all. There's been a proliferation of different tools, like FEMA's National Risk Index is a great one, but there's there's probably half a dozen in the last two years. So we're just trying to do our part. And it's a very it's an interesting and active space to research. Now, I have another question for for people who really are not overly familiar with this. Adam, if you could kind of enlighten folks I know everybody's under everybody can understand what insurance is, but can you talk about what reinsurance is? Because that's a term that gets tossed around a lot that I don't think gets a lot of its a lot of explanation. So something like Munich Re Would you would you reference early what what is reinsurance. So yeah, reinsurance is effectively insurance for insurance companies. It's it's when really impactful events like a hurricane Ian hits Florida and causes tens of billions of dollars of insured loss that's so impactful. And so far on the distribution potential as a rare event that insurance companies wisely back up their investments with paying for additional insurance, which are often global bodies like Munich Reinsurance. Willis Reinsurance. But even the public sector, like FEMA's national Flood Insurance Program, has wisely recently started investing more and more in reinsurance layers to basically backstop the federal government payouts for flood insurance. Because as we've seen with hurricanes in particular, like Harvey, like Ian, like Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the costs quickly run up into the billions in terms of just the insured flood losses alone. But the uninsured flood losses are several times often the the insured losses from these events. And Adam, of course, looking at the big picture, we're seeing the number of billion dollar disasters going up. But I wonder if we could dive in a little bit more and talk about regionally, what are these? Are we seeing a particular region that's seeing more events than in the past and also as far as that type of event? So are we seeing a trend in the type of events that are causing billion dollar disasters compared to the eighties and nineties and what we're seeing now? So as far as types of events go in peculiar regions that are really seeing a particular uptick. So looking at the state scale, Texas, Florida and Louisiana would be the top three states In terms of the impact, yeah, Texas is close to $400 billion of total losses from these billion dollar disasters 1980 to present. Florida is also close to 400 billion. Louisiana is above or around 300 billion. And you can dive into all this data online. But if you were to normalize that by population or state GDP, you would see Louisiana certainly has the most acute impacts because they have a much smaller population, much more GDP, economic size than either Texas or Florida. And you can think back to 2020. We had, I think, four or five landfalling hurricanes make landfall and in Louisiana. So it lengthens and makes more costly the cleanup effort. But we saw the same thing last year in Florida with Hurricane Ian hitting. And then four or five weeks later, Hurricane Nicole hitting the other part of Florida and some similar counties had impacts. So this is an example of compound extremes with cascading impacts. And we're seeing that in the Gulf Coast. We're seeing that in in California with wildfire seasons lengthened due to the kind of semi persistent drought. Thankfully, that a lot of that drought's been diminished early in 2022 from absolute rivers. But anyway, we go from drought to wildfire to mud flow. Debris flows in the mountainsides from the burn scars in California. So you get this compound linkage that amplifies the impacts in the national Climate Assessment has has targeted this as a topic and really amplified and put a spotlight on it. So, yeah, certainly certain regions of the country are have been struggling in recent years in terms of high frequency events. And in Austin, these events hit similar areas and populations and even places like Louisiana, people are actually moving out of parts of Louisiana because I think it's just it's just too much to deal with. One thing I kind of, I guess, struggle with my head is that, you know, we're having Morty's billion dollar disasters. At the same time, I feel like there's never been more importance on messaging and emergency management here. Can you link the two? Because we would think that we're trying to be a more weather ready nation at that. That's a NOAA initiative, but we're still seeing Morty's billion dollar disaster. Yeah, I think that one challenges, as we talked about, people are moving of course, to different parts of the country, say they retired, they went to Florida or Texas and they may be from the northeast or somewhere in the Midwest. Well, when you move to a new place, I think it's one besides, you know, picking out where your your your location, where you want to live, you need to know your hazard. You need to know your natural born abilities, what has happened in the past. And you have so many great resources at the federal level, at the state level, academics have have published a lot of great papers looking at, you know, where the extremes and hazards are. And it's not one hazard. Often it's different, it's multifaceted. And so educating yourself in terms of what can happen, but also educating yourself and preparing in case if you are confronted with a high risk and you can actually act on it and protect yourself, your family, your business, your home, your assets. And so it does ultimately come down to the individual. But I think there's, you know, certainly an education process and understanding and some responsibility. And it's at all levels. And we have more than enough events in recent years to learn from and better prepare and for future extremes. Yeah, for sure. We get all kinds of weather across this country for, you know, everybody gets it a little bit differently. And before we let you go, I anything else you want to share where people can find this information online and anything else that y'all are working on that we should look forward to. One thing I did not mention is we worked in recent last few years with FEMA and Census, and we integrated as a county level in the census tract level a lot of socioeconomic vulnerability information and you can compare that with hazard risk or information and the billion dollar disaster information for your for your area, for your region. Yeah, just type. Billion-Dollar Disasters or weather costs in Google and it will come up. But we have many different tools and we're always trying to expand and add more nuance and depth and usefulness to the tools we we're working on developing user reports, dynamic reporting, so that can be developed and you know, like a PDF, you could just take it with you and read it separate from a web page. But there's there's just so much to do in this space. And there, you know, it's not just us, as many different research groups across the federal government, private sector and academia who are doing very valuable and important work in this area. Excellent. And again, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast and for all the work you're doing there, Noah, and give our best to you, everybody who's working there at Noah, NCI in Asheville. A lot to take in there, guys. But I mean, Adam has been doing this for a long time and by that he admits that there's no perfect way to do this for sure. But, you know, I think it's clear that as the as the climate has warmed, we are more at risk. There are more people, there are more things at risk, there's more property risk. And we're going to have to continue to guard