A driving, East Coast snowstorm in Binghamton, the kind that can bury the Triple Cities, inspired Mike Branick (PE '76) as a teen to pursue his future career as a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
        
     "The storm that began on Christmas Day 1969 sticks out as a turning point for me.   I think it was the next day (and about two feet of snow later) that I first realized that weather could be a really cool line of work," he said.

     Early on, BCC figured perfectly into Mike's career plan. Knowing he needed a solid background in math and physics, he enrolled in the engineering science program at Broome, walking to the campus from home, and learning the basics so he could "hit the ground running" when he moved on to an undergraduate meteorology program. He transferred to SUNY Albany for his B.S. and then M.S. in Atmospheric Science. When he finished, he initially spent some time near New Orleans working for the National Weather Service there, and then transferred to Oklahoma in 1983 where he is today.
    
     As a lead forecaster, Mike guides his staff in providing routine forecasts for a large geographic area including most of western, central and southern Oklahoma and a small part of northern Texas. But the most important part of his job is to warn people of potentially hazardous weather, and Oklahoma has plenty of it: tornadoes, giant hail, snow, ice, floods, etc. Mike's decisions, sometimes life-or-death, can affect the lives of thousands, even millions, of people.
    
     Even with excellent forecasts, the weather still takes its toll. In December 2000 and January 2002, Mike and his team forecasted severe ice storms with results that were bittersweet. "There's satisfaction in being right," Mike said, "but frustration in knowing that each storm left over 100,000 people without power (some for over a month)."
    
     "The challenge is to sound the warning for weather that turns dangerous, but not to cry wolf when it doesn't," Mike explains. "Our users might be a few golfers wondering if they can get the last few holes in, or it might be thousands of workers wondering if they will make it home through the snow and ice."
   
       Or it might be hundreds of thousands of people responding to life-threatening tornadoes. Such was the case during the unprecedented tornado outbreak of May 3, 1999.
    
     Mike recalls: "May 3, 1999 was one for the ages, even by Tornado Alley standards. I was on a forecast shift the night before. We saw the potential for tornadoes later in the day, but no one could have foreseen the incredible number and intensity of the tornadoes that struck central Oklahoma that evening."
    
     That event was the most frightening weather event Mike had ever experienced personally. Home sleeping when it began (he was working the night shift), Mike turned on the TV to discover that the local stations were in continuous coverage of the event, including live helicopter shots of the massive mile-wide funnel bearing down on the south parts of Oklahoma City.
    
     "Norman, where I live, was close to the projected path. At that moment, I think I was as scared as I have ever been of the weather."
    

    The storm ended up missing Norman, sparing him, but not the residents in and near south Oklahoma City. As a member of one of the damage survey teams the next day, Mike was sent out to assess the magnitude of the storm.
    
     "I was among the first to determine that it was an F5 tornado," Mike said. "There's an eerie feeling being in the midst of such utter destruction. No pictures, no videos, no news stories can come even close to the actual experience of seeing the aftermath with one's own eyes. It's a humbling experience."
    
     Forty Oklahomans died in those tornadoes. Estimates are that there could have been more than 700 killed if there had not been advance warnings.
    
    "So we likely helped save hundreds of lives on just that one day." But, he adds, "I'm not satisfied unless the death toll is zero."


     
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