THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 1, 1994 TAG: 9405280180
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940601 LENGTH: ISLE OF WIGHT
He was forecasting winners in his recent ``Varmint Video'' contest - a goat riding a pony; a cat standing up like a boxer and punching a dog; and a weatherman-wanna-be who just happens to be a pig.
{REST} And he was helping about 125 third-graders, with a little advice about career-planning, to forecast their future.
``When I was 17, I was going to be a nuclear engineer,'' Cash told the youngsters. ``Guess why I wanted to be a nuclear engineer? One of three choices: (a) It paid a lot of money; (b) all of my friends thought I'd be good at it, and they wanted me to do it or (c) because I really wanted to be a nuclear engineer.''
Most of the children guessed money, and Cash agreed that was one of the reasons. But he had also made the decision, he said, because it was what his friends thought he should do.
In the end, however, he changed his mind and attended the State University of New York and got a degree in atmospheric science/meteorology. He minored in physics, chemistry and math, he said.
``I chose to be a weatherman because I really wanted to do it,'' Cash said. ``Since I was a kid, I always loved thunderstorms. I loved lightning. When I was a little boy, I'd sit by the window watching thunderstorms, and I can remember my mother pulling me away from the window.
``Choose something you really want to do,'' he told the youngsters. ``There are a lot of rich people who are really miserable. Choose something you want to do, and work hard at it.''
He told the children that he was recently married and that he had a new puppy, a 7-month-old Labrador retriever-mix named ``Stormy.''
``She barks constantly, bites constantly, eats all the time and goes to the bathroom a lot,'' Cash said.
But he also focused on the business side of a weatherman's life. He gets up every morning at 3:45 a.m., he said. He looks at his first weather maps by 4:30, and by 5:30, he said, he's on the air with his first forecast of the day.
Many of the questions the children had for Cash revolved around tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and other extreme weather conditions. Cash told them that he makes his forecasts with help from a $100,000 radar center at the TV station, weather balloons and other expensive weather equipment.
Severe thunderstorms and other severe conditions, he said, are the result of the atmosphere getting rid of energy that builds up over several days under sunny skies.
The worst hurricane ever, with winds of 200 miles per hour, never hit land, he said. Hurricane Andrew, which struck Florida recently, was bad, he said. It caused $20 billion worth of damage. But it could have been worse had it struck in a more populated area.
``A tornado back in 1928 hit with destruction a mile wide,'' he said. ``Fortunately, around here, we don't see a lot of tornadoes.''
And, he admitted, like most weathermen, he isn't always right.
``On Saturday, I predicted a high of 55,'' Cash said. ``It got up to 75 degrees. It was a pitiful forecast. But I thought it would be cloudy all day long. Instead, the sun came out, and it got a lot warmer than I thought it would.''
Jones said that the weatherman's visit was the culmination of the third grade's weather studies. One class actually announced weather forecasts over the school's public address system, she said. Six classes participated, representing about 125 third-graders. by CNB