Andrew Leeper On Nashville Severe Weather
Andrew Leeper, Director of Broadcasting for Nashville Severe Weather, joins Signature Required for a thoughtful and wide ranging conversation about trust, responsibility, and what it means to guide a community through uncertainty in real time.
Independent of any media company, Nashville Severe Weather provides hyperlocal coverage focused exclusively on Davidson and Williamson Counties. In this episode, Andrew explains how the platform began as a simple response to everyday questions and evolved into one of the most trusted voices during severe weather events, sometimes reaching hundreds of thousands of people in a single night.
About Andrew Leeper
Andrew shares how his lifelong fascination with weather, from recording storms as a child to anchoring campus broadcasts in college, eventually led him to join Nashville Severe Weather in 2015. While his full time work is in ministry, he reflects on how the two roles intersect in unexpected ways, particularly in moments when calm, clarity, and steady leadership are most needed.
He walks through what it is like to broadcast through an all night tornado outbreak, how tone and communication matter just as much as radar data, and why he refuses to participate in hype driven weather coverage. Andrew explains the intentional choice to remain donation based, free from advertising pressure, and how that model allows the team to prioritize people over metrics.
Leadership & Community Impact
Andrew reflects on the responsibility of serving a rapidly growing region, the decision not to expand beyond their two counties, and what it means to build something scrappy, entrepreneurial, and deeply rooted in trust.
This episode offers a behind the scenes look at how modern weather communication works, why credibility matters, and how passion, consistency, and service can turn a niche interest into an essential community resource.
Resources
Nashville Severe Weather
National Weather Association
National Weather Service Nashville
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Signature Required. It is intended for Tennessean by Tennessean.
Andrew Lepper, director of Broadcasting for Nashville Severe Weather. Welcome to Signature Required. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm excited about this. Andrew, we've had a lot of really interesting guests on the program. We've had elected officials. We've had literal rock stars. We have had people that are community influencers, but no one has given more excitement to people.
When Carli and I say we're bringing on national severe weather, like there's a light that comes in their eyes that I'm not just telling you this, like it's true. We have our own questions that we were interested in asking. I am really excited to have you on here. Nashville silver weather is like a cult. Favorite in Middle Tennessee. Well, thank you. Thank you. It's it's fun to be a part of and I'm [00:01:00] so glad that that we can be here today to answer some of these questions. Undoubtedly, we have a lot of people that already follow you on Twitter.
They follow live streams when appropriate. But there's a number of people that probably don't know what Nashville severe weather is and think that maybe we have. You know, local Channel Two's weatherman on here. So for those that don't know and haven't followed yet, what is Nashville Severe weather?
Nashville Severe weather is a group of people independent of any media agency that provides local, we call it hyperlocal weather coverage for two counties in Middle Tennessee, Davidson and Williamson. And we do that through now a number of different platforms including video. So what's the hook?
Because if I hear that, I think why would I be interested in that when I could just turn on channel two or the Weather Channel? So what makes it appealing? [00:02:00] What's. What's special? That's a good question. And I think to answer that, you have to go back to sort of how it started because people were asking, a good friend of mine, David they were asking him a bunch of questions in like late 2010.
He was interested in weather, loved weather, and they were saying, Hey, is my soccer practice gonna be rained out? Or is, are we gonna be able to play lacrosse or are we gonna be able to, whatever. I mean, a number of questions. And so he was texting these people back, all these, you know, the answer to these questions.
And he said, I'm just gonna put this on Twitter. I'm just gonna, you know, this was back late 2010, and so that was an easy way to sort of, Hey, just go to Twitter instead of me having to text everybody back. And so it really was dealing with the nuts and bolts of the daily lives of people. The news folks have to cover 60 counties or whatever the number is.
It varies depending on the station, and we cover two. So we try to keep it very focused on our folks here in Davidson and Williamson Counties. Yeah. I was driving into work today and I called my mom for our daily chat. [00:03:00] She said, oh, who's gonna be on the podcast? I was like, well, Nashville, severe weather, and she doesn't live here all the time.
And so she was like, well, what's that? I was like, you don't understand when you're sitting in the middle of a weather crisis with kids, or you don't know if there's gonna be school tomorrow, or you don't know if you're gonna get them to tennis. It is so local that you can tell me the crossroads of where things are happening and then I know what to do about it.
And she's well, that sounds cool. I should follow that. I was like, I can't believe you don't. I'm, I already have swag ordered. I'm a super fan. I really, and when I was talking to friends leading up to this because. I could fan girl the whole time, but leading up to this, as I was chatting in our community with friends or teachers that this was happening, the number of people that are intently interested in weather, I had no idea.
I had no idea. But this is a lot of people's hobby, not just you guys like. It's a favorite. Yeah. It really has been fun for me to see it sort of unlock what used to be kind of a [00:04:00] not cool thing. You know, you talk to your friends about, you know, you don't just go up to your friends and say, Hey, I love weather, you know, let's talk about tornadoes.
I mean, it's just not something we did, but it's been fun to sort of unlock that in people. Yeah. And see whether it's classes we teach or whatever it is, when we're in a situation where people genuinely are interested in something that impacts all of us every single day. Every single day we're impacted by it in some way or another.
And so to unlock that in people and to see something that they're just not generally open to talking about with everyone is kind of cool. And we enjoy that. I just love that it's another uprising of nerd power. Yes. Like all these things that used to be nerdy and we like hid about them now are coming to the surface in our mainstream.
And I just. I'm super here for it. Yeah, absolutely. To the point that I was talking to a teacher at my kid's school, we have a weather elective that the sixth graders get to take. Oh, awesome. And they're like, tell them to come to the school. All of the kids are obsessed with them. It was really cute. Let's do it.