against these kinds of weather. Sometimes are cold. Climate disasters are like environmental disasters. Kind of avoid avoid the political political nonsense with this stuff. But the end result, whether it's tropical cyclone, whether it's heavy rain, whether it is locally severe storms, whether it is the drought, flooding, all those things, we are more vulnerable than we have been in the past. And Joe, you know, you brought up the weather resignation and how I do think, you know, we're getting better at communicating and keeping people safe from these extreme weather events. But what we can't do works for, you know, is when these hurricanes are making landfall or when a tornado is tracking across ground, we can get people out of the way of the hurricane. We can get people out of the way of tornado, but we can't get their homes out of the way of these storms even there. And there can be preparations, you know, to make it. You know, we see people put a clipboard in the windows and such. But, you know, when it it's a high level event, there's going to be destruction. And I think, you know, especially, you know, in kind of what Adam mentioned, too, there's a little bit of a concern that people are moving to these places that have more climate disasters. I mean, just historically, Texas, Florida, anywhere along the Gulf Coast, the population has really been rising in the south. And that's typically where we have more of these billion dollar disasters and they're happening more often. So this is what happens. We end up getting more billion dollar disasters as people move to areas that experience more extreme weather. Yeah, and he kind of answered it when I was saying about, you know, emergency management and yeah, like we said, weather ready Nation. But to your point, you know, I mean I think Florida was the had been the fastest growing state since 2020. So a lot of those are going to the coast. Real estate is expensive in Florida. I was just in Sarasota two months ago. Prices are going up over there as well. And that ultimately outstrip the the increase in these disasters, too. And with things like rising sea levels. Yeah, you talk about hurricanes, right? I mean, yeah, if you had 12 inches more of sea level rise in 100 years, well, you know, now that that hurricane that's coming through, you know, is going to be 12 inches higher, what your storm surge and that might go in an extra block and an extra block is an extra million dollars or real estate or whatever it might be. So it's all these incremental things. And that's you know, we talk about climate change. A lot of this is coming in incremental steps. It's not the day after tomorrow where, you know, the Statue of Liberty is frozen in time. That that's how it is shown, right? Is that what happened? The Statue of Liberty? Oh, my God. They can't see me. But I have the little torch in my head now. But what it is, you know, it's these incremental steps. It's, you know, hey, the water's now half a block up the street. This storm now it's a full block up the street. The next storm, you know, and those kind of things add up dollar wise and help create some of these billion dollar disasters as well. You know, and there's a lot of focus on the, you know, tornado outbreaks and the hurricanes that are often the cause of billion dollar disasters. But you know what's interesting, I mean, so far this year, it's mainly just been some regular severe thunderstorm outbreaks, you know, that have been hail. People often forget about how costly ALA is. A lot of times people can get inside and you don't frequently die from hail. You go inside, you're fine. But the damage the hail caused that's been real costly this year and just straight line wind damage, it doesn't take a tornado. You get 60, 70, 80 mile per hour straight line winds and that does a lot of damage. So you don't need tornadoes. You don't need hurricanes at billion dollar disasters. That's really been the biggest problem so far this year. Yeah. Once that wind gets past 55 or 60 miles an hour, that's when we really start to see more physical damage to structures and the like. Gentlemen, I think that's going to be it for this week. But as as you know, and we'll let the folks at home know we've been working on another podcast next week. We're very excited to have the new director of the National Hurricane Center joining us next week, Michael Brennan. I will be here to talk about some of the new products that they've got working for the for the new hurricane season starts June 1st. I talk a little bit about about his role moving from my home state of Virginia through the ranks. NC State and on the way to the as director of the National Hurricane Center So very excited to have Director Brennan join us next week. Joe, I know you've been working on a couple other things that you want to kind of ease the audiences to some things I know you've been working on. Yeah. So we'll start off with we did a collab with Front page Betts on our Lee Enterprises family, so I had my said, Son, we're talking about sports betting and the weather and then we said it last week. It's something of a personal hero of mine, George Shea, Major League eating Commissioner, coming out to talk about the Nathan's hot dog eating contest. That's going to be our July 3rd episode. Talk about SEO Shawn. What better SEO do we have than is putting out on July 3rd a podcast about hot dog eating contest and the weather. And I'll tell you what, I've been to the hot dog eating contest before. It is definitely weather definitely makes a difference because I love having been there and seeing it on TV all these years. Those hot and humid days, just kind of hazy, different than those nice day for it's 82 degrees on the corner surf and still well in Coney Island, New York. Thanks. Thanks for that visual. I'll try not to have nightmares about it. I appreciate it. While I think about it, I would just do it this way. I think we're gonna take the reins on this day by. But yeah, we got a lot coming up and you know, we appreciate everyone listening and subscribing. You know, over the past year we've only been doing this for like 13 months. It feels like we've been doing it forever, but I bet we've been doing for 13 months. So really appreciate all of you tuning in. If you know someone who likes weather, if you know someone you interesting climate, tell them about it too. You know, we'd really appreciate it. That's a labor of love, to be sure. Go ahead. Go ahead, Matt. No. Yeah, we just started last April. I can't believe it's been over a year, but we are past the year mark. We have over 52 episodes now. So with APA, if you are, you have plenty of material to go back and listen to. If you're new to the podcast, we have plenty of episodes of scroll back in our history and I'm imagine there'll be a topic at some point. You'll scroll past. You want to click on and we'll have more and more in the weeks ahead. So again, thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening, Thank you for subscribing and don't miss our conversation next week with National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan on the Across the Sky podcast. But for now, I'm Sean Sublette, the Matt Holiner in Chicago and at the Jersey Shore, our buddy Joe Martucci, and this hot dog eating contest that will see you next time for the Across the Sky podcast.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We talk with Michael Brennan about the 2023 Hurricane season.  Dr. Hal Needham debuts his GeoTrek segment.Suggest a topic or ask a question: alex@wxguide.comVisit our conference site: www.hurricanecenterlive.comThanks for listening and please share with your friends and co-workers.

