Best of Bluff: Goodwin living on air in Topeka as meteorologist

Weather impacted “everything” during Jeremy Goodwin’s childhood in Poplar Bluff — so it should not be a surprise that he has made a career out of forecasting weather.

Goodwin, a 1991 graduate of Poplar Bluff High School, is the chief meteorologist at WIBW-TV in Topeka, Kansas, and has worked at the station for nearly two decades.

Poplar Bluff native Jeremy Goodwin plays with his 4-year-old son Gabriel in the summer of 2020. Photo provided

“My education in Poplar Bluff stretched from kindergarten at Eugene Field Elementary to the class of 1991 at PBHS,” Goodwin said. “I had more pimples than I had skin to put them on. We had such a wide range of personality types and family backgrounds. What stands out to me now is that I was just too darn shy. There were a lot of interesting folks that I should have taken more time to get to know. I really thought more individuals would want to ride in my bumping Ford Festiva with the $2,000 stereo and no air conditioning. Surely my mullet and Def Leopard CD were evidence of a man on his way to broadcast meteorology and storm chasing.”

However, it was in Poplar Bluff that he first became fascinated with weather as a child.

“We played outdoors all day it seemed,” Goodwin said. “I remember that lightning was more than a sound. The flash was almost overwhelming to look at, and the sound came with a physical vibration that you simply could not ignore. I found myself just gazing out the window at any type of precipitation — and on summer days I would gaze upward at the cumulonimbus clouds that scraped the top of the Butler County sky.”

Weather also had a major impact on Goodwin when he was in fourth grade.

“In December 1982, I remember the National Guard knocking on our door late at night.” Goodwin said. “We were told to evacuate, as Black River was almost to our front yard and the water was still rising. When the sun rose the next day, it seemed like the entire world was underwater. I was 9 and most of what I had known as the world, was flooded. Weather could not be ignored. If there was an event that placed meteorology in my heart, it was the 1982 flood.”

After graduating from PBHS, Goodwin went to the University of Missouri at Columbia and studied meteorology. An internship placed Goodwin at KRCG-TV in Jefferson City — which led to Goodwin’s first job as a TV meteorologist.

“After six months as an intern, I was giving forecasts on TV each weekend, and after another six months, I was promoted to the morning show,” Goodwin said. “If you can imagine driving 30 miles to work at 3 a.m., getting off work at 12:30 p.m. and then going to Calculus III, that was part of my career path. My time at KRCG began as an intern and ended when WIBW-TV offered me a position that I considered a dream job.”

That dream job was weekend meteorologist and lead storm chaser right in the heart of Tornado Alley.

“WIBW-TV actually paid me to chase tornadoes,” Goodwin said. “I accepted the job in January 2001 with WIBW and they wanted me to start immediately. However, KRCG-TV would be put in a rough spot trying to replace their morning meteorologist right before February ratings began — so I worked seven days a week.

“I worked the morning show in Jefferson City Monday through Friday, then drove to Topeka Friday afternoon and trained with the chief meteorologist. On Sunday night, I drove from Topeka to Jefferson City in time to work the morning show. I didn’t sleep very much in February 2001, but it was a step to not burning a bridge with the folks at KRCG who had been so good to me while running full steam ahead toward a job chasing tornadoes.”

Not long after Goodwin arrived in Topeka, he got to see his first tornado.

“I was near Salina, Kansas, and I was in the wrong part of the storm to safely observe it,” Goodwin said. “Over the next three years, I stopped counting how many tornadoes I spotted. The count didn’t matter once I realized that I could and would see a tornado every single year.”

Goodwin saw his largest tornado on May 4, 2003, an EF-4 monster.

“As I traveled I-70 east that day, the NOAA Weather Radio mentioned three different tornadoes were in progress,” Goodwin said. “A small tornado had just crossed I-70 right ahead of me. However, as I took exit 410 at the Kansas Speedway and traveled uphill along the off ramp, I saw a massive almost black tornado. Until this day, I was always annoyed trying to edit tornado video from people who cursed while recording the storm.

“When I began to edit my own video that night, I realized that it must be a natural reaction to drop four-letter words in the presence of an EF-4 tornado. Storm chasing was fun to me until that day. Then I fully realized that I was watching a major tornado in a highly populated area. There was no entertainment value to this, or enjoyment as I relayed my report to the National Weather Service and to WIBW-TV. This was a killer, and I knew that.”

When the chief meteorologist at WIBW-TV moved to Pittsburgh, Goodwin succeeded him as chief meteorologist.

“It was great to be promoted, but it came with a price,” Goodwin said. “You will not often see the chief meteorologist in the middle of a storm chase. My job during the most dangerous storms is to be on TV, the internet and social media. I need to know every detail of a dangerous storm and communicate who is in danger — and who is not.”

With social media catching fire during Goodwin’s time at WIBW-TV, Goodwin embraced it early.

“I was an early adopter in several areas of social media,” Goodwin said. “Well before Facebook, I ran a live blog on WIBW.com. This was amazing, before it became overwhelming. In 2007, I remember my forearms becoming sore from typing so much. I must have answered hundreds — if not thousands — of responses during days of severe weather. It was great, but it wasn’t sustainable.”

One of Goodwin’s more memorable moments at WIBW-TV came on May 21, 2011, when he tracked a small tornado through Topeka on live television.

“In the afternoon, I was riding my bicycle and had a nasty wreck,” Goodwin said. “But as I watched clouds build to the southwest of the city, I decided I needed to rush to the station to ‘back up’ the weekend meteorologist, in case it became a severe storm or worse. By the time I arrived, the storm was rotating. I was out of time to get into a full suit and tie. For the next seven hours, I broadcast not only this tornado, but another one that struck the town of Reading, Kansas, as well. All of this while I had bike shorts on, with a suit jacket and tie. I had a nasty knee from the bike wreck earlier in the day and later I realized I had bike chain grease on my neck.”

However, WIBW-TV got great ratings that day.

“Our Nielsen ratings peaked above a 70 share — more than three times our rival station,” Goodwin said. “There is no doubt that my most watched television coverage, was performed in bike shorts with a greasy neck. A viewer at home would have been very unlikely to have known or noticed that I was a mess. At one moment during the broadcast, our general manager walked in the studio and saw my shorts. His expression was priceless.”

However, tornadoes are not the only memorable weather events that Goodwin has covered in his career.

“In 2009, we had a true blizzard for Christmas in Topeka. About 4 a.m., Christmas morning I drove home from work in a truck, struggling to get across town for a few hours of sleep. I really should not have attempted the drive, but it ended when I saw a four-foot deep snow drift in my driveway and decided just to slam into it. My only other option would be to leave the truck in the street.

“Four hours later, I was awake and ready to drive back to work. I grabbed my snow shovel to dig out the truck. As I walked down the driveway, I realized there was no snow around the truck. I though somebody else had shoveled it for me. Then I realized the entire driveway was clear, and that there was no evidence of any shoveling at all. In fact, the 60 mile-per-hour winds had changed direction and blown all of the snow from the driveway and away from the truck. I dropped the shovel on the driveway, and drove to work in disbelief.”

Goodwin has worked from home since March due to the pandemic. He and wife Nichole have two children who also doing distance learning from home. Gabriel is 4 and Gavyn is 7.