I love that. Yeah, I love that. And one, one of my favorite things to [00:05:00] do has been school talks. Which has been. Traditionally reserved for the TV meteorologists in town though. And they still do. They go to schools. They do a great job in doing that. But it's been fun to be included in that and to be able to go and do school talks all over our couple of counties and it's just so fun to interact with the kids Carli they have the best questions, you know.
It's just been a blast after the show. We're gonna take you up on that and make the connection as there is a school classroom that is going to be exceedingly happy to be able to see you and interact with you. The name Nashville Severe Weather gives. A different inclination or a different explanation than kind of where you started with, which is, you know, it's every day you wanna know what's going on with practice and all the rest.
Nashville severe weather makes me think, okay, I'm gonna tune in when there's a tornado or something. So how do you all see people interact with your platform? Is it significantly more when there is a big [00:06:00] weather event? Or is it just high? Always, yes. It is definitely bigger when we have a high impact event.
Give you an example. The the we had a big event back in early April of this year 2025, where we had an all night severe weather event. Basically we had. 16, 17, something like that. Tornado warnings in our two counties through the night. And I, at the time, I wasn't looking at the numbers and I never do.
I don't want that on my shoulders while I'm while I'm talking. But afterward I went and looked and there were over a half a million people that had joined that live stream. Wow. That had never happened before, but you know, you gotta think it's the middle of the night. People are trying to, you know, it was a school night actually.
Most of the schools canceled the next day, but it was it was a school night. People were trying to figure out what to do with their kids. Do I put them in the basement? Do I, you know, what are we gonna do? And so it was just it was one of those situations where we had a lot of people join that night.
On a daily basis. It's not that big, you know, we'll have people read our blog that we do every day. But [00:07:00] but it's nothing like when we had the severe weather events. I have friends that fall asleep with Air Pods listening to you guys all night long, just waiting for like an elevated tone so that they wake up and get in the basement.
But it, it has replaced like my grandmother used to fall asleep with the weather channel on. Right. Okay. Yeah. It has replaced that for the comfort for this next generation of parents and caregivers where they're sleeping with. Your voice is in their head. Here's what we've noticed is there is, there's value in people being able to just hear our conversational tone day to day.
The way we write a blog, the way we write over, they hear our jokes and we try to do a lot of those just to, to lighten the mood and to have conversations and be light most days. But we want people to understand what our serious tone sounds like so that they can differentiate it.
When things are. Really bad. When we had the tornado go through Nashville back in, in March of 2020, I want people to understand that tone that I can use in my [00:08:00] voice to tell East Nashville to get immediately to a safe place because their life is in danger. I want people to differentiate and know my voice enough to know that when things are serious and when things really aren't, so that, that's why we're there day to day, but we're also there in the severe weather.
We will. We want people to understand that they're very different situations. So we'll come back and unpack a lot of stuff related to Nashville severe weather, but I think we need to understand your story a little bit more. Both kind of how you got interested in weather to begin with and then maybe how you joined Nashville, severe weather.
So will you take us back? Where are you from and where did this start? I've been in Nashville almost my whole life and which is I guess it's been almost 40 years in Nashville. Spent a little bit of time outside in college. Went to Harding University in Ccy, Arkansas, where I actually was the weather anchor on the.
The evening news there for our campus. It was a countywide news station. Wait, do you have a video that we can put in the show notes? Because I feel like this [00:09:00] needs to surface. Andrew, I sent it to someone yesterday actually, so I'll send it to you please. Yes. It was hard to watch, but but that was in 2005, I think it was when that video was.
But but I've always loved weather. And thought about at the time that was really the direction. If you love weather, you kind of thought about going into TV meteorology. And I did think about doing that. Interned at Channel five in Nashville and then just decided to go a different direction. I ended up with a public relations degree which I love, helps me in so many ways.
But it decided to add a bible minor, decided to go into ministry instead. And did that right out of college. Still do that today. That's my full-time work and I work with the the Brentwood Hills Church up on Franklin Road. So that's my day job. And so this came along, this opportunity with Nashville severe weather in 2015 or so, and I was like.
Well, this might be a situation where I can get back into to doing weather again. You know, something that I really hadn't been able to do. Were you [00:10:00] interested in it as a kid? Yes. Okay. Yeah. One of the things I remember is I remember getting my parents camcorder. And setting it on a tripod and just recording storms outside.
Okay. That would hit, that's sounding on brand Now, did you watch Twister the House and it scarred you? Oh yeah. Twist Twister was a big one. I mean, wizard of Oz, maybe with this, you know, with as, as funny as Twister is you go back and watch it. It's somebody who knows now about whether you're like, yeah, no.
But yeah, twister was a big one, but I would just, you mean couch don't fly? I would just record storms. It'd be like, and I'd get all excited when it would record a close lightning strike to the house or whatever, you know? It was just that kind of thing, you know, as a kid that was fun for me.
What was it like interning at Channel five? I could imagine. All kinds of different things of what you see behind the scenes there. Yeah, so my internship was actually in promotions because I was graduating with a public relations degree, interned in their promotions department, which was fun, but I got a lot of exposure to.
[00:11:00] The other sides of it and the broadcast part of it and the weather part of it. I sort of had my ear to the ground the whole time and there in the station to the weather department and and so got different experience there. But it was crazy. The very first day that I interned there was the day that they.
Flew Sky five into Nashville. It was their very first day. And you know, y'all know from a promotions perspective that was a huge deal Just when you, for those who don't know what sky five is the news helicopter that Channel five has. They were the only one in Middle Tennessee that, that had one at the time.
Nobody knew it was coming except for a select few. They had a meeting in the studio that morning, told the staff, and then literally the thing flies in from Knoxville in the five o'clock news. I mean, it was a huge day and that was my first day as an intern. So trying to edit tape and all this kind of stuff for that was just, they didn't think I was gonna come back.