If you discovered this series through Apple podcasts, or because you heard that we won a Peabody Award for our work; WELCOME! For our longtime listeners who have heard these episodes before, your weekly dose of On the Media will be available as ever, on Friday afternoon. Enjoy!   Episode 5: There's Something About Radio Highly politicized, partisan companies like Salem have a hold on the airwaves — and they don't plan to give it up. Senior Vice President of Salem, Phil Boyce speaks candidly to Katie about the personalities he handpicked to spread Salem's message and about the company's plans to expand into the media world off the airwaves. And in this final episode of the series we ask the perennial question: peddling election denialism seems to be a solid business model — but is it legal?    The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan.  With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

If you discovered this series through Apple podcasts, or because you heard that we won a Peabody Award for our work; WELCOME! For our longtime listeners who have heard these episodes before, your weekly dose of On the Media will be available as ever, on Friday afternoon. Enjoy!     Episode 4: From The Extreme to The Mainstream In the 1970s, talk radio was hitting its stride, with hosts and listeners from all political persuasions. But the radio dial was about to change forever. Community needs assessments, requirements to offer public service programs and multiple perspectives, and limits on how many stations a single company could own were all eradicated. Technological and legal changes would consolidate the radio industry exponentially, allowing conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh to take over the airwaves. In this episode, we look at radio's last four decades to understand how we got to where we are today, and how conservative talk radio came to dominate a medium that once thrived on varied viewpoints.   The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan.  With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