And I was like, man, I loved it. That was great. So it was a very fast-paced experience. Summer went by quickly. And then how'd you find your way to Nashville? Severe weather. [00:12:00] So I'd been following them on Twitter, which was the only platform they were on. It was Twitter and it was just all text.
And so I just I'd been following them and I had hosted, I actually hosted a an event at our church. Called the national Weather Association, and I was, I'm still a part of that. And it's a great place, great organization actually in many ways. But I'd hosted this this local chapter meeting at our church just Carli we needed some space.
I really wish I could see all the people. Great. So many questions about a local chapter for the Nash National Weather. National Weather Association. It's fantastic. It's a club for people that love weather. It's a group of it's TV meteorologists. It's National Weather Service meteorologists. It's you know, it's open to a wide range.
You'd be surprised it, and I was surprised to learn how many facets of the weather enterprise. Sure. When you get them all in a room, it is just amazing the number of directions that weather can go and the ways that that people work in that enterprise. And so yeah it's a [00:13:00] great, you know, we pretty well filled a room and David and Will were there, David and Will David Romney, will, Minoff, were the two running Nashville severe weather at the time they were there.
And we just had some conversations. We had some lunches and just decided that. That they needed another person. And I was happy to join that. And I mean, I had the same reaction. I was like, oh my goodness, I can't believe I'm getting to, to work with these guys. And it's been great ever since.
It's been a learning journey and we've progressed in a lot of ways in how we do things. Things have changed but our core. Mission is the same. No, nothing about that has changed. Now how many of there are you that work at Nashville Severe weather now? It fluctuates. We have right now it's about five.
We started off, when I first joined them actually we had an intern program where we would have interns from usually Mississippi State University and their meteorology program. They would join us and write. Blog content every day for us. And we would critique their writing and really help them to [00:14:00] become better writers especially in the weather space.
And and we did that, that, that ran for quite a long time. And then now we actually have. Kind of, an intern in residence. He's also a student there, but he's from Franklin and we actually employ him to do that full-time for us and write our content for us. And there's other roles.
All of us sort of have a different role. We actually have a retired National Weather Service meteorologist on, on, on staff with us now, you know, and that's great. It kind of comes full circle for him to be able to come back and work on something that he loves. Now I think it's important that everyone understand you all have day jobs.
This is nobody's full-time. That's right. Gig, right? That's right. And some would say, you know, that's gotta hold y'all back. Yeah, it does. It does. On the Nashville, on the Nashville severe weather side. I'm sure we could be doing more if it was our full-time job all the time. But. But we all love what we do in the daytime, you know, with our day jobs.
So I, I'm not willing to give up my day job for that. I still love [00:15:00] what I do. So we manage both at the same time. So it's an interesting arrangement. It's. So what's the business model behind that? Because that sounds like a fair amount of staffing for what is a popular but still entirely digital platform.
So what's the business model? Well, it's pretty simple. We are all, we are fully 100% donation based. We don't do, we don't do advertising right now. We don't do any of that. It's all donations and. Here's the positive side of all of us having day jobs is that we're not, none of us are dependent on Nashville severe weather, right?
So if things start you know, not looking great for Nashville, severe weather, whatever that is our families aren't dependent on it. Or, you know, if it just went away today we would, you know. We'd be fine financially. So it's all donation based and that's gone. Well, we did that because we were actually funding it ourselves with our families.
And when we needed a new computer for weather, we bought one from our family's finances and eventually we needed to change that model. [00:16:00] Carli things got pretty expensive. So we use Patreon, we use. PayPal different ways for people to give, and that has, it's been enough for what we do. We, it's not excessive, but it's been enough.
Have you ever had people come alongside you and be like, I wanna sponsor you. Can it please be the umbrella, umbrella manufacturers of the worlds podcast? Exactly. Or something like that? We have, and we've been approached and we just say, Hey, we just don't feel like that's the right time for us.
First of all, it gives us something else to manage. And we just don't, we don't have the margin with our families and our day jobs to to manage details of advertising. I'm sure we could do it one day, but the other thing we don't want is we don't want, I mean, the, my nightmare is somebody clicks on our live coverage when we have severe weather.
Coming through here and they have to watch, you know, two one minute ads on YouTube before they, and I know that's something you can enable and disable, but we just, we don't want to go down that road. We want it to be completely free for anybody and we give it with an open [00:17:00] hand.
Anything that we have. I think that's why people relate so much to you is there is an authenticity. To what you guys do, that you're as concerned about your community members during a storm as we are about the people on our street and under our roof. And I think hearing someone else care and almost mirror that.
What's the right word? Diligent urgency. That feeling of I need to be vigilant right now, but I'm not gonna panic. Knowing that you're feeling that too is super comforting as a parent, as a caregiver walking through the literal storms of life. Well, I appreciate that and it's been one of those things where you know, we live in the communities that.
That y'all do. And I live in Nolansville and you know, when the storm gets to my house, you know, occasionally, very occasionally I'll have to go wake my family up too and you know, let the other guys handle it just a second while I go wake my family up and get them in the bathroom or something.
That's, it's only happened once or twice, but, we're there with you. We, you know, we [00:18:00] know we know that it can be stressful, and so we just kind of wanna help everybody through it. I do wanna ask on the family side of things, how do you balance, like you all have jobs and families, and then you're up all night.
A lot of these times. Reporting on the weather, making sure everyone's taken care of. How do you, I mean, are your wives super weather nerds also? Do they get the mission? No, they're not weather nerds. But you know, we all say that this whole thing would fall apart if it weren't for our wives.
They are absolute rock stars. They're willing to go turn on a movie for the kiddos when. You know, when I need to be in a quiet part of the house to, to broadcast the, I mean, any, you know, the number of, it seems like all of our severe weather happens during dinner. The number of times I've had to jump up and run back to the back room during dinner, you know, it's just they're rock stars and they support what we do.
And it wouldn't be possible without them. So luckily our severe weather is. Is infrequent enough to where we don't feel like that's [00:19:00] specifically getting in the way. But they they're very accommodating when they need to be. So Andrew, it sounds like the broadcast is happening out of your house.
Is that right? It's happens at my house. Do you have a generator? If you lose power, like what are the details around that? That, actually, it's funny you asked that because that was part of the reason to switch over to donation based stuff and allow people to help support us because we were needing some equipment.
That we just, you know, that was gonna be tough for us to just, all of us foot the bill to buy some decent equipment. We do have all the, you know, I have two UPS battery backups just on my desk that'll hold it for hopefully long enough to to be able to. To finish severe weather coverage.
But then we have we did each get generators. They're portable, but they're big and they'll handle the house for as long as we can keep gas running in them. In an ice storm situation or whatever it is where we might have an extended power outage, we can still get stuff out.
So we have provisions for that and and it's, if I feel a lot better with that now that we have that, yeah. [00:20:00] So Andrew, I'll play devil's advocate for a second, because there's a meaningful part of the listener base that's probably like those weather guys like, it's always dramatic. It's always get to the basement there.
You know, the arctic bomb blast is coming. It's the cyclone of the century and all of it. You really wonder are they doing it just to keep us on the stream or tuned onto television? And it just seems like a whole lot of crying wolf. So how do you respond to someone that gives that reply to what you do?
Digital weather is very tough Carli it's a space that is very easy to hype. You got the thumbnails, you've got the, you know, the big white tech. I mean, a lot of it is exactly like you described. One thing that we have that actually it, I sort of have a visceral reaction when I see the hype, whether it's television or digital, whatever.
We don't participate in that. We just don't. And if it's something that, if it's something that [00:21:00] I don't feel strongly about, as far as, you know, I really don't see much of a big deal here. I'm gonna tell you. I don't think it's gonna be a big deal. So it's, I've never once, I mean, Carli you know, I've got a family too.
I've got a house of kids and a wife. I'm, I don't just sit there wanting to be broadcasting for four or five, six hours, you know, if it's something that is not worth being there for. We'll tell you. I mean, there's not been one time where I've hyped anything just to stay on longer and talk to, you know, talk to people about something that doesn't exist.
So I, it is, it's a weird space, but we just, we don't participate in that stuff. How can people interact with you? Because I think that's a unique aspect and part of what makes the. Kind of viral component of Nashville severe weather. Like when you're watching weather on television, you really don't have a way to interact with the person in the studio talking, at least in real time.
So talk about that component. Carli I think that's really special. That's been very [00:22:00] important. And even back to the old Twitter days you could still reply, you could still you know, you could still send us a picture. You could, you. Send us some stuff. I mean, whatever. But you could interact with us even on the old Twitter, Twitter platform, which we still use.
We still use X, but but we think that there's a two-way street that has to happen. We feel very strongly that we can send information, but we're only limited in in what we can send. Because we need to know what's actually happening on the ground. And whether you're sending us something that says, Hey, I'm scared I'm freaking out.
Or if it's saying, Hey, I actually see severe winds, a tree just got uprooted in my front yard, whatever it is, all of that is useful in, in our space while we're trying to message severe weather or whatever the weather is. We. We find it very important, whether it's a chat on our YouTube stream, whether it's replies on X or DMS on Instagram, whatever it is, that's a very important component to us.
We feel very strongly about the [00:23:00] two-way street of communication that has to happen for it to all be effective. I have questions about whether that, I've never been able to ask people, okay, why do, is there a reason, like you said storms happen at dinnertime or you're up all night. Why are they overnight?
I know. Like, why can't I have them with my coffee in the morning and plan my day around it? Why is it keeping me up? In the middle of the night. I know. We have I don't know exactly what the statistic is, but we have a very unfortunate statistic of we rank very high in in fatalities with what we call nocturnal tornadoes.
You know, it's just, we get a lot of these nighttime events and the best explanation I can give is that a lot of, you know, in the morning, you just don't have that energy available. For, to fuel storms. You don't have the heat the instability we call it. So they're like people. Yeah, exactly.
Because nobody has, yeah. They're not quite ready to get going in the morning. Yeah. And so it's very rare that you get I can only think of [00:24:00] one event that we had back in 2017 where we actually had a tornado come through Cool springs one, one morning, and that, that was very rare.
We I don't think I've seen that happen again since it's just most of our stuff. Gets going west of us during the day. It takes advantage of the heating of the day back in Arkansas or wherever eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas gets going there and then by the time it gets to us, it's just about that evening or late night time.
And we get kind of what's left of those storms and what's left can sometimes be very strong but before they kind of. Kind of, you know, rid themselves of their energy. East of us we get those nighttime severe weather events. It's just something kind of unique to us here in Middle Tennessee it seems like.
And we just had the privilege of interviewing the mayor, mayor O'Connell, and he said one of the number one questions he gets is about snowplows. Oh yes. And snow. And I am originally from Michigan. Oh, okay. And to no end. I get so annoyed when an inch and a half keeps my [00:25:00] kids home for a week and there is no bread like can you help me understand? Are we just not preparing for snow? Well, is it just because we only get one kind of intense. By intense, we mean three inches of snow a year. What are you seeing in the snow space? I think it's all of that. I think, you know, one thing you have to understand is and I've lived in other parts of the country too, you know, our our taxes, our property taxes are so much lower than a lot of other places in the country.
You know, it's, are they gonna spend that, those dollars on something that happens if you. A few times a year. I'll tell you, there was a huge difference in our snow response when they actually I remember when they started putting brine on the roads before a snow event. I remember when that happened.