If you discovered this series through Apple podcasts, or because you heard that we won a Peabody Award for our work; WELCOME! For our longtime listeners who have heard these episodes before, your weekly dose of On the Media will be available as ever, on Friday afternoon. Enjoy!   Episode 3: The Liberal Bias Boogeyman How did the right get their vice grip of the airwaves, all the while arguing that they were being silenced and censored by a liberal media? In this episode we look at the early history of American radio to reveal that censorship of far-right and progressive voices alike was once common on radio. And we learn how, in the post-war and Civil Rights period, the US government encouraged more diverse viewpoints on the airwaves — until it didn't.   The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. Special thanks this episode to Tianyi Wang. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

If you discovered this series through Apple podcasts, or because you heard that we won a Peabody Award for our work; WELCOME! For our longtime listeners who have heard these episodes before, your weekly dose of On the Media will be available as ever, on Friday afternoon. Enjoy!   Episode 2: From Pulpit to Politics How did the little-known Salem Media Group come to have an outsized political influence? In this episode we trace the company's rise to power from its scrappy start in the 1970s to the present day — a growth that paralleled and eventually became inextricable from the growth of the Religious Right. We learn that Salem is tightly networked with right wing political strategists, pollsters, big donors, far right leaders and Republican party mainstays thanks to their involvement with the Council for National Policy — a secretive group of Evangelical and conservative leaders. For decades, the CNP has been working behind the scenes to get a specific, highly influential subset of voters to act. And Salem has been a megaphone for their cause. The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

If you discovered this series through Apple podcasts, or because you heard that we won a Peabody Award for our work; WELCOME! For our longtime listeners who have heard these episodes before, your weekly dose of On the Media will be available as ever, on Friday afternoon. Enjoy!   Episode 1: The True Believers In 2016, Christian talk radio host Eric Metaxas begrudgingly encouraged his listeners to vote for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. By 2020, he pledged his life to fighting the “stolen election” while talking with Trump on the air. Ahead of the midterm elections, Metaxas and many of his fellow talk radio hosts made sure the falsehood of massive 2020 election fraud was top of mind — on the airwaves and beyond. And while election-denying candidates didn't do as well as many on the right had hoped, at least 170 such candidates have been elected to state and national offices, some of whom will be in charge of future elections. We meet the company whose hosts never backed down from the lies of the stolen 2020 election: Salem Media Group, the largest Christian, conservative multimedia company in the country – and perhaps the most influential media company you've never heard of. The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Michael Brennan, Political Editor at the Business Post, on the week ahead in politics.

Today's panel includes John Halligan, Former Indt TD for Waterford and Minister of State, Karl Deeter, Financial Advisor, Louise Burne, Political Correspondent at The Irish Mirror and Dr Emma Howard, Economist and Lecturer at TU Dublin. We also had a call from Michael Brennan, Political Editor at The Sunday Business Post.

You're not alone if you take pride in your culture. But do you feel that brands understand your culture, context and deeply personal preferences? A recent survey revealed that nine in ten consumers feel that brands must show their understanding and appreciation of national identity and culture – but only 23% feel brands understand are actually doing so. Given our reliance on digital – isn't it about time that brands make the effort to demonstrate they understand us? We speak to Michael Brennan, Ingenious8, about his research report, ‘Unlocked 2023: In Understanding We Trust', which questioned 6,500 customers across 13 countries about their global customer experiences. Michael delves into the findings, key themes emerging from the research and explains why now is the time for brands to invest in their underlying technology and services in order to deliver on their customer experience promises.