And that makes a lot of difference in the right circumstance. So there's some proactive things you can do there to sort of help the major roads. But yeah, still there's issues with the neighborhood roads for sure. But you know, there's just. You know, we could spend a lot more [00:26:00] on, on snow removal and I think it probably would get some pushback from the Nashville native saying, hold on a minute.
This only happens a couple times a year now. Just, you know, let's not spend our money on that. There could be some other stuff. So I don't, there's a lot that goes into that discussion for sure. Do you have principals calling you about whether or not they should close school? I'd imagine your kids.
Think you control whether school is in and out. Yeah. Which is a huge responsibility there. There's actually people that think we control a lot of things that we have no control over at all. School is one of those, tornado sirens is another one. They're like, what? Where'd you set the siren? It's we don't have anything to do with the sirens.
But yeah, we get, you know, I'll get daycare directors and principals, that kind of thing. You know, we've had relationships in the past with. With some school directors, county school directors, that, that might have some questions you know, for us as they make decisions. So it's, and I actually live on one of the roads now in our county that they actually look at.
So every once in a while I kind of wanna go ice it down a little more, you know, and let the, but the yeah, we get a lot of questions about the snow. That's a big [00:27:00] one. That's a big one in our area. Do you get more questions about snow or tornadoes? I know that's seasonal, but like when does your fan base really engage the most with you?
I would say it's probably about equal because they're both impactful. The severe weather tends to tug at people's emotions. That's a safety emotion that's very important. It's very. It's buried deep within us, and when it comes out, it's very strong. So severe weather is one of those things where, especially if you haven't lived here before and you're kind of new to the space of severe weather that we have here that can be a very strong reaction from people and just wanting to feel safe.
The snow is like. Okay, do I need to go to the grocery? I'm gonna participate in this amazing thing that we do around here, which is go clean the grocery stores out and be home for a couple of days. So that's more of a fun one, but people really want to know the facts about it. So they're just two very different events and both get a lot of attention for sure.
Andrew, I [00:28:00] wish you were a hype man sometimes with the tornado siren, because you could really play into that. If you had this big red button on the desk and just kind of even have you seen Jim Cramer on Mad Money on CNBC? Just hit the buttons. Yeah. Like you could just start hitting all the buttons.
That's right. And I'm like, yeah. You know, this is why this isn't your job. Yeah. This is why you are not allowed to be in charge of sirens. Yeah. If you ever wake up one morning and just. Decide to choose violence and destruction. Yes. Then you've got the platform. I've got the platform. Yeah. It's funny that those have the sirens, it's amazing how big of a topic those have been around here over the years because used to, they were issued on a countywide basis.
And this is going in the weeds a little bit, but it's kind of important part of our story where both Davidson and Williamson less so Williamson, but Davidson was a countywide tornado siren activation, and that's just not the way. Warnings are issued. It's not the way people largely wanted that to happen.
And so yeah, because Davidson County is so big, it's so big. It big. I mean, like you big could be in a totally [00:29:00] different part where it almost desensitizes you. It's all the sirens going off again. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, why set off a hundred sirens for something that's gonna be relatively small in scale?
We were part of the movement to sort of say, Hey, can we have a conversation about maybe a better way to do this? And that occurred with both counties and both of them. Now, the majority of those activations are actually software based, where they take the. Tornado warning polygon.
The shape that includes the tornado warning and sirens are actually automatically activated based on that. That polygon much better way to do it, in our opinion. And but yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, when those go off, it really kind of, you know, makes you like, man, I feel like I'm in Oklahoma, wakes everybody up.
All right, what do we do? And but it does sort of conjure up a. A, a scary thing for a lot of people. So yeah, when we can be more effective with it and not feed into the cry wolf thing is always better. So let's talk tornadoes for a second because that's some of the involuntary questions that we got early on this as they wanted to hear from Andrew.
[00:30:00] So there's a lot of different instruction about what to do during a tornado and. I guess the most commonly repeated one, like if someone said, what's the number one thing that you hear? It's to go to your most interior room, a bathroom if you don't have a basement, which here in Tennessee, like very few people do.
Carli we live basically on top of rock. That's right. What do you advise people to do? Because there's everything from you should open windows rather than keep them closed because of like pressure differentials or know glass break in, I mean, myth. Yeah. Okay. So take us through some kind of myths.
Send truths and things that you have heard and dispelled. Carli I bet you've had some wild theories come your way as people wonder what to do. Yeah. It's, you know, let's start with the facts. The fact is, and it always has been that the lowest floor away from windows, putting as many walls between you and the outside as possible is the best.
Best way. So we've seen repeatedly, over and [00:31:00] over again tornado damage. And if it happens around here, usually we go look at it and we've seen over and over again that, that works better than spending time going around opening windows and or going outside and getting in a ditch when you live in a decent home.
And on all these, you know, types of things there are situations where you might have to do that, but. If you have a good home that you're in, well, bill is, it's not a mobile home. You know, that, that interior room closet or bathroom is generally good. The, I tell you the biggest question we get is from people who, we have such a growth in the number of people who live in condos or apartments now, especially in Nashville.
What do I do? I'm on the top floor of my condo and we're like, well, the advice is still the same. The lowest level away from Windows, interior closet, something like that. The advice is still the same. Well, I don't know anybody on the lower floors, and that's a tough one because it's like the advice doesn't change for that.
It's still, you know, you wanna be just in as, as far inside as you can be. [00:32:00] So that's one challenge we've had to address. And I don't, I haven't figured out a good way to address that yet, because it doesn't change the advice really. It's still the truth, you know? That, that, that truth is always the same.
Try to get as low as you can. And just one other question that I don't know if you know whether it's true or not, but if you're caught out on the road, I've had some people say, you should get under a bridge. And I've seen different physics with this because Yeah. The bridge sometimes seems to kind of compress and create a wind tunnel where you don't want to be under one of the interstate overpasses.