Highly politicized, partisan companies like Salem Media Group have a hold on the airwaves — and they don't plan to give it up. This week, Senior Vice President of Salem Phil Boyce speaks candidly to reporter Katie Thornton about the personalities he handpicked to spread Salem's message and about the company's plans to expand into the media world off the airwaves. Peddling election denialism seems to be a solid business model — but is it legal?  This episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided Dial. You can listen to the full series here.  The Divided Dial is reported and hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Michael Brennan, Business Post Political Editor, assesses the fallout from yesterday's vote in the Dáil on Sinn Féin's eviction ban motion.

This week on the podcast Rosey and Tom sit down with, Demon Deacon Junior, Michael Brennan. Michael is fresh off his win at the Southwestern Invitational, a college event hosted by Pepperdine University. This week on the pod we chat about... His recent win at the Southwestern Invitational Walker Cup Practice Session The new PGA TourU rules and regulations NIL deal with Tom Bradys new golf brand Top tier amateur line up for the summer as well as the US Amateur Hope you all enjoy and we will see you next week!  

How did the right get their vice grip of the airwaves, all the while arguing that they were being silenced and censored by a liberal media? This week, we look at the early history of American radio to reveal that censorship of far-right and progressive voices alike was once common on radio. And reporter Katie Thornton explains how, in the post-war and Civil Rights period, the US government encouraged more diverse viewpoints on the airwaves — until it didn't. Plus, the technological and legal changes that led to conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh taking over the airwaves.  This episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided Dial. You can listen to the full series here.  The Divided Dial is reported and hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.    

In 2016, Christian talk radio host Eric Metaxas begrudgingly encouraged his listeners to vote for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. By 2020, he pledged his life to fighting the “stolen election” while talking with Trump on the air. Ahead of the midterm elections, Metaxas and many of his fellow talk radio hosts made sure the falsehood of massive 2020 election fraud was top of mind — on the airwaves and beyond. And while election-denying candidates didn't do as well as many on the right had hoped, at least 170 such candidates have been elected to state and national offices, some of whom will be in charge of future elections. This week, reporter Katie Thornton introduces us to the company whose hosts never backed down from the lies of the stolen 2020 election: Salem Media Group, the largest Christian, conservative multimedia company in the country – and perhaps the most influential media company you've never heard of. Thornton traces the company's rise to power from its scrappy start in the 1970s to the present day — a growth that paralleled and eventually became inextricable from the growth of the Religious Right.  This episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided Dial. You can listen to the full series here.  The Divided Dial is reported and hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Matt @DrewetteCard follows the lead of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee by dipping his toes into the 131st Legislative Session as the Committee has scheduled its first public hearings! Matt does a quick preview of the public hearings scheduled for January 31 and February 2, then does a quick check as the heat gets really turned up the first full week of February! January 31 Public Hearing: LD 98, HP0066An Act to Update the Special Education Laws - Rep. Michael Brennan of Portland LD 142, HP0088An Act to Fund Climate-related Service Work - Rep. Morgan Rielly of Westbrook LD 143, HP0089An Act to Support Rural Service Programming and Promote Volunteerism - Rep. Morgan Rielly of Westbrook February 2 Public Hearing: LD 15, HP0019An Act to Amend the Law Governing the State Grant Program Administered by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission - Rep. Jan Dodge of Belfast LD 19, HP0023An Act to Authorize the National Institute of Funeral Service to Grant Associate Degrees - Rep. Victoria Doudera of Camden LD 129, SP0068Resolve, to Direct the University of Maine System to Study the Feasibility of Establishing a Public Allopathic Medical School in Penobscot County - Sen. Joseph Baldacci of Penobscot Thanks to Playing for Laughs for sponsoring this episode! Join Playing for Laughs at their "Failed Resolutions" comedy improv show on Saturday, January 28th at 7:30pm. $10 General Admission at the door. Go to https://www.theaterproject.com/p4l for more information. Follow us: Twitter: @DrewetteCard, @MaineEdMatters Facebook: facebook.com/maineeducationmatters