And then I could also make a good case to want to be under there because maybe you get some protection from debris that doesn't come from above, even though you could get hit from the side. Do you have a vote on this? Yes. Yes I do. And that, yeah, don't, the bridge is a bad idea. We, I remember the first video that there was a very popular viral for the time that it was a video that came out.
Where people did take shelter under a bridge and people were like, oh, that's [00:33:00] genius. And you know, that was where the whole myth came from, that's where you're supposed to be. And studies showed no. The physics, as you talked about, that does not work. It does tend to create a wind tunnel of.
And there've been people, there've been people killed under bridges. And so it is not a good space. But we also get this other side where I had this question yesterday actually. If I know a big tornado's coming, why would I not just get in my car and take off and head south or whatever and get, you know, if I have.
15, 30 minutes, you know, and the fact is we just, our road network around here is just not very conducive for that. I live, you know, it, it took me 30 minutes to get here this morning, and I live, what, five or six miles away, you know, as the crow flies. It's just not it's tough to get places quickly on our roads.
And so I would rather. A good, safe room or safe shelter that you can purchase in the space where you are, where you can safely take shelter if you don't feel safe in your home. Rather you have that than jump in the car and head south if possible. What's [00:34:00] the number one thing you take with you to your safe place during a tornado?
Helmets. Helmets a large part, a large number of injuries, especially to children when when there's flying debris, tornadoes it's it's head injuries, head trauma. So it's a relatively new development where we've started saying, and it's not just us, this is a national thing, saying, Hey, helmets are a good idea.
And a lot of families have them in their home. You know, whether it's football or bike helmet or whatever it is, they have. You know, a helmet in their home seat. We have them in our in our interior bathroom in the cabinet under the sink. We have four helmets and and that's, you know, we live in a wooded area and there's just, there's gonna be no shortage of flying debris and, you know, if we were to ever have that situation at our house so we have helmets in there.
That's the number one. I've heard helmets, I've also heard, and I thought this was true, a lot of times you're waking kids up in the middle of the night. It's winter, you know, it's not great weather outside. Yeah. The change in the temperature is huge when this happens. So kids are in like [00:35:00] nightgowns. That's right.
Or t-shirts. So I've heard, don't forget to grab shoes. Shoes are absolutely important. So shoes are more important for hey, right after the storm. I mean, when you're, if your home is damaged. Yeah, shoes are a big deal. You're gonna need those. So helmets more for during, to keep you safe.
As safe as possible during, and then for that one minute, and then, yeah, shoes afterward. Shoes are just, that's not what you think about when you're panicking. That's right. Yeah. I mean, trying to get my kids out this door for school in the morning, you'd think that we don't own shoes. That they don't exist.
They're in 17 piles or two that match, you know? Yeah. It's like a fairy came and sprinkled shoes everywhere, so I can't imagine in the middle of a tornado being like, get your shoes. But maybe for those of us that like to prepare hi, my name is Carli, and I love a color coded calendar. And to do checklist, like if I'm feeling stressed about a storm, maybe the thing that makes me feel better is be like, okay, I'm gonna grab helmets, I'm gonna grab shoes.
I'm gonna feel like I'm prepared for what. Is uncontrollable, but I can control what I can. [00:36:00] So our tornado season around here really goes from really the beginning of November to the end of May. Roughly. And so you don't really, a lot of people wait to prepare for the severe weather, the tornado season until before spring.
You really, whatever year it is, kind of put it on your calendar. There around Halloween time. Go ahead and kind of stock the stuff up in the closet or wherever it is you take shelter. I'd love to ask, you guys have a lot of prep, Carli some of these storm cells, some pop up, but some you can kind of tell an event is coming certainly more with snow than tornadoes, but for both, is there any that you.
Wish people had known more about and they just kind of snuck up. And then alternatively, are there any that looked like they were gonna be enormous and praise the Lord, like they were less? Yeah, so I think of the tornado in Nashville in 2020 as one that. That pro, I won't say it snuck up on us.
It was a cell that [00:37:00] actually back to the west was doing quite a bit and if I'm not mistaken, were even some fatalities earlier in the evening out there. But it was one of those situations where it wasn't a big severe weather day. It was one of those days where, yeah we, there was a low chance of tornadoes that day.
And so that was a little tough to message just because and we kinda like to call these, you know, low probability, high impact events, and those are the ones that I wish people understood a little bit better that, hey, it's not a bust if nothing happens. It's just there's a low probability something's gonna happen, but if it does, it's gonna be a high impact event.
And that was that event? It was. You know, it didn't really happen anywhere else in Middle Tennessee other than that one storm. And it just was a long track and it came through very populated areas, so it was a high impact. Those are tough ones to message because if nothing happens, it's, well, you're un you're not credible, you know, nothing happened.
The, you know, the the snow events are tricky Carli they get a lot of attention. And if you're off a little [00:38:00] bit on your accumulations, it can swing one way or the other and people feel surprised. So those are difficult. I really don't like forecasting snow because you kind of, it's kind of a lose sometimes you feel but they're fun.
They're fun. There's one thing I would tell people. This is when I think I started to become a super fan of Nashville severe weather. It was within the last couple of years there was projected to be snow, and I could see all the responses on Twitter. You guys were getting inundated with the best questions and the most detail oriented, is Elsa coming?
Are we building a snowman? What are we doing? And the blog post you guys put out. Was so good. It showed snapshots of so many different models and you're like, here's what the high side models say. Here's what the low side. I'm obviously in layman's terms, I know whether No you got it. Whether that's right.
That's right. But it really let people, you did a good job educating people so that they could make the best decision for them and their family based on their risk tolerance. And that was something that I found. [00:39:00] So unique to what you do is it was an education platform that gave people resources and the why behind, I can't tell you if the ice queen is coming.
Yes. Yeah. Yes. So that was an incredibly well worded question because it really encapsulates the challenge of communication. And I think I, you know, we are tempted sometimes to just. Do a short blog that is to the point. It's succinct. You know, brevity is king. Just give the facts that we know.
Get in, get out. But it was David d Drobney who told us and really trained us to say you know. The, let's give people an opportunity to learn about what they're experiencing. And so having a longer blog and asking the reader to stay with us through that is important because it's something that, where they can learn the nuances, exactly what you just talked about.
It's not an exact science as much as we wish it [00:40:00] was. There's nuances to it. And so that's what we have to work through. And communication against a two-way thing. We'll put it out there, but we need people to spend time and read it and understand it and ask questions is great. But but yeah, we try to put out those longer form blogs when there's something that needs a little more nuance.
Is there anyone else doing this? Do you have comrades in other cities that are super hyperlocal? Weather friends? Well, it's funny because the space is evolving so fast and in fact there was a a big conference and there was a panel that we were a part of will said on the panel.
And it was a lot of the digital creators with weather. And there's some others out there. Ryan Hall, y'all is a big one. He does national stuff, so he's sort of taken the digital space and does a great job en large. I mean, we. You know, we love a lot of what he does.
But he covers nationally. He's really hitting the younger generation, you know, trying to do a great job with reaching them. He's doing a great job reaching them but he's covering the entire country and he'll [00:41:00] be the first to tell you it's hard when there's a tornado in Texas that's very impactful.
And then there's another one in Illinois that he has to go cover that's very impactful. And so he's. Stretched, then he wishes there was a way to manage that. He'll tell you that. I've heard him say it. And so we've. We've just, we've resisted the urge to grow and we've been asked to grow many times from Wilson County, Rutherford County, other places we say we can't because we don't feel like we can do it well.
When we expand we feel like we got something we can manage now, and if we expand too much. And you know, we just don't feel like we can do that well, and we wanna do it well. I feel like what I hear you saying is there's such a unique tie. Ministry is your day job and it feels like this is ministry.
This is your flock, this is your sheep, these are the people you're shepherding is these two counties through these weather events and the ups and downs. So my guess is, if another. Group of people came to you [00:42:00] guys and said, Hey, we really care about Wilson County. We really care about Rutherford County.
Let us do this well and shepherd this flock alongside you, that you would be a hundred percent supportive of that, but it's just not yours to do in this moment. It's not ours to do. And there have been other people that have come along and they. And we do have people that cover those counties.
Not all of them, but some of them have come along. And and it's a great network. They're, there's somebody that focuses specifically on Wilson and they all, but they all approach it with varying degrees of involvement. You know, some. Some of them may be involved in video. Some of them may still, some of them are only on Facebook, some of them are only on Twitter, some, you know, so we, there are people in some of those other counties and they do a great job with the time that they have.
They also have full-time jobs. So there is a network around Middle Tennessee that that, that really does try to stay hyper-local within their own counties. And that's been fun to watch them grow. All right. What do you do about vacation? Does that ever happen? Where you go out and then [00:43:00] you look at him laugh, he's oh yeah, that's happened.
It happens. You know, the good thing is most of the time say we're gone in the summer, you know, we go to, you know, go somewhere for a week in the summer. That's kind of outside of our traditional tornado season, so we might have. You know, a storm that hails a little bit or something like that.
Or maybe some strong wind in the summer. But usually we're not gonna have our big large scale, severe weather events in the summertime. But even if it's, you know, fall break or whatever, we're always communicating with each other. So the people on our team we're always saying, Hey, I'm gone. And us we use the term off the grid.
So I'm off the grid this date, through this date, and. Most of the time it's, there's plenty of coverage with the rest of the folks, you know, but but sometimes there have been times where I've been outta town camping in a camper. I barely have reception. I'm just like, will you got it buddy?
This is all yours. You know, have fun. See. I could just imagine, Andrew, it's like you come in, this is Andrew Lepper on Nashville Severe weather. I'm at an undisclosed remote [00:44:00] location because of this storm. Yeah. If you need a helmet, it's 49. Nine nine for the next three hours we can get you a helmet.
Exactly. So you what I'm going for here? No, I see what you're, I see what you're going for there. No, that is why no. So could you turn off the weather like truly, like if you had to have, you had to really like gut check and say, if I needed to, if this became an idol in my life, could I not look at the weather for a week?
Would that be beneficial? So I, yes I think the the benefit that we have and I go back to this, it, the benefit is that it's not our full-time job. I don't, I haven't looked at any weather this, you know, before we're sitting here. I haven't looked at anything today. I'll look at it as soon as I leave, you know, when I get to my office, I'll check in.
But there's not. This urgency with me that I need to be looking at every moment. And because I sort of wear two hats with Nashville, severe weather and my day job I can set one down, put the other one on take that one off, put the other one back on, and just sort of live in both [00:45:00] spaces and know when to turn it off.
And it hasn't gotten to the point yet where I've had a lot of trouble with that but yeah, I could see a time where. You know, if it just gets busy, I get kind of burned out. You know, last question, Andrew. Yeah. From me, if someone's you know, I wanna have the apps that Andrew has, do you ever say these are a couple apps, whether they're free or paid?
Sure. That you have to look like, would you mind telling people what one or two apps are that you use? So for radar, I use, I primarily use radar scope and radar scope's been around a long time. It's a paid app. In fact you can go up several subscription levels depending on the data that's available.
And that's generally true with most of them. Another one is Radar Omega, and that's one that that I also have a pretty high subscription to, just to, so I have all that at my fingertips. We use, a service called Pivotal Weather, which provides a lot of the modeling that we access.
And it's just sort of really, for [00:46:00] me, it's more muscle memory. This is just what I type in immediately. I just sort of know to go there. There's a lot of places you can go and get this data. That's just the age we live in. It didn't used to be that way, but but now that the public has access to a lot of this stuff, it's just, it is just muscle memory for me to type in these sites, but we get stuff from various places and generally the public has access to those. But but yeah, it's a little different now. Everybody has access to so much stuff. So the thing that I love the most about national severe weather is the back and forth, the questions, and we've talked about that a little bit about how it really is interactive.
Between you and the people watching, do you have any stories about people that rode in, that you developed relationship or were able to help in a unique way? Yeah. We had a situation. The first one that comes to mind is, I'll never forget that there was an afternoon where schools had let out because of the possibility of severe weather, of tornadoes, and there was a tornado warning that was issued for Williamson County that included part of Franklin.
And kids were home in [00:47:00] some cases without their parents because of the nature of being dismissed early and because they got bused. Yeah. Guess Got bused. That's right. Bust mom stuck at work and Yeah. That's right. So we had we were doing tornado warning coverage and I'll never forget, it just happened to catch my eye.
This kid said something to the effect in our chat of, Hey I'm nine or 10 years old and I'm home alone. I'm scared to death. I don't know what to do, what do I do? And my heart just sank. I was like, oh, of course these kids are home, you know, and and doesn't know what to do. And so I just, I remember just stopping.
And just talk to him. And I remember saying, you know, Hey man, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be I'm looking at this. It's, you're gonna be all right, but just go get a, I mean, you got a helmet. And I think he may have replied, go get that on, go get in your hallway, you know, near your bedroom, something that's inside you know, in interior room of your house or whatever, in your hallway.
And I just remember thinking, man, these are real people. Yeah. And in some cases, these are children that are home by themselves and just need to [00:48:00] know what to do. And it's all right, man. I got you. Just, you know, we're gonna be all right. And that was a moment that just really stood out to me and and really affected me in the way that we communicate.
Well, the way that we land each podcast, Andrew, is we give three short questions that have a blank at the end. Okay. If you will repeat the prompt that I give to you, and then finish it with either a word or a short phrase that you think completes the thought. Okay. Okay. All right. Got it. All right.
Here we go. Number one, this has not been rehearsed. That's exactly right. None of it is it ever is. None of it has. We do all of it intentionally that way. Alright. One thing I always tell my viewers during a storm is blank. One thing I always tell my viewers during a storm is it's gonna be okay. We're gonna get through it together.
Number two, if you're receiving a tornado warning in Williamson or Davidson County at 2:00 AM the smartest move. It's blank. If you're receiving a tornado [00:49:00] warning in Davidson or Williamson Counties at 2:00 AM the smartest thing to do is act. Don't, wait. Act. And number three, what I love most about Nashville's Weather community is what I love most about Nashville's weather community is they are engaged.
Truly engaged. Andrew, it's really fun to have you on the podcast. This has been one that we said right from the top. There have been more people hearing that you're coming on that have just lit up and said, I can't wait to hear what. He has to say. And so just from your presence and involvement in the community, you're scrappy.
The organization is entrepreneurial and it's also unique in a industry that. [00:50:00] People would say, what else could be unique in weather? Right. You know, that's how can you disrupt the weather space, but you really have, and I think that is a hallmark sign of entrepreneurship and gives a great model for people that their passion may not be to be.
In the weather space, but it shows an entrepreneurial pathway to say, you know, learn something, love something. Really understand the pain points of your customers, the people you're serving. And from there, your entrepreneurial idea will really be born. And so it's neat to see how this has been something that's been building since you were a kid.
A lot of people that we have on our show have a similar story where the Lord's hand has been working in their lives in ways that sometimes is quite obvious and sometimes is quite in disguise for a long period of time. And [00:51:00] so it's great to see that you are literally serving hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people sometimes on a nightly basis.
And that's a pretty cool position to be in, so thanks for spending some time with us and telling us how you do it. Thank you so much to you both.
Andrew Leaper, director of Broadcasting for Nashville Severe Weather. This has been an anticipated episode from a lot of people that have said, oh my gosh, you've got Nashville severe weather, Carli and Spencer. You have officially made it. I know. I know of all the things, but it's funny. When we started doing this podcast, there were a few things for each of us that we told our team.
We were like, can you please just see if we can get these people on the podcast? My number one dream is to talk to Dolly Parton. That hasn't happened. We're still putting it out. In the world and praying that maybe someday I'll get to meet her. But Nashville severe weather was on that list for me. And I think one thing that he made so clear that we have seen time and [00:52:00] again in business is you serve first and you ask second.
And the thing that hits me, we joked a lot about what's your angle and are you hitting the panic button and what are you selling? And the truth is for these guys. Nothing. Yeah, they're not selling a thing. It is a ministerial heart that they have for the people in their community that they just wanna shepherd them through.
Really scary. Moments and I just thought, wow, no wonder people adore them. They're not asking for anything. All they're doing is sharing information. They're teaching, they're serving the least of these. Think about that little boy that he helped. He didn't have to do that. And I just think that the hype is so deserved in this instance.
It's great to see how well they understand what they do too. It's so rare that. A business that has a clear pathway to be able to expand and [00:53:00] monetize and do all sorts of stuff to, it sounds like at least some of the members of the team that don't have extraordinarily high income jobs from other places.
Right. I mean, he's a pastor and so the temptation to say, wow, I could probably make this a six figure job and really do it, but I've gotta. I've gotta play a one minute YouTube ad before and I gotta do this and that. But for him to be able to say, this is where we are, and we'd break it if we grow, shows an incredible understanding and awareness of what they're doing.
And who they're serving, and that is so rare to see. Yeah. Power to the weather nerds. It is a community that I hope continues to expand and gain in power Carli how cool.