Highly politicized, partisan companies like Salem have a hold on the airwaves — and they don't plan to give it up. Senior Vice President of Salem, Phil Boyce speaks candidly to Katie about the personalities he handpicked to spread Salem's message and about the company's plans to expand into the media world off the airwaves. And in this final episode of the series we ask the perennial question: peddling election denialism seems to be a solid business model — but is it legal?    The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan.  With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

In the 1970s, talk radio was hitting its stride, with hosts and listeners from all political persuasions. But the radio dial was about to change forever. Community needs assessments, requirements to offer public service programs and multiple perspectives, and limits on how many stations a single company could own were all eradicated. Technological and legal changes would consolidate the radio industry exponentially, allowing conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh to take over the airwaves. In this episode, we look at radio's last four decades to understand how we got to where we are today, and how conservative talk radio came to dominate a medium that once thrived on varied viewpoints.   The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan.  With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Episode 3 - The Liberal Bias Boogeyman How did the right get their vice grip of the airwaves, all the while arguing that they were being silenced and censored by a liberal media? In this episode we look at the early history of American radio to reveal that censorship of far-right and progressive voices alike was once common on radio. And we learn how, in the post-war and Civil Rights period, the US government encouraged more diverse viewpoints on the airwaves — until it didn't. The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. Special thanks this episode to Tianyi Wang. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Episode 2: From Pulpit to Politics How did the little-known Salem Media Group come to have an outsized political influence? In this episode we trace the company's rise to power from its scrappy start in the 1970s to the present day — a growth that paralleled and eventually became inextricable from the growth of the Religious Right. We learn that Salem is tightly networked with right wing political strategists, pollsters, big donors, far right leaders and Republican party mainstays thanks to their involvement with the Council for National Policy — a secretive group of Evangelical and conservative leaders. For decades, the CNP has been working behind the scenes to get a specific, highly influential subset of voters to act. And Salem has been a megaphone for their cause. The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

During the 2022 midterms, election-denying and pro-Trump candidates ran on a platform of  falsehoods about voter fraud in 2020. But there's a much more present source introducing this narrative into American homes: the country's largest Christian conservative multimedia company. We learn how the far-right came to dominate Christian talk radio and we meet Salem Media Group – perhaps the most influential media company you've never heard of.   The Divided Dial is a new series from our colleagues at On The Media about how one side of the political spectrum came to dominate talk radio – and how one company is using the airwaves to launch a right wing media empire. You can listen to future episodes here.   The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.   Companion listening for this episode: Church, State, and the Soul of our Nation (10/10/2022) Christian nationalism – the push to have laws, policies and social norms reflect Christian values –  is a growing movement in the U.S. As its rise continues to influence contemporary politics, how should we consider and prepare for its impact on our government? Pastor and executive director of Vote Common Good, Doug Pagitt, walks us through the history of the movement, and tells us how he and other faith leaders are finding ways to combat the effects of Christian nationalism in their own faith communities.   “Notes from America” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on notesfromamerica.org or on WNYC's YouTube channel. We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @noteswithkai or email us at notes@wnyc.org.

Episode 1: The True Believers In 2016, Christian talk radio host Eric Metaxas begrudgingly encouraged his listeners to vote for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. By 2020, he pledged his life to fighting the “stolen election” while talking with Trump on the air. Ahead of the midterm elections, Metaxas and many of his fellow talk radio hosts made sure the falsehood of massive 2020 election fraud was top of mind — on the airwaves and beyond. And while election-denying candidates didn't do as well as many on the right had hoped, at least 170 such candidates have been elected to state and national offices, some of whom will be in charge of future elections. We meet the company whose hosts never backed down from the lies of the stolen 2020 election: Salem Media Group, the largest Christian, conservative multimedia company in the country – and perhaps the most influential media company you've never heard of. The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg's CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan.