Longtime Colorado meteorologist Mike Nelson joins Tom Green to talk about Colorado’s unusually warm winter, the legendary blizzard that left Broncos players stuck in the snow, and the early days of television weather. From installing cutting-edge weather computers for Stormy Rottman to explaining the difference between weather and climate, Nelson reflects on a career that helped shape how Colorado understands storms — and what may lie ahead.
Mike Nelson sits down with Tom Green for a wide-ranging conversation about sports, storms, science, and the future of climate in Colorado. The episode opens with Tom recounting his own experience covering games during the 1997 blizzard before Nelson shares the unforgettable story of Steve Atwater seeking shelter in his home during that same storm — a moment that later appeared on a Broncos Super Bowl highlight tape.
Nelson revisits his early career in Madison, Wisconsin, and his role in helping bring computer graphics into television weather. He shares the behind-the-scenes story of installing a groundbreaking weather system at 9NEWS and how his wife Cindy helped win over legendary forecaster Stormy Rottman during a pivotal moment in Denver broadcasting history.
The conversation shifts to severe weather coverage and the responsibility meteorologists carry when delivering life-saving information during tornado warnings and blizzards. Nelson explains how trust is built over time and why calm, steady communication matters most during dangerous storms.
In the second half, the discussion turns to climate. Nelson breaks down the difference between weather and climate in simple terms, explains rising carbon dioxide levels, and addresses Colorado’s historically warm, dry winter and the wildfire risks that could follow. He also discusses renewable energy economics, electric vehicles, and why leadership decisions today will shape the climate future for decades.
The episode closes with a classic Colorado twist — a forecast that the Rockies home opener just might bring snow.
00:00:01 – Sports & the 1997 Colorado blizzard
00:03:09 – Mike Nelson joins the show
00:05:32 – First job in TV weather & meeting mentor Terry Kelly
00:08:25 – The birth of computerized TV weather graphics
00:11:12 – Installing a weather computer for Stormy Rottman
00:15:21 – How Cindy Nelson won Stormy over
00:17:25 – Forecasting philosophy & trusting the forecaster
00:18:28 – Delivering life-saving tornado coverage
00:21:26 – Steve Atwater stuck in the snow
00:24:25 – Terrell Davis & Broncos snow stories
00:41:02 – Weather vs. climate explained
00:42:29 – Carbon dioxide levels then vs. now
00:44:58 – “Ten Facts in Ten Minutes” climate book
00:46:13 – Is climate change political?
00:51:02 – Fossil fuels, solar economics & China’s expansion
00:53:55 – Colorado’s warmest, driest winter concerns
01:02:05 – Dew point explained
01:05:40 – What makes a great TV forecast
01:15:36 – The changing face of broadcast meteorology
01:16:50 – Rockies home opener forecast
00;00;01;26 - 00;00;22;04
Tom Green
Hi there. Welcome to another edition of the other Tom green show. And today we're going to talk a little bit about the confluence of sports and weather. Of course me, I've long been a recovering sportscaster. And, my world of sports has always been to some extent, impacted by the weather. Just look at what happened to the end of the Broncos season this year.
00;00;22;04 - 00;00;54;13
Tom Green
That sudden, perfectly timed snowstorm that brought a halt to the Broncos offense and change their plans. As far as going to a Super Bowl, there are many instances of sports and weather colliding, but the one that I remember most personally was a late October storm in 1997. So a lot of snow come to Denver. So what happened was I did, the radio show I was doing over at the fan, and then I had another job working for, I forget it was Fox Sports, Rocky Mountain or Prime, but, the avalanche were hosting Carolina.
00;00;54;13 - 00;01;24;14
Tom Green
We knew the snow was coming, but it hadn't really hit yet. So I go right over to McNichols. I work the sideline between period job. Like what Kyle Keefer Rachel Tost does now, and the Avs end up tying the hurricanes three three. Got to do post-game show. And then I get in my car and I'm driving straight to Fort Collins because tomorrow, the next day, the Saturday afternoon game between Colorado State University and Tulsa and I end up driving through one of the worst blizzards you could drive through.
00;01;24;17 - 00;01;42;07
Tom Green
But I get there. I get barely up to Fort Collins. I get into my hotel room. I have all the stuff I need for the game tomorrow. I wake up the next day and there's easily 20in of snow on the ground, freshly fallen in Fort Collins. There's more in other parts of Colorado. They end up canceling the game.
00;01;42;10 - 00;02;05;16
Tom Green
I got up that morning being the diligent worker that I am, and I did drive out to Hughes Stadium, which was probably not the best decision I ever made, but there was no one there. The game would ultimately be played on Sunday instead. Yeah, the CSU Rams, the only time they ever played on a Sunday. So I finish not doing the game Saturday, and now I'm tasked with driving back home to Denver.
00;02;05;19 - 00;02;27;10
Tom Green
Well, that got pretty exciting because, nobody's on the road and those that are aren't going anywhere. But I'm trying to get south, towards Castle Pines, and I end up getting as far as Lincoln. And they've they've shut down the highway. There's just too much accident, too much snow. So I end up going over to the one place that was taking refugees.
00;02;27;18 - 00;02;45;10
Tom Green
I went over to the Park Meadows Mall, and I would have stayed there for a night or so. I remember Mark Holbrook interviewing me. I had left channel nine a couple of years earlier. Mark Holbrook was out there talking to the stranded and, a buddy of mine, old friend named Tony Cool, a big Cleveland Indians fan said, I'll come get you.
00;02;45;10 - 00;03;09;00
Tom Green
I live in the neighborhood, and he comes and gets me the problem was, his Cleveland Indians were playing game seven of the World Series that night against, the Florida marlins, and they would lose game seven, of course. So I was then left stranded in a house with an extremely depressed Cleveland Indians fan. Sports. And whether it's a beautiful mix and we're going to talk about that, the climate and much, much more.
00;03;09;01 - 00;03;21;18
Tom Green
I have a great friend with us here today. Mike Nelson joins us on the other Tom green show.
00;03;21;21 - 00;03;29;16
Tom Green
So here he is, the great Mike Nelson. And people don't get to see you as much anymore. You and I have both, left the TV business behind for a little while.
00;03;29;20 - 00;03;49;13
Mike Nelson
Tom, it's great to be here and great to see you. I've been retired now for, about 15 months, and, it's amazing how quickly you're out of sight and out of mind. People are very kind when they come up and say, I watched you, I miss you. Some still come up and say, when are you going to retire?
00;03;49;13 - 00;03;51;26
Mike Nelson
It's like, well, I did that over a year ago, so I get it.
00;03;51;29 - 00;03;52;17
Tom Green
The train keeps.
00;03;52;17 - 00;04;04;21
Mike Nelson
Moving as it does. And, I joke that if I want to get recognized, if I'm feeling a little blue, I just go to Costco because for some reason, it seems like Costco shoppers are still very much into local TV.
00;04;04;21 - 00;04;28;19
Tom Green
Well, it's, you're missed, but your impact in Colorado is still felt in many ways. And it's it's a fascinating tale because people know you from your on air years at nine and then 20 years at seven now, doing a great job at both places. And how the art and the science and the televising of weather has changed.
00;04;28;21 - 00;04;38;12
Tom Green
But you first came to Nine News back around when I first came to Nine News. It was 1982. But you were not yet an on air meteorologist.
00;04;38;14 - 00;04;40;23
Mike Nelson
I was on air in Madison, Wisconsin. You were doing.
00;04;40;23 - 00;04;41;05
Tom Green
Madison.
00;04;41;05 - 00;05;01;19
Mike Nelson
Okay. And so the way my career started in Madison was, I've been a weather nut since I was six years old. Just always loved watching storms. And back in the 60s and 70s, that meant that you watch the local TV weather forecasters, mostly men. And because that was the only source of information, you couldn't go online to get anything.
00;05;01;21 - 00;05;31;17
Mike Nelson
So when I was a kid, I'd watch all of Madison. Yeah, weather casters, but there was one named Terry Kelly who was at the ABC affiliate in Madison, w w cow in the Dairy State. And Terry was the best. And when I was a teenager, I worked at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store. Lo and behold, Terry Kelly liked ice cream, and he and his wife, Mary, used to come into that ice cream shop to get ice cream in between the six and the 10:00 news.
00;05;31;18 - 00;05;32;07
Tom Green
Wow.
00;05;32;09 - 00;05;53;12
Mike Nelson
So for me, this is like a football star coming in. I mean, so I always make sure I got to serve him and I'd ask him whether questions. Mr. Kelly, you think that low in the southwest is going to do anything. And he was very nice about it. Well, my father gave me some of the best advice that dads ever do, and he said, Mike, this guy comes into the store all the time, why don't you get a job out there?
00;05;53;15 - 00;06;11;14
Mike Nelson
You don't have to get paid. Just empty his wastebasket to answer his phone. And my initial response, my father's very sage advice was like, dad, that's a dumb idea. Like that would never happen. But I later thought, that's a pretty smart idea. So I asked Mr. Kelly and he didn't say yes right away, but he said, let me think about it.
00;06;11;15 - 00;06;34;10
Mike Nelson
And a few weeks later he came in and said, why don't you come in next Thursday and we'll talk? And, that next Thursday is going to be November 4th, 1976. So I call up, a young woman that I had been courting a little bit named Cindy, and I said, Cindy, I've got a job interview next week.
00;06;34;12 - 00;06;39;26
Mike Nelson
Let's plan to go out. And if I get the job, we can celebrate. And if I don't get the job, we can just drown our sorrow, commiserate.
00;06;39;26 - 00;06;40;17
Tom Green
Right.
00;06;40;19 - 00;06;50;28
Mike Nelson
And I go out to the TV station. He says, you know, you could make a couple of maps for me and answer the phone in between the newscasts, and I'll pay you minimum wage. You can start next week.
00;06;50;29 - 00;06;51;17
Tom Green
Yay!
00;06;51;17 - 00;07;02;08
Mike Nelson
So November 4th, 1976, when I started my TV career. And that's also the same night that Cindy and I, my wife of now 45 years, had our first date.
00;07;02;09 - 00;07;09;06
Tom Green
Big, big day, big was the whole thing. And one day your whole life came, came unraveling to you.
00;07;09;06 - 00;07;28;24
Mike Nelson
Unbelievable. Yeah. So, I was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin at the time, studying meteorology. And so all the way through college, I had a job at a TV station, gradually taking on more roles. My first on air work was on the 4th of July in 1979. Because nobody else wanted to work the 4th of July.
00;07;28;24 - 00;07;50;22
Mike Nelson
Perfect. I came in there and did that, and, Terry Kelly not only was a good, mentor, he also was a visionary. And he teamed up with a group of computer scientists at the Space Science and Engineering department at the UW Madison, and developed one of the first TV weather computer systems.
00;07;50;24 - 00;07;55;07
Tom Green
This is for discerning whether or for televised and televised for like a graphic.
00;07;55;11 - 00;08;18;19
Mike Nelson
At that time there were computers at the university level, but they were big mainframes, millions of dollars, and they were just beginning to overlay satellite imagery with like, wind fields and temperature profiles, very early stuff. But it took a huge computer. No TV station was going to spend millions of dollars to have a graphics display. So TV weather was magnets.
00;08;18;19 - 00;08;24;29
Tom Green
And I just say the the map behind you was an actual map, and you would draw on it or put magnets or. Yeah.
00;08;25;02 - 00;08;48;02
Mike Nelson
Yep. And essentially same way they'd been doing TV weather since the 1950s. Well, they were smart enough to figure out if we could make a low cost computer display. And it was based on an Apple two home computer. Yeah. And we began to use it first on the air in 1979, in Madison. And then we began to market it around the country.
00;08;48;05 - 00;09;04;29
Mike Nelson
And, it was interesting because they went to like NAB and, which is the national broadcaster convention and, art NDA, the radio and TV News Directors Association with this new computer. And we're showing it off. And it was the buzz of the whole convention.
00;09;04;29 - 00;09;06;02
Tom Green
Going to change everything.
00;09;06;02 - 00;09;18;04
Mike Nelson
And people are crowding around it. But but Terry Kelly was not getting any orders. And this whole computer system complete was $15,995. And so that's.
00;09;18;04 - 00;09;19;13
Tom Green
What a TV station would pay to.
00;09;19;13 - 00;09;44;14
Mike Nelson
Have. They would pay to buy this. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, really crude was like space Invaders or Pong compared to video games today, but it was a computer. So anyway, Terry asked one of the TV general managers, you know, I don't understand where the buzz of the show, but we're not selling anything. And the guy goes, well, Terry, it's really great, but there's no way it can possibly work and only cost $15,000.
00;09;44;17 - 00;09;52;25
Mike Nelson
It was too cheap, too cheap. So they didn't change a thing. All they did was double the price to 30 grand and we started selling them like hotcakes.
00;09;52;25 - 00;09;55;21
Tom Green
Wow. Yeah. Good marketing, good marketing.
00;09;55;23 - 00;10;07;16
Mike Nelson
So anyway, in 1982, Cindy and I'd been married one year. I was already doing TV weather, but I was also traveling around the country installing these fledgling new weather computers.
00;10;07;16 - 00;10;10;00
Tom Green
Working with Terry Kelly. So yeah.
00;10;10;02 - 00;10;19;25
Mike Nelson
And the computers were so new back then that the first thing that, prospective TV station general manager would ask you, who's bought.
00;10;19;25 - 00;10;22;23
Tom Green
It, what what cities, what markets, what air.
00;10;22;25 - 00;10;37;08
Mike Nelson
Station. Because if you're only selling them to small markets, then you're not going to get it in New York or L.A. or anything like that. Well, back in 1982, Cbc-tv channel nine and KUSA was the top. And you know this because you were working.
00;10;37;08 - 00;10;38;27
Tom Green
I was just there. Yeah. In 82.
00;10;38;28 - 00;10;54;10
Mike Nelson
The top rated TV station in the country, we did a 50. They did because I wasn't working at that. They did 50 share at 10:00, which means 50% of all the TVs turned on in Denver and across Colorado were turned on to channel.
00;10;54;10 - 00;11;03;19
Tom Green
Nine, which was an astronomical number at the time. And now you and I would say a 50 share doesn't exist, except for maybe a Super Bowl. Right? Could come close to that.
00;11;03;22 - 00;11;11;19
Mike Nelson
I would guess I don't even follow the ratings anymore. But I was thinking if you take all of the newscast combined at 10:00, you might have a five share.
00;11;11;19 - 00;11;12;20
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. Might be.
00;11;12;24 - 00;11;38;21
Mike Nelson
That's how much different it was. So anyway, Channel Nine's the top rated station in the country. The meteorologist is Stormy Rodman, who to us young meteorologists at the time, he was like a god, a legend. Yes, yes. And so Terry Kelly comes to me and he goes, Mike, I just sold a computer system to channel nine in Denver, and I want you to do the installation.
00;11;38;21 - 00;11;49;09
Mike Nelson
This one's really important to us because if we can sell it to channel nine in Denver, we can sell it to anybody, he said, you're going to go out and you're going to train Stormy Rodman. I'm like, oh.
00;11;49;12 - 00;11;52;28
Tom Green
So they'd sold it. Yeah, but now it's time to put it to implement.
00;11;52;28 - 00;11;55;09
Mike Nelson
It right now we got to make stormy happy.
00;11;55;09 - 00;12;02;25
Tom Green
So how old is stormy? Because I got to when I got there to 1982. Stormy was a very funny, but an older man. He might have been 60 at the time.
00;12;02;25 - 00;12;16;18
Mike Nelson
Yeah, he's probably my age. Now I'm 68. Sorry. Might have been 65. Yeah, at the time. So been in the business for a long time. Super popular. I mean, he still is the number one all time weather guy.
00;12;16;24 - 00;12;22;25
Tom Green
And I would guess if we're talking 1982, that a 65 year old man wasn't really into computing.
00;12;22;25 - 00;12;38;15
Mike Nelson
No, no. Stormy was old school. Stormy was an Air Force captain. Yes. He helped predict the Flying Tigers to fly over the Himalayan mountains in World War two with, like, no satellite, no radar, no balloons.
00;12;38;15 - 00;12;39;12
Tom Green
Maybe.
00;12;39;14 - 00;12;58;07
Mike Nelson
Maybe a little bit of that. And a weather station here and there. So stormy was totally old school. Yeah. So anyway, Terry Kelly says to me, Mike, I know you and Cindy both love Colorado. I'll tell you what we'll fly her out to when you guys can spend an extra day or two and, enjoy Colorado. We're like, great.
00;12;58;09 - 00;13;07;25
Mike Nelson
We've only been married a year, so we come out at that time, channel nine was on Bannock Street. Yeah. And we get in there and you remember, it was a dumpy old building, the.
00;13;07;25 - 00;13;10;05
Tom Green
Basement, the newsroom, news weather office.
00;13;10;05 - 00;13;26;15
Mike Nelson
Cramped down the basement, but we get there and I'm putting all the computers out and I think, oh, my God, Stormy Rodman's coming in. I can't wait to meet Stormy Rodman. This is going to be great. And I've got to just make him happy. That's my only requirement. And so, I'll never forget how he walked into that weather office.
00;13;26;23 - 00;13;44;07
Mike Nelson
I'm so excited to meet him. And he came right up to me. Got about a foot from my face. He looked up at me because I was taller than he was. He looked at me so young man, I didn't want this blank, blank thing. I'm only here because the management is forcing me to be here and I'm like, I can just feel the air letting out of my balloon.
00;13;44;09 - 00;14;05;13
Mike Nelson
Oh, no. So I'm just already hyped up and nervous. I'm just throwing all this stuff. Here's how, Mr. Rodman. You can do this. And you can imagine doing this, and he's not by it. Yeah, well, Cindy, who a teacher is kind of standing in the back and watching your cheeks blowing. That's so bad. Anyway, we. It's time to go to lunch.
00;14;05;13 - 00;14;08;29
Mike Nelson
Take a break. We go to the old Racine's on ban a couple.
00;14;08;29 - 00;14;09;24
Tom Green
Blocks up the road.
00;14;09;27 - 00;14;36;04
Mike Nelson
And it's the GM and the news director and the salesperson and chief engineer, and stormy and Bill Custer and Cindy and I, Cindy sitting right next to stormy. And she kind of whispers to him, Mr. Rothman, my husband is so excited to meet you. He can't help himself. I know he's just kind of overdoing it. And she said, I'm a teacher and but I do know how to run this to some extent.
00;14;36;07 - 00;14;52;09
Mike Nelson
Would it be okay if you and I just went back ahead of them? And I'll show you a few things? And, he says yes. And Cindy turns to me and says, Mike, why don't you stay back with everyone else, have dessert and take care of the bill? And I'm going to go back with stormy. And I'm like, what are you doing?
00;14;52;11 - 00;15;21;24
Mike Nelson
You're going to ruin everything. And she says, just trust me. So she and stormy walk back and she starts at the beginning. Here's how you turn the computer on, okay? And, by the time that I get back there and I'm kind of racing back thinking she's going to wreck everything, she's got him making little circles with the stylus and filling in the color with red and saying, if you had a tornado warning right here, you could just circle it to show the audience.
00;15;21;24 - 00;15;43;13
Mike Nelson
She goes, oh, well, that would be useful. And she broke down the wall because, you know, I'm a 22 year old kid trying to show you it'd be like today if some 22 year old came and said, Mike, let me show you the latest information. You don't know what you're talking about. And, so by the time that I got back, stormy was happy enough to continue to learn more.
00;15;43;16 - 00;16;09;13
Mike Nelson
And, it, you know, channel nine bought the computer. Weather central, the company that Terry Kelly had formed, became the world's largest supplier of television weather graphics equipment, has since been sold to, it's part of IBM now, right. And, I like to say, if it hadn't been for Cindy Nelson, convincing Stormy Rodman of the computer is okay, we'd still be using magnets and magic markers.
00;16;09;13 - 00;16;35;28
Tom Green
So the presentation of weather, obviously on television has changed. It's much more, people can do almost whatever they want. It's how they as far as how they present weather via computers. The information that comes in is also changed dramatically. But you were still, at the end, still a guy with your map wall. And those basic maps were still a key part of what you like to look at, see and understand.
00;16;36;00 - 00;16;55;08
Mike Nelson
I when I left channel seven, when they moved into the new building right field, I still went in there. I only had six months left in the new building. I put up the map wall and, Lisa and Stacy and Danielle, were nice enough to kind of humor me, and they allowed me to put my maps up.
00;16;55;08 - 00;17;16;25
Mike Nelson
But, I mean, I'm not sure if they're changing the map city much now, but they I understand it's still there, but a bit like stormy, you know, you're kind of programed in how you came up in the business to do it certain ways. And so I always did my own hand analysis of the maps. And every once in a while you would see something that would make your forecast better.
00;17;16;28 - 00;17;25;02
Mike Nelson
Yeah. And, I still feel very strongly that you can't just let the computers do all the work. Let me be a grumpy old man first.
00;17;25;02 - 00;17;25;20
Tom Green
Do it, do it.
00;17;25;20 - 00;17;46;10
Mike Nelson
Okay. All right. One of my pet peeves has been when TV weather casters pulled up the European model. And here's what the Canadian model says. Here's what the American model says. And you know, this one says we'll have two inches of snow. This one says we'll have six inches of snow. You are the forecaster. Don't say here, here's all the models.
00;17;46;10 - 00;17;47;24
Tom Green
That's kind of cover your ass.
00;17;48;00 - 00;18;00;27
Mike Nelson
Yeah, look at that and make your own forecast of what you think is best. Yes. Because to me that's like going to the doctor. And the doctor says, well, here's your x ray and here's your MRI and here's your Cat scan. What would you like to do?
00;18;00;29 - 00;18;03;00
Tom Green
And so yeah, well, I didn't go to school for this. Yeah.
00;18;03;01 - 00;18;06;29
Mike Nelson
So and along with that get off my lawn.
00;18;07;01 - 00;18;28;11
Tom Green
So, I think of, serious weather. And that's the thing, because when you are the weather forecaster of a town, or at least of a station in a town 250 to 300 nights a year, you are giving a benign, entertaining, engaging forecast. But then there are, you know, 50, 75 days a year where you're giving very important information.
00;18;28;14 - 00;18;46;04
Tom Green
The the theoretically life saving information. And it's, you know, you're the same person, but now you have to somehow get people's attention on the next level and let them know what we're talking about is not just mundane. It's Thursday. It's going to rain tomorrow. This is serious stuff, right? How do you do that?
00;18;46;12 - 00;19;12;11
Mike Nelson
Well, we are, still shown to be we being the meteorologists, the most trusted people on local TV, coast to coast, even in areas where the weather is relatively quiet, the weather casters tend to be higher up on the trust level, according to surveys. And I think the reason is, is that we are invited into people's homes even now with all the splintering of the media.
00;19;12;13 - 00;19;34;25
Mike Nelson
And if you are that source that, you know, people choose to go to you and, that gives us a unique opportunity and a responsibility. What I found, especially during tornado coverage, is you can't get so hyped up in the weather part. Oh, my God, there's a tornado out there. Look at that. You've got to be kind of that calming voice.
00;19;34;27 - 00;19;55;09
Mike Nelson
And so what I use to a great effect when I typically when there's a tornado warning for the metro area, we stay on the air the whole time, the warnings in effect. So you, you've got 45 minutes to an hour that you're going to be on the air the whole time. And I would say, kids, if you're home and Mom and dad are still at work, just stay right here.
00;19;55;11 - 00;20;07;21
Mike Nelson
Everything's going to be okay. And, I'll let you know when there's any type of a threat near your home. Yeah. And, one thing I found that worked very well for younger kids is if you can find your bicycle helmet, just go and put it on.
00;20;07;21 - 00;20;08;15
Tom Green
Interesting. Yeah.
00;20;08;17 - 00;20;14;00
Mike Nelson
And it wasn't necessarily that their helmets going to do anything to save them, but it could if there was.
00;20;14;00 - 00;20;15;03
Tom Green
Something calm them down.
00;20;15;03 - 00;20;32;29
Mike Nelson
But it it empowers them. But they're doing something to help themselves. And I said, mom, dad will be home soon and it's all going to be okay. And I got more positive feedback from parents saying, my child is very afraid of thunderstorms. Yeah. And he watched you and he felt better about it until I got home.
00;20;32;29 - 00;20;50;14
Tom Green
You earned that, though. Over time. I mean, you have to be there all the time. You have to be correct. You have to be giving people good information steadily so that they know when it's happening. My meteorologist is going to be there and and he or she knows exactly what's what goes on here.
00;20;50;14 - 00;21;02;19
Mike Nelson
In the blizzard of 2003, I was on the air at channel nine for 32 straight hours, just right there at the weather center the whole time. I don't remember all 32.
00;21;02;21 - 00;21;05;08
Tom Green
But people are homebound. They they they want to have.
00;21;05;13 - 00;21;05;26
Mike Nelson
An I.
00;21;05;26 - 00;21;06;13
Tom Green
A friend.
00;21;06;13 - 00;21;13;19
Mike Nelson
Yeah, I knew I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here through this whole thing. You spoke earlier about the 1997.
00;21;13;24 - 00;21;26;21
Tom Green
Well, I was going to mention you got involved in that one because that Saturday to Sunday wasn't it was the Broncos were trying to get to or did get to Buffalo of all places to find calmer weather. But you actually got involved in a in a funny way.
00;21;26;21 - 00;21;50;03
Mike Nelson
Yeah, I opened that at that time. We worked a Sunday through Thursday shift because we were the Broncos station, so we wanted to be on Sunday night. So Friday, when the storm was going on, I opened my garage door that morning and it kept going up and up and up and up. And finally, about four feet up, I saw daylight and I thought, this is going to be hard to get out of this.
00;21;50;08 - 00;22;09;04
Mike Nelson
And, I start shoveling and snow blowing. It's going to take a while. So I'm doing phone ers into the TV station at the time. And at one point, I look out across the street and I lived out in, in chaparral, chaparral, Shenango. And so there were a few Bronco players that were out in that area.
00;22;09;06 - 00;22;27;27
Mike Nelson
I look out across the street and in the storm, I can see, a figure kind of huddled against a mailbox enclosure across the street, and I yell out through the wind to the snow, hey, are you okay? And faintly through the snow, I hear. Yeah, I'm just waiting for a snowmobile. Who are you? The voice comes back.
00;22;27;27 - 00;22;41;24
Mike Nelson
Steve Atwater and I yell out, Steve, it's Mike Nelson from channel nine. Come on in. You can wait in here. And so Atwater comes trudging across my front yard, and literally the snow is breaking at his waist. And you know how tall Steve is?
00;22;41;24 - 00;22;42;28
Tom Green
Yeah. Six foot three.
00;22;42;28 - 00;22;51;09
Mike Nelson
Yeah. And he comes in, so he's in my foyer, and, I get Mike, the video camera out. The kid can. The one I use when I take this.
00;22;51;10 - 00;22;51;23
Tom Green
Yeah.
00;22;51;26 - 00;23;11;10
Mike Nelson
And I'm taking video of Steve Atwater in my, in my front, foyer. And our son Anders at the time is about ten, and our son had very curly blond hair, and, he's kind of. You can see his head in the shot a little bit. Well, finally, a snowmobile pulls up and he goes trudging back out.
00;23;11;10 - 00;23;25;10
Mike Nelson
I get that video, I get picked up by a friend of mine and a giant big wheel truck, and I take the video down with me, and I give it to Robbins. Apollo. And, you know, that whole thing was, can the Broncos get out to get to Buffalo.
00;23;25;10 - 00;23;25;27
Tom Green
Of all places.
00;23;25;27 - 00;23;48;17
Mike Nelson
Where it was 60 and sunny? And, so we put a little snippet of that on, Ron's Sports that night, and it gets on the Sports Center. Just this little 15 second clip of my VHS tape of Steve Atwater in my in my house. And, finally. Well, you know what happened? The Broncos win that game.
00;23;48;17 - 00;24;00;22
Mike Nelson
The Broncos win the Super Bowl and everything. It is a hot day in July that next summer. And we had bought the King Soopers Broncos championship highlight VHS tape.
00;24;00;22 - 00;24;01;11
Tom Green
Yeah.
00;24;01;13 - 00;24;19;07
Mike Nelson
And you know how those things go. They go every game of the season. They show a little clip. Gets to that game in October against Buffalo. And all of a sudden we're looking on TV and and it's my little clip of video that's on the highlight reel. And my son goes, dad, that's the top of my head right there.
00;24;19;10 - 00;24;22;25
Mike Nelson
So a little brush with with greatness there with weather.
00;24;22;28 - 00;24;24;13
Tom Green
Yeah. So I always got to.
00;24;24;13 - 00;24;24;28
Mike Nelson
Do one more.
00;24;24;28 - 00;24;25;14
Tom Green
Quick one to.
00;24;25;14 - 00;24;30;01
Mike Nelson
Tell me same house. Turns out Terrell Davis moves in across the street.
00;24;30;02 - 00;24;31;04
Tom Green
He's another good football player.
00;24;31;04 - 00;24;56;02
Mike Nelson
Yeah, yeah. And, One day I'm out shoveling snow and Tedy comes over. He goes, Mike, can you help me? I my Mercedes is stuck in the ditch. And, so he had a friend of his in the car, and Terrell Davis and I are in the back of the car, pushing the car, rocking it together. So I'm thinking I am shoving a car out of the snow with the NFL MVP.
00;24;56;02 - 00;24;56;22
Mike Nelson
Yeah.
00;24;56;25 - 00;25;22;15
Tom Green
It's probably pretty good at this. I've seen him in action. He's pretty good. Yeah, well, you lived in a Bronco neighborhood. I worked with many meteorologists through my years in television, and I always found that when people came to town, knew that it was especially difficult for them to grasp our weather. And I think this is probably true everywhere where there is it's not pure science.
00;25;22;15 - 00;25;51;05
Tom Green
There is a bit of art to it, and that you have to have understanding of your of your landscape. You know, whether you live on the ocean or where you live in the mountains or wherever you live. It's different, it's specific, and history matters. Did you see that? The art of water forecasting, I mean, because I know you always looked at it very scientifically, but you also had to have some sort of where you put a personal you have to have some sort of personal recognition when you put out a forecast.
00;25;51;12 - 00;26;12;29
Mike Nelson
The Bill Custer, another great legend, one of my dearest friends, was so kind to me when I first moved here. Because when you come here, new city, you're thinking, am I going to make it here? Yeah, I spent six years in Saint Louis, Missouri, and had gotten to be pretty well received there. And then the opportunity came in 1991 to come to channel nine.
00;26;12;29 - 00;26;33;13
Mike Nelson
And, you don't know what a brand new station you're away from your wife and kids because they're still moving. You don't know at the station who you can confide in, who you can trust. And Bill became such a dear friend of mine. And confidant and, he. Well, the first thing he said to me in Colorado, the weather is life threatening every month of the year.
00;26;33;15 - 00;26;54;27
Mike Nelson
And whether it's flash floods or avalanches or tornadoes or blizzards, he's right about that. We we don't have hurricanes. We have pretty much everything else. And you know, that 14,000ft wall out there changes everything? Yes, it can be sunny on one side and snow like crazy on the other. And so you just had to kind of pick up bits and pieces as you go.
00;26;54;27 - 00;27;18;08
Mike Nelson
The National Weather Service out here is tremendous and they were always very helpful. Storm he was still around. So he was, very kind to me as well. And so you pick up things and you go in with a lot of, humility because it's hard to forecast here. Most cities that I've worked in, when you go and talk to the Rotary Club, they always say, you know, Mike here in Wisconsin, if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes.
00;27;18;08 - 00;27;29;12
Mike Nelson
It'll change. I get the same thing in every Louis. And yeah, here you don't even have to wait the five minutes. I mean, there's can be a blizzard on the plains and in the mountains and tornado warnings on the plains.
00;27;29;14 - 00;27;51;12
Tom Green
I have a million things I want to ask you, but you mentioned the National Weather Service, NOAA, the federal cutbacks. And we're going to talk about climate because that's you were you've been way ahead of the curve on climate. But talk about the danger we're looking at right now with people starting to diminish, what kind of service we do get from the federal government, when it comes to weather and meteorology.
00;27;51;14 - 00;28;16;19
Mike Nelson
Absolutely misguided and terrible policy. We have some of the top research facilities in the world right here between general and N car and the great work they do up at Colorado State and in Boulder. And to decimate those agencies and take that talent away. You can't just flip a switch and turn that back on. So what?
00;28;16;19 - 00;28;43;22
Mike Nelson
We're going to lose as far as research at, NCAR, not just on climate, but on short term weather, and the stuff we can do today, as far as warning people for tornadoes, and other damaging storms, flash floods is so beyond what it was when I started in this business 45 years ago. And we're not going to make that kind of progress now, and it will take a lot of work to bring that back.
00;28;43;22 - 00;28;53;23
Mike Nelson
So terrible, terrible policies. Let me end, the same with general, fabulous research up there on batteries and solar and wind power.
00;28;53;23 - 00;28;56;05
Tom Green
In general is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
00;28;56;05 - 00;29;05;23
Mike Nelson
Yeah. Which they decided to rename to something else. And they've cut all kinds of extremely good people out of there. So this is exactly the wrong policy for the time.
00;29;06;01 - 00;29;26;03
Tom Green
You talk about being able to tell people stuff in this. I'm holding my cell phone up. Yeah, that's my dog. The cell phone weather, I imagine you think, is not nearly as valuable. I mean, but the ability to tell people carrying a cell phone what they might be in the way of is probably extremely valuable.
00;29;26;03 - 00;29;44;22
Mike Nelson
It is, it is. And, couple of things on that. Clearly, we have great technology to tell people what's going on. But as we're talking, if your phone buzzes and you get a text message or a push alert, you're probably not going to look at it because, you know, you happen to.
00;29;44;22 - 00;29;46;20
Tom Green
Know that it's a sale or something.
00;29;46;23 - 00;30;12;21
Mike Nelson
And so in 2012, more or less, when, the apps first came out, never as promising free weather and free weather warnings and all of us, it worked fairly well for a while. But if you recall those awful floods in Texas in July, yes, a lot of people saying, I didn't get that weather warning on my phone for hours later.
00;30;12;23 - 00;30;36;19
Mike Nelson
And that's because the free apps are worth exactly what you paid for them. Nothing. When the weather's really, really bad because they only have a little narrow funnel to put all that weather information through. They're not designed to issue a lot of warnings in a hurry. And I have, become part owner of a company called Weather Call.
00;30;36;22 - 00;31;04;24
Mike Nelson
Okay. And this is a proprietary warning service, not a free app as a service. It's $15 a year, and it will not only send out that alert by a text, but it will do it much more efficiently. Typically, I would get the message on my phone about the tornado warning while I'm standing in the studio waiting for them to put me on the air, right?
00;31;04;27 - 00;31;20;21
Mike Nelson
Issued the tornado warning. So I'm stand here because when a tornado warning comes out, you call the control room. You say, I got to get in the air right now. Well, they've got to get somebody there to pull a commercial off and set up the slide and all this stuff. And that can take sometimes a minute, sometimes longer.
00;31;20;22 - 00;31;40;24
Mike Nelson
Yeah. And it's getting worse because as the TV business changes, many of the times, when I was finishing up my career over channel seven, I'd have to call Cincinnati because they're at Scripps. Yeah, because they were doing the kind of a, a hub of control rooms. So it wasn't even the local control room.
00;31;40;27 - 00;31;45;20
Tom Green
There's not a person here. There's a person in Cincinnati running channel seven and 12 other stations.
00;31;45;20 - 00;32;03;00
Mike Nelson
Right? So, hey, I got to go in the air for a tornado. What? What city with. Yeah, I'm a KMG in Denver. Okay. Hang on. Yeah, it's a tornado warning, you know, but it's not a tornado warning for that guy in Cincinnati, so. Yeah. Anyway, the fact is that it's not going to get faster for TV stations to get people on the air.
00;32;03;07 - 00;32;25;15
Mike Nelson
But this warning service for $15 a year, we'll get it out as fast as anything. The weather, radios, anything else, and it sends it by a phone call. So you get a text message is one thing. When your phone is ringing and you look at it and says, weather warning, that's a lot more of a call for action.
00;32;25;15 - 00;32;28;06
Tom Green
You know, you're likely to actually receive the information.
00;32;28;07 - 00;32;40;16
Mike Nelson
Some people may say, I'm not going to pay $15 a year for that, but if you could get a phone call at two in the morning that says large hail coming in five minutes, that might be worth $15 to get your.
00;32;40;16 - 00;32;41;19
Tom Green
Car in the.
00;32;41;25 - 00;32;48;04
Mike Nelson
Garage. Yeah, yeah. And so it it's just another thing that I'm doing in my post TV career.
00;32;48;06 - 00;33;10;14
Tom Green
So you and I in our TV careers worked, for me for a long time in sports and for you and weather. And there was always that delineation of the weather office, the sports office, and the newsroom. And it was great. It was great to have the it out that you could hide out a little bit, and you didn't have to to deal with with the hard case, you know, that was always going on in the newsroom.
00;33;10;16 - 00;33;21;24
Tom Green
But the weather office, everyone in a TV station or radio station will pop in and request their personal forecast. Sure, everyone's got a wedding, everyone's got a trip, everyone's got a soccer game.
00;33;21;24 - 00;33;40;22
Mike Nelson
Yep. Doesn't bother me a bit most of the time. The weather stations that I've worked at had the weather office kind of behind the set in the studio. So you're even more remote. I mean, you can go back to the newsroom if you want to. Yeah, but if you just feel live. Yeah, right. You just huddle out in there.
00;33;40;22 - 00;33;42;18
Tom Green
You need a little more time. Yeah, I need more TV.
00;33;42;20 - 00;34;05;04
Mike Nelson
And so I've always told a lot of people in the newsroom, hey, look, if you need to come down and just hide out for a while, it's good to come down here. As far as people needing personalized forecasts and stuff, that was never bothered me. And I'm still happy. Anybody out there happy? To give you a personalized forecast each time, you know, just, you know, night we're out at a restaurant and somebody came up and just sitting.
00;34;05;04 - 00;34;31;27
Mike Nelson
I watched you all the time and just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate that. That's never bothered me. Because our jobs as broadcasters are different than the jobs as athletes. A professional athlete's job is to score points, right? Their job is not to be nice to people at a restaurant if they are. Oh, my God, that's great.
00;34;31;27 - 00;34;58;16
Mike Nelson
I mean, I've met Peyton Manning. He was just so nice. And so he's even nice. He doesn't have to be. And my favorite story on that, as far as being nice, is the avalanche were in, their run for the Stanley Cup back in the 90s, and we had Joe Sakic down at the TV station. And, at that time, my wife and I were working at Grandview High Schools PTO, and we had, don't drink and drive kind of coming up.
00;34;58;16 - 00;35;14;09
Mike Nelson
And so I went up and said, Joe, we've got this event coming up at Grandview. I know it's just down the road where you guys practice. Any chance that maybe a couple of the guys could come down and just say hi to the kids? And he didn't say no. He took down my phone number, and he said, you know, we're in the playoffs.
00;35;14;12 - 00;35;38;13
Mike Nelson
Let me check. I thought, he's just being nice. All right. Two weeks go by and the phone rings and, Cindy picks up the font. She goes, hello? And she covers up. It's Joe Sakic. And, she's so excited. And I take the phone, he goes, hey! He goes, hey, Mike, I know that you got this event coming up today, and we're just so deep into the run here.
00;35;38;13 - 00;35;58;29
Mike Nelson
We just. We can't spare the time. I'm sorry. And I am forever going to be a Joe Sakic fan, because he could have just completely blown that, he not only didn't, he took the time to consider it and to call and say, we just can't make it. So when you get an athlete that's super nice. That's amazing.
00;35;59;02 - 00;36;09;12
Mike Nelson
Our job though, I mean, if you are having a dinner and somebody comes up and just Tom, I love to watch you on TV all those years and you kind of blow them off that forever changes that person's.
00;36;09;14 - 00;36;26;25
Tom Green
Well, negative stuff weighs ten times more than positive stuff. And that includes when you get feedback from viewers. I mean, you did 40 plus years of forecasting that they weren't. All right. You know, that things, you know, I talk about, you know, you know, what's going to happen the night the avalanche, you're going to kill these guys and they lose six one.
00;36;26;28 - 00;36;41;15
Tom Green
You know, you get it wrong. When you get it wrong, people will let you know you got it wrong. Yeah. And when people when you get it right, people just kind of shrug their shoulders and go, yeah, he's supposed to get it right. You're supposed to get it, but you must have had those days where the where the everything went haywire.
00;36;41;15 - 00;36;46;03
Tom Green
The weather flipped on you at the last minute. What was supposed to be this becomes that.
00;36;46;04 - 00;37;09;23
Mike Nelson
Yep, yep. Well, at, a couple of my favorite stories, there'd been a, storm that was supposed to come in a snowstorm, and it, it didn't happen. It occurs a fair amount. So night before, it's like, you know, folks get up early. The roads are going to be bad in the morning, allow an extra hour to get in and all of this, and, we'll start our show starting at 430 and have have all the info.
00;37;09;25 - 00;37;26;18
Mike Nelson
And this guy, writes me a really nasty email. You said it was going to snow and it didn't snow. And boy, must be great to have a job wrong all the time and still get it. And, but he left his phone number. Oh, and I always loved that because.
00;37;26;18 - 00;37;27;10
Tom Green
Yeah, now when I.
00;37;27;10 - 00;37;28;26
Mike Nelson
Get a chance to call him. So I kill him with.
00;37;28;26 - 00;37;29;16
Tom Green
Kindness.
00;37;29;16 - 00;37;48;27
Mike Nelson
And, hello. And I go, Bob, this is Mike Nelson. Long pause. Hi. I got your email, and I just wanted to say how sorry I am about the storm. You know it. It's stalled. And it just didn't happen the way we thought it was going to. And then he kind of starts to soften up a little bit.
00;37;48;27 - 00;38;05;19
Mike Nelson
First he's taken aback. And then finally, after we talked for a little bit, he says, well, the thing is, you said to get up early and drive in, and I did, and I got on the roads and they're fine. And I got to work an hour early and he says, the thing is, I just hate my job so much.
00;38;05;21 - 00;38;13;07
Mike Nelson
It just made my day that much longer. And we are talking a little bit more about, is there something else you might consider as a career or something?
00;38;13;09 - 00;38;30;21
Tom Green
Let me help you out here, Bob. You have a few things, but it's funny because I talk with, you know, Woody Page and some of the other sports writers I get to spend time with. And every morning in the old newspaper wars days, they'd have to wake up dreading what the other guy or the other paper was going to maybe drop on him.
00;38;30;29 - 00;38;43;01
Tom Green
So when you wake up on a morning like that and you look outside and none of the snow is there, that's the deepest, your heart sinks you. You told everybody one thing and it didn't happen.
00;38;43;01 - 00;38;52;17
Mike Nelson
Yeah, well, after the 97 blizzard, when I should have been there the whole time. Yeah. But I thought, oh, I can just go. I'll stay at home tonight and then drive in Saturday morning.
00;38;52;17 - 00;38;53;01
Tom Green
I'll come in.
00;38;53;08 - 00;38;57;14
Mike Nelson
I vowed I will never do that again. That's why when the 2003 storm came in.
00;38;57;19 - 00;39;00;07
Tom Green
Was that Saint Patrick's Day that in because a.
00;39;00;09 - 00;39;02;16
Mike Nelson
March 20th 22nd or something like that.
00;39;02;16 - 00;39;17;23
Tom Green
So this is funny. I'll let you finish. But I in sports, like, if you tell me the Greg Nettles game, I go on 1978. Yeah. But in I don't you talk about that storm I go, yeah. I don't remember what year it was. But for you guys you have every got him.
00;39;17;24 - 00;39;36;05
Mike Nelson
Yeah. Yeah. I vowed I'll never miss a storm again. That's why I came in before the first flake of snow hit in the March 2003 storm, and stayed until the last one had fall, and that was going to be there for the whole trip. That's our Super Bowl. You got to be there for the big storm. These things don't happen very often.
00;39;36;05 - 00;39;59;07
Mike Nelson
It would be an exclusive in the weather business. So back in 2012, in June, typically we get our bad weather in the afternoon and early evening. It's prime time, severe weather, and by midnight it's all in Kansas. Right? Well, at 1030, after the news, just I had a Spidey sense. Something still going to pop. It was very quiet.
00;39;59;09 - 00;40;21;05
Mike Nelson
And I said to the people at channel seven, would you mind staying with me for another hour? Hour and a half? I think something might happen. And about 1115, all hell broke loose and we had big thunderstorms that exploded over Golden and moved across the metro. Large hail, tornado warnings, which you will never get. Those are not.
00;40;21;08 - 00;40;34;27
Mike Nelson
Yeah, well, everybody else at the other stations, all the other weather people went home at 1030. Sure. And so I had the rare experience of being the only one on the air talking about the severe weather.
00;40;35;01 - 00;40;39;12
Tom Green
When people want to know, I mean, people will hear it and see it. They flip the TV back on.
00;40;39;12 - 00;40;53;14
Mike Nelson
To make it worse, the other TV stations were rerunning their 10:00 news by midnight. And so you've got the weather people saying, well, it's just a nice partly cloudy evening and that's what they're running. And I'm on the air issuing tornado warnings.
00;40;53;17 - 00;41;00;10
Tom Green
So that that's a, that's a big wind that was in the meteorology world that that was like, yeah, that's a big, big wind spike.
00;41;00;10 - 00;41;02;26
Mike Nelson
The ball doesn't happen very often. But it does.
00;41;02;26 - 00;41;20;16
Tom Green
What's going on this year? This year is you know, I I'll let you explain because people I think want to talk about climate and climate and weather can be very different things. They're related. Right. But explain that first. And then I want to talk to you about what what our winter has and hasn't been. Okay.
00;41;20;19 - 00;41;27;07
Mike Nelson
Weather is like one play in a football game. Climate is like the history of the National Football League.
00;41;27;07 - 00;41;29;22
Tom Green
So the so that far apart I.
00;41;29;22 - 00;42;00;09
Mike Nelson
Mean they're both football right? Right. So on any given Sunday the worst team in the league can beat the best team. But over the long haul the best team is going to have the better record. We can have a terrible cold wave or a big blizzard in the midst of a warming world. The climate is warming up and it is warming up because when you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, those little carbon molecules redirect the heat that would normally escape into outer space.
00;42;00;09 - 00;42;28;29
Mike Nelson
Act like a blanket, if you will. And as we add more layers to that blanket, think of like feathers in a down comforter. We're trapping more heat. The rubberized escape into outer space. So when pundits, try and say, oh, it's far too complicated for us to understand. No, it's not add heat, get warmer. It's that simple. And so we are causing the world to warm up because we're changing the chemistry of the atmosphere.
00;42;29;02 - 00;42;46;05
Mike Nelson
When, you and I were kids, we had about 320 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's now 430. That's a big change just in our lifetime. Now, you might say that's a trace gas. How can it possibly have that much?
00;42;46;05 - 00;42;47;05
Tom Green
I wouldn't have said that.
00;42;47;05 - 00;43;20;19
Mike Nelson
But people do. If we had right now, in this room, 430 parts per million of carbon monoxide, also invisible, but poisonous. Yeah. We would be unconscious and close to death. Now, carbon dioxide is not poisonous. But what it is, is extremely effective at re trap redirecting or trapping heat from escaping into the atmosphere. So, my old station, channel seven, is the only station that every day displays the carbon dioxide concentration on the air.
00;43;20;20 - 00;43;42;09
Mike Nelson
I started that, and I spoke about it a lot. I wish that my colleagues on all the stations would be brave enough to talk about climate change. More, because what we're seeing this winter is a warm, dry winter. Absolutely. That's because the position of the jet stream, it's jet stream, but it's exacerbated by the fact that the world is getting warmer.
00;43;42;15 - 00;43;56;20
Mike Nelson
So it's a steroid effect, right? I mean, a home run hitter might hit home runs with or without steroids, but they'll hit more if they're juiced. So the atmosphere will do more big storms if it's juiced.
00;43;56;23 - 00;44;18;28
Tom Green
Well, before I get back to this winter here, because I want to know more about what we're facing, but you're so far out in front when it comes to talking about climate, because for a long time it was uncomfortable for people to want to discuss or think. Like you said, this is too complicated. It's people don't want to know or don't understand, but everything now is so political.
00;44;18;28 - 00;44;37;23
Tom Green
Like if you say, I like the designated hitter, you know, people say, oh, left winger, You know, people want to put you in a box right? But you have always faced that political blowback, people who wanted to fight you about climate change and you've never wavered. You've always been very strong on it. You've published about it.
00;44;37;23 - 00;44;44;27
Tom Green
And, it's it's something that we at times have started to make progress on. It seem like. Right.
00;44;44;29 - 00;44;56;15
Mike Nelson
Right. So I have my little book here called The World's Littlest Book on Climate, and there is a little QR code on the back. I can share that with you. So we could put it on to the website.
00;44;56;16 - 00;44;58;00
Tom Green
We'll do it and make it available.
00;44;58;01 - 00;45;23;02
Mike Nelson
Ten facts in ten minutes about climate change and my goal here. It's a very thin little book. It's the world's littlest book on climate change is to say, you know, you don't have to understand everything, but if you'll take 10 to 15 minutes to read this, you'll understand the basics about what's happening. You can always read more, but I want to appeal to the people that aren't necessarily going to want to read about it.
00;45;23;02 - 00;45;49;17
Mike Nelson
I hope that they will at least entertain the facts enough to consider it, because it's not political. The physical science of climate change is very simple add heat, get warmer. The political science of developing the policies to adapt and deal with the changes that we will that we've seen and we'll see more of that's a bigger reach because that all comes down to money.
00;45;49;20 - 00;46;13;10
Tom Green
So what can one person do? Is it you always think of, you know, you brought up? Don't let her be ecologically sound. Try to, you know, don't waste much. But in this case, as far as climate can, can one person make a difference and if so, is it is it just simply by making issues uncomfortable issues issues we talk about and.
00;46;13;12 - 00;46;27;09
Mike Nelson
Well, I'll be speaking this coming Saturday on the Capitol steps at about noon at the Stand Up for science rally. Okay. I'll talk more about it then. But the number one thing we can all do is vote coming up.
00;46;27;11 - 00;46;28;05
Tom Green
It is political.
00;46;28;05 - 00;46;52;15
Mike Nelson
It is. The solutions are going to take leadership. The leadership right now does not, I don't know how to put it. When people say to me, do you believe in climate change? It's like you can believe in the Easter Bunny or the tooth fairy. I understand climate change. I understand what's happening. And our current administration, if if they believe what they're saying, they're completely wrong.
00;46;52;15 - 00;47;10;11
Mike Nelson
But I think it's more that they just want to ignore it and suppress it, because the facts are all there. And throughout the entire current administration, whether it be Secretary of the interior, Energy Secretary, they are completely on the wrong side of the facts and will be on the wrong side of history.
00;47;10;12 - 00;47;20;27
Tom Green
Well, and I think the question becomes, is it expensive to fight climate change or will it one day just be more expensive because you didn't know?
00;47;20;29 - 00;47;52;08
Mike Nelson
Absolutely. It will be much more expensive if we don't. Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, not a relative, but from Wisconsin, said when the question is asked, what will it cost to save our environment? One other question should be asked what will be the cost to our civilization if we do not? And so anything that we can do to reduce carbon emissions will make the damage less that carbon dioxide will stay in the atmosphere for a thousand years.
00;47;52;08 - 00;48;22;22
Mike Nelson
So it's baked in for a long time, and a lot of the warming is baked in that means sea level rise, glaciers melting, water shortages, more droughts, more severe storms, etc. we need to figure out adaptation strategies and we need to stop lighting fossil carbon on fire. I loved in the soliloquy that, Billy Bob Thornton didn't land, man, where he's out by the wind turbines and the final thing he says is, and the worst of it is, we're going to run out of this before we have a substitute for it.
00;48;22;24 - 00;48;56;22
Mike Nelson
And if if oil and petrochemicals and plastics and all of these things are so valuable and they are, they have downsides with all the plastic pollution, etc., but if it's that valuable, why are we lighting it on fire to move vehicles down the road when we could do it by electrifying everything? And that's another initiative that I'm involved in, actually two different parts that I'm involved in the think tank, supporting the high voltage direct current super grid, essentially the Interstate highway for electricity.
00;48;56;24 - 00;49;16;01
Mike Nelson
This would be underground and it would be direct current all across the country from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and from the east coast to the west coast, connecting wind and solar and gas turbines and all the other forms of energy together.
00;49;16;01 - 00;49;17;23
Tom Green
Does this exist at all now?
00;49;17;26 - 00;49;46;16
Mike Nelson
Very, very limited. But, it is. There's one project called the Sue Green Line, which runs from Iowa to Chicago, and it's underground being built now. It'll take wind energy from Iowa over to Chicago. If we had this, this would be the 21st century equivalent of, the transcontinental railroad, which transformed America in the 19th century, signed by Abraham Lincoln, a Republican.
00;49;46;18 - 00;50;11;04
Mike Nelson
The interstate highway project, which transformed the United States in the 20th century, signed by Eisenhower, a Republican. And, if we put in the grid, it'd be about a $2 trillion project infrastructure project, not cost. It's an investment. Yeah, it would lower energy prices because you would then be able to use the cheapest form of energy anywhere in the country, because you could move it quickly and efficiently.
00;50;11;04 - 00;50;12;21
Tom Green
From anywhere to anywhere.
00;50;12;23 - 00;50;34;29
Mike Nelson
And so if wind is the cheapest or sun is the cheapest, whatever. And this is all been researched up in Boulder at NOAA, by a friend of mine named doctor. Sandy McDonald, who did the research on supercomputers with NOAA research scientists and figured out that we can power everything we need in the United States. Not for today, but for the year 2050.
00;50;35;01 - 00;50;52;27
Mike Nelson
Using wind and solar batteries and gas turbine backup, decarbonize the entire economy and power all by all the electric vehicles if we build the super grid. Well. So I am a big proponent trying to get it out to people.
00;50;52;27 - 00;51;01;07
Tom Green
I can hear that. I can also hear when you say that when you talk about decarbonizing the economy, you're going to be you're going to face some big political opposition to, oh.
00;51;01;10 - 00;51;01;22
Mike Nelson
Part of.
00;51;01;22 - 00;51;02;22
Tom Green
The reason I'm heavyweights.
00;51;02;26 - 00;51;25;06
Mike Nelson
Yeah, is because the only way the fossil fuel companies really, monetize their product is to dig it up and light it on fire. Otherwise, you have stranded assets that are worth trillions of dollars. So that's why it takes political leadership to say, no, we're going to do what's best for not only the United States, but for the world.
00;51;25;08 - 00;51;58;24
Mike Nelson
And that's going to mean we have to electrify everything and do it primarily with wind and solar. Now, back ten years ago, solar energy was ridiculously expensive, about $350 per megawatt hour. It's now down below 60. Oh wow. Nuclear and coal are 100 to $150 so far more expensive. And in the 2030s, nuclear and coal will still be 100 to $150 per megawatt hour, and solar will be $20 or less.
00;51;58;24 - 00;52;20;13
Mike Nelson
It's by far the cheapest. And China, I get a lot of this pushback. Oh, you talk about global warming. What about today? And in China they're still making coal plants. Yeah, yeah. They added last year in the first six months of the year, 250GW of solar power in China, a gigawatt is the equivalent of a large nuclear reactor.
00;52;20;15 - 00;52;51;08
Mike Nelson
Oh, wow. So in six months, China added 250 nuclear reactors worth of power. They are building ultra high voltage, transmission to bring all the wind and the solar from the western part of China to the big eastern cities. And BYD is the world's biggest car manufacturer. You can't buy them here. They're all over South America and Europe and Australia, and they make cars that are really good battery powered cars for as low as about $10,000.
00;52;51;08 - 00;52;51;19
Mike Nelson
Yeah.
00;52;51;19 - 00;52;53;13
Tom Green
What those we've heard about. Yeah.
00;52;53;13 - 00;53;19;26
Mike Nelson
What the president has done with, eviscerating the EPA and these mileage standards is he's basically signed the death warrant for the Big three automakers here, because they may make big pickup trucks for American consumers. They will not be selling cars anywhere else in the world in the 2030s, because the world is moving beyond filling up a car with flammable materials and having this thing running at high speed.
00;53;19;28 - 00;53;28;29
Mike Nelson
I've never talked to anybody that has an electric car that says, you know, I tried that electric car. It was just too fast and it was too quiet, and it didn't have enough stuff that could break.
00;53;28;29 - 00;53;34;14
Tom Green
Now, the only knock on them, I hear is, you know, range and sometimes the length of time it takes to charge them. And that'll be.
00;53;34;19 - 00;53;34;25
Mike Nelson
All.
00;53;34;25 - 00;53;55;18
Tom Green
Charging. That'll take a couple of years. They'll have that. So this, this format, one of the reasons I enjoy doing the podcast is what you just talked about is the time that I get to have you discuss something like that, because normally, you know, on the air, you get, you know, it's three minutes. I know, come and go and try and, you know, capture it all real quick.
00;53;55;20 - 00;54;18;01
Tom Green
But let's go back to what's happening here now because because of this isn't like a dry, a warm winter in Colorado is the driest. The warmest. How scared are you? Because I hear more people who are at least now aware of what the damage can be if we don't see a significant amount of snow or precipitation of some sort in the next month or two.
00;54;18;03 - 00;54;42;24
Mike Nelson
I spoke to a young woman who lives up around the Grand Lake area. And after they'd had the East Troublesome fire a few years ago, she actually made a movie that was shown at the Colorado Environmental Film Festival about two weeks ago. And she said, we're petrified up there because it's so much worse than it. What it was a few years ago with the fire, it's so dry and there's not really any sign of major soggy storms.
00;54;42;27 - 00;55;05;13
Mike Nelson
The 2003 blizzard saved us that year, because the whole winter prior to that had been much like this one, all not as warm, but very snowless. And there's very little snowpack up there. And we're we're getting days that are in the 50s in the mountains. Yes. That snowpack is going to be gone quickly. This could be a very hot, dry, fiery summer coming up.
00;55;05;14 - 00;55;23;22
Mike Nelson
Now, is that just a weather pattern? It is because the jet stream this winter has been blocked in this kind of northwest to southeast flow pattern that given them a lot of snow in the Great Lakes across the northeast. But, we have been on the warm side of that jet stream, and it doesn't seem like that's going to change much.
00;55;23;25 - 00;55;27;06
Mike Nelson
Might get a rogue storm in here, but that's not going to make up the deficit.
00;55;27;06 - 00;55;36;25
Tom Green
Could we be saved by a couple of sizable snow? And do we want the snow to fall in the mountains, or do we need it to fall and then we need it everywhere? But where would be more impactful.
00;55;36;25 - 00;55;56;00
Mike Nelson
A big storm stalling over the mountains would be a nice deal. It's not going to save us, but it would make the damage less. I mean, we're already looking on, Colorado that, both, Lake Powell and Lake Mead could be at what they call Deadpool, which means the water level is too low to generate electricity. This is serious stuff.
00;55;56;00 - 00;56;17;03
Mike Nelson
And we're not getting any of the leadership that we need to make serious decisions and the proper policy, and. Well, I would say on that is when you are supporting candidates, asking them about, hey, do you know about the super grid? Well, you need to talk to Mike Nelson or what are you going to do? Because it's getting way too hot and dry.
00;56;17;03 - 00;56;24;27
Mike Nelson
I can't farm anymore. And what we find with, with some people is if you don't say the word climate, but you just ask somebody, how's the weather changed?
00;56;24;29 - 00;56;25;11
Tom Green
Yeah.
00;56;25;17 - 00;56;27;12
Mike Nelson
They'll say, oh my God, it's so much drier and warmer.
00;56;27;12 - 00;56;28;13
Tom Green
Now, much more available.
00;56;28;14 - 00;57;06;29
Mike Nelson
Yeah. You know, and if you just use the word weather now one more quick thing on the infrastructure. And this is another thing that, Cindy and I are doing now in our retirement, in 2006, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, also a Republican, signed the first legislation in California called AB 32, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It was mandated, and they began to build transmission lines aboveground, not underground for the most part, that were set up to bring wind and solar energy from the Antelope Valley up by Edwards Air Force Base, 60 miles north of Los Angeles.
00;57;06;29 - 00;57;32;00
Mike Nelson
Big flat valley up there, that renewable energy down into L.A.. And so there are several big transmission lines. They cost a few billion dollars to put in. And, so all of a sudden, in this valley that is up by Lancaster and Palmdale, it used to be agricultural, but it was failing because of climate change. Almond groves, pistachio farms.
00;57;32;00 - 00;58;00;09
Mike Nelson
And it began to be, populated by large solar energy fields, thousands of acres of solar panels. And so there is, ton of energy coming out of the Antelope Valley, heading down into Los Angeles to help them make their standards for their environmental laws, leadership and laws driving the development. And so they spent $3.5 billion to put these transmission lines in.
00;58;00;16 - 00;58;25;25
Mike Nelson
And there's been $60 billion worth of investment in the Valley for solar. And the investors are, First Solar, which is owned by a guy named Warren Buffett. I've heard of it. Yeah. Duke energy, a coal company, Amazon and Google and a company called Masdar. Masdar in Arabic means source, like the sun. And that company comes out of the United Arab Emirates.
00;58;25;25 - 00;58;48;14
Mike Nelson
Imagine a Petro state investing in solar energy in the United States. That's an example of what's happening if you have the infrastructure. If we had the super grid, we could open up all parts of the country for renewable energy. A farmer could choose not to be mandated, but choose to say, I'm gonna take ten acres of this less fertile land and I'm going to put solar on it, right.
00;58;48;14 - 00;59;14;03
Mike Nelson
And I can sell that solar to the grid and make money and save my farm. California leads the nation of renewable energy, but Texas is right behind red Texas. And the reason is these farmers and ranchers in West Texas can save their ranch by adding wind or solar, because the energy that they produce helps pay the bills. So, Cindy and I are actually involved in, real estate now.
00;59;14;05 - 00;59;21;06
Mike Nelson
We help place investors on land just ahead of the utility scale solar projects.
00;59;21;06 - 00;59;21;21
Tom Green
Okay.
00;59;21;26 - 00;59;37;24
Mike Nelson
And so the idea is you you buy the land ahead of it at a low price. You don't stick a sign in the dirt out there in the desert. You just wait until one of these big solar companies come and says, we'd like to buy or lease your land, and the return on investment would be 5 to 10 times.
00;59;37;26 - 00;59;39;05
Tom Green
There you go. That's always pretty low.
00;59;39;05 - 00;59;48;25
Mike Nelson
I'm still forecasting, but what I'm doing is I'm using maps and data, right? And instead of predicting what's going to happen up here in the sky, I predict what's going to happen down here on the ground.
00;59;48;27 - 01;00;10;01
Tom Green
Speaking of the sky, you always had have your eyes on the sky. The sun. Is that changing, too? It seems like we hear of more activity in the sun that impacts us in a variety of ways, obviously, as far as not just heat, but also our cell phones and everything else gets wigged out by flares and and other solar incidents.
01;00;10;01 - 01;00;28;20
Mike Nelson
They're called coronal mass ejections. And it's basically a big burp on the sun that sends out all of these highly charged particles that travel toward the Earth. Not at the speed of light, but a little bit slower than that. But then the magnetic poles draw those particles to the north and south pole. That's how you get the aurora borealis.
01;00;28;20 - 01;00;56;07
Mike Nelson
Yeah. Okay. And this goes through cycles where the sun is more active than other times. So we've been coming out of an active cycle. But the overall energy, the electromagnetic radiation that comes to the Earth doesn't change very much. It does not change enough to cause our climate to be changing like it is right now. There's really, three main ways that, the Earth's climate changes, and that is how hot the sun is.
01;00;56;09 - 01;01;15;07
Mike Nelson
And right now we have satellites that measures very well. We know we get these bursts of radiation, but they come and go and they always have the sun is not getting noticeably hotter. Okay. But then there's also changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit, the tilt of the Earth and the, how, eccentric the orbit is.
01;01;15;07 - 01;01;39;15
Mike Nelson
This changes on cycles are called Milenkovic cycles, which is Serbian mathematician lost his job about 1910 or something and was bored, and he decided to figure out these cycles. He has it all by hand. This guy named Milenkovic. And, that actually explains the glacial cycles, because at certain times there's, less heat in the polar regions exposures.
01;01;39;17 - 01;02;00;02
Mike Nelson
And so the ice caps will grow. That changes the reflection called the albedo of the planet. We can measure that. We know exactly why Ice Age has come and go. And the third is the chemistry of the atmosphere. So the sun, the shape of the, orbit and the chemistry of those, the only one that's changing and changing rapidly is the atmospheric chemistry.
01;02;00;02 - 01;02;05;02
Mike Nelson
So even those those are players. That's not what's causing what we're seeing now.
01;02;05;04 - 01;02;08;20
Tom Green
When you started doing weather, did you use a sling, say chronometer?
01;02;08;22 - 01;02;10;10
Mike Nelson
I still have one in my basement. Yeah.
01;02;10;16 - 01;02;16;02
Tom Green
Tell us what that does. I remember seeing it once and going, oh, I get it. Yeah. That is, that's telling us what.
01;02;16;04 - 01;02;30;17
Mike Nelson
Okay. Yeah. A sling site chronometer is two thermometers that are kind of mounted together. And then there's this little handle that you can spin the thing around. One of the thermometers has a little piece of gauze on it that you dip into water.
01;02;30;21 - 01;02;31;04
Tom Green
Okay.
01;02;31;04 - 01;02;57;11
Mike Nelson
And when you spin it, that water evaporates and that cools. You know, just like when you get out of the shower and you get chilled as this water evaporates off your skin, that cools the air, and that helps you determine the dew point at the point that the temperature, and the dew point and the air temperature are the same, say the dew point is 35 degrees and the air temperature drops to 35 degrees.
01;02;57;11 - 01;03;00;22
Mike Nelson
That means the relative humidity is 100%.
01;03;00;28 - 01;03;01;16
Tom Green
Okay.
01;03;01;18 - 01;03;20;12
Mike Nelson
So the lower the dew point, the drier the air. The reason that it's so comfortable here on a 90 degree day compared to, say, Saint Louis is in Denver in the summer, we might have a dew point of 35 degrees, meaning the temperature have to drop all the way down to 35 for do to form. Okay, okay, relative you, me.
01;03;20;12 - 01;03;28;24
Mike Nelson
But in Saint Louis, on a 90 degree day, the dew point might be 75 degrees. And so there's way more moisture in the air.
01;03;28;26 - 01;03;31;08
Tom Green
But it can never be more. It can only be 100%.
01;03;31;08 - 01;03;39;12
Mike Nelson
Telling me what percent. Yeah, yeah. And it can rain even if the, humidity is not 100% because up there it is. And then when it comes down here.
01;03;39;12 - 01;03;56;21
Tom Green
I'm interested when you guys talk about the weather, I'm always interested. And when someone says orographic lift, I make a note of that, try to figure what that is. I've forgotten what I learned about it, but I've never for the life of me, ever. Whenever I see the dew point go, I have no idea what that means. Okay, like, how does that affect me?
01;03;56;28 - 01;04;15;14
Mike Nelson
Well, the lower the dew point, generally more comfortable the air is, the higher the dew point for us here, that would mean the more likely that we'd get rain. Okay, but friend of mine, does the weather in New York City. And about 30 years ago, he told me this when he started, he decided he'd show the dew point as well as temperature, barometer, wind at 70.
01;04;15;17 - 01;04;26;09
Mike Nelson
And he put the dew point up there. And he started doing that for a couple of weeks. And one day he gets a phone call from a guy, and the guy goes, yo, what's the dew point at the point I got to go do something.
01;04;26;11 - 01;04;42;01
Tom Green
Yes, of course it it it's it it hasn't happened yet, I can tell. Here's my one other thing about TV meteorologist. I really do love you guys. I would love it if it didn't take 3.5 minutes to get to the forecast.
01;04;42;01 - 01;04;43;05
Mike Nelson
Oh my God. Yeah.
01;04;43;07 - 01;04;47;28
Tom Green
I would like it if we just did the forecast and and don't explain everything to me every day.
01;04;47;28 - 01;05;09;01
Mike Nelson
I generally did not have the luxury of 3.5 minutes. I was kind of a 2.5 minutes, okay, forecaster for most of my career. And I tried to really take pride in that because, you know, we're all in the team here. Yeah. You know, it's it's news, then weather and then sports. And so if I just said, well, I just want to talk longer, I'm just going to go for another 45 to 60s kill.
01;05;09;01 - 01;05;09;21
Tom Green
The sport.
01;05;09;23 - 01;05;27;28
Mike Nelson
Like Tom. Nelson went long. And, you're going to have to gut your show. And I always thought, I don't want to do that to you or to run or to to. You know, Lionel, I don't want to mess you guys up. So I would really try and be right on time. And a lot of the, producers would say, man, Nelson's just.
01;05;28;03 - 01;05;28;22
Mike Nelson
He never goes up.
01;05;28;22 - 01;05;29;06
Tom Green
Right on time.
01;05;29;07 - 01;05;32;16
Mike Nelson
Long for Mike. Is 10s over, you know? Yeah. Some people just like.
01;05;32;16 - 01;05;35;13
Tom Green
45, and that's like, Anne wants to chat or something.
01;05;35;13 - 01;05;39;11
Mike Nelson
Right? Yeah. Bill Custer used to go really long because he built one of his Custer isms, one.
01;05;39;11 - 01;05;40;12
Tom Green
Of his gully washers.
01;05;40;12 - 01;06;02;10
Mike Nelson
But you couldn't be mad at Bill because he was the nicest guy in the world. Yeah. But anyway, 2.5 minutes, you should be able to tell the story. But the thing I've always told younger weather casters, when you watch your shows, turn off the sound, and I should be able to watch the graphics and understand everything by the time we get to the seven day.
01;06;02;12 - 01;06;21;05
Mike Nelson
Similarly, don't watch the video and just listen. And you should be. If you can do both, you can tell a good story. And what I don't like is they spend all his time giving the brunch forecast and the hour by hour walk the dog forecast, which I can get on my phone. Yeah, I don't need you to do that.
01;06;21;08 - 01;06;36;18
Mike Nelson
Explain to me what's going on in the weather and if you do it properly, by the time we get to the seven day, I should be able to say, oh, I see why tomorrow's going to be 70. And then Thursday is going to be really windy, and then there's a little bit of snow Friday and then it warms up again Sunday.
01;06;36;19 - 01;06;47;02
Mike Nelson
I should understand all of that based upon the maps and the story that you told. And don't show a blank radar. If there's nothing on the radar, don't show it.
01;06;47;02 - 01;06;48;13
Tom Green
I always like that when we take the picture.
01;06;48;13 - 01;06;49;20
Mike Nelson
And get off my lawn.
01;06;49;23 - 01;06;53;11
Tom Green
The picture of the foggy Cameron as as you can clearly see you can't see a.
01;06;53;11 - 01;06;53;29
Mike Nelson
Thing out.
01;06;53;29 - 01;07;19;01
Tom Green
There. So, here's the one thing I want to ask you about, because it inside business, when you move from 9 to 7, it was a significant move in the market. You were, one of the highest profile people in television. And when you crossed the street, it was something that didn't happen very often. Ron did it, runs a polo, but not many people make that move.
01;07;19;01 - 01;07;27;17
Tom Green
And when you did it, what triggered it? And obviously you spent 20 years at seven. You were very happy once you got over there.
01;07;27;19 - 01;07;39;12
Mike Nelson
I, we had just come off of the blizzard of 2003, and I had done the 32 straight hours on the air. I had great numbers, and I was doing 3 or 4 school talks a week.
01;07;39;12 - 01;07;39;29
Tom Green
The tornado.
01;07;39;29 - 01;07;58;27
Mike Nelson
The, tornado dance. We've added it up over my whole career. I, I've spoken to about a million children today, and not everybody does that. I mean, this is hours of your personal time because I'd frequently leave the house at 9 a.m.. I do a school talk at 1030. I do another school talk at 1:00. I'd get to the station.
01;07;58;27 - 01;08;28;13
Mike Nelson
I'd work there until 1030 and get home at 1115. But that's how I built my career. So those kids are going go home. Mike Nelson came to our school today. We got to watch channel nine, and, frankly, my contract was coming up and I got a rather lukewarm offer, and I'm like, really? For all the stuff that I'm doing and, I just thought, gosh, maybe I, I need to do something else.
01;08;28;13 - 01;08;30;14
Mike Nelson
This was 2003.
01;08;30;14 - 01;08;31;11
Tom Green
No, agent.
01;08;31;14 - 01;08;35;26
Mike Nelson
This is just I only used agent one time, and that was in Saint Louis in the 80s. I just didn't like it.
01;08;36;00 - 01;08;46;25
Tom Green
I had the exact same experience one time. I used an agent, and it I it helped me redefine the word representation. You're doing great. But you don't represent me because that's not how I am, right? So go ahead.
01;08;46;26 - 01;09;07;04
Mike Nelson
I didn't like it very well, so I did. Fine. Early on, Joe Franz wrote the guy that hired me. I was one of the greatest guys that ever worked for just a terrific guy. And, one time soon, I were trying to buy a new house. This in the early 90s, and. And Joe, calls me on the phone.
01;09;07;04 - 01;09;14;00
Mike Nelson
I'm at the Denver Zoo to do zoo lights, and he goes, yeah. Our, realtor, a dear friend named Eddie Marx. Very famous.
01;09;14;00 - 01;09;15;03
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah, it is a.
01;09;15;05 - 01;09;34;03
Mike Nelson
He's still a dear friend. She had called, showed to Joe. You're not paying Mike Nelson of money. This that would never happen. And so it's a good realtor. Yeah, yeah. And so, Joe, Mike, Joe French go and I go. Yeah. Joe's 80 tells me I'm not paying you enough. So here's what I'm going to do.
01;09;34;06 - 01;09;35;10
Tom Green
And he that was early.
01;09;35;10 - 01;10;00;12
Mike Nelson
He gave me a raise over the phone. But, you know, time goes by. So ten years later, the offer that came in from the subsequent management was just kind of not where I thought it would be. And, lo and behold, the next day just by chance, I get a phone call from Cindy Velasquez, who was at channel nine, was the station manager, and she was over being the GM at channel seven.
01;10;00;14 - 01;10;18;11
Mike Nelson
And at that point, channel seven was a low rated station, right? Good people. But the ratings were not anywhere near Channel Nine's. And Cindy said, Mike, I don't know if you'd ever consider this, but, you know, we'd really like to talk to you about and I don't know how serendipitous this was because I'm like a little ticked off.
01;10;18;14 - 01;10;42;05
Mike Nelson
And she said, would you be ever open to just letting us make a presentation? I said, yeah, and so Cindy came out, to our house with Byron Grandy. Sure. And, and Darrell Brown, who was, with the, the McGraw-Hill owned channel seven at the time, came out to our house and they made a presentation that was like, you know, we know we're in third place.
01;10;42;08 - 01;11;01;19
Mike Nelson
We think weather is really important. We think you could be the key to us turning this around. And, Darrell Brown said, could I just have the honor of making you an offer? And I was like, those words stuck with me. Sure. Like, wow. And so it took a year is then I did get an attorney to help with all of this.
01;11;01;19 - 01;11;06;05
Mike Nelson
And I mean, because they have a lot of, non-compete kind of pitfalls.
01;11;06;08 - 01;11;06;26
Tom Green
Of language in.
01;11;06;26 - 01;11;23;10
Mike Nelson
There. Yeah. You got to be careful about what you do and everything. So, it took about a year. And, lo and behold, the way that it turned out at that time in 2004 is that TV stations had the right to match.
01;11;23;12 - 01;11;23;24
Tom Green
Yes.
01;11;23;29 - 01;11;33;29
Mike Nelson
Okay. But you only had one shot at it. And so for channel seven to hire me, they had to make an offer to me that channel nine would say that's too rich for us.
01;11;34;02 - 01;11;36;14
Tom Green
Which is great to be Mike Nelson.
01;11;36;16 - 01;12;04;02
Mike Nelson
It was that one shining moment in my career that ever happened. The stars aligned, and so literally Darrell Brown had to go all the way to New York City and talk to, Terry McGraw, the head of McGraw Hill Publishing. And the Hill was a huge corporation, big publisher, street firm. But they owned three TV stations. I mean, they knew nothing of it, which was actually pretty good because they didn't really understand what we did, and they just kind of as long as we made our number.
01;12;04;02 - 01;12;04;23
Mike Nelson
Yeah. They left you alone.
01;12;04;23 - 01;12;09;27
Tom Green
To which that was their their ownership style. I worked there for a few years, but. So. Right, right.
01;12;10;00 - 01;12;21;12
Mike Nelson
And so, lo and behold, Darrell, managed to convince Terry McGraw to make me this offer. And the folks at channel nine said that's too rich for us. And I ended up over channel seven.
01;12;21;18 - 01;12;23;12
Tom Green
Well, and it's.
01;12;23;14 - 01;12;41;19
Mike Nelson
You know, both stations. Great. I had a wonderful experience my time at channel nine. I had one time in my career that I actually had that kind of power, because typically, and it's even worse now for broadcast talent. You don't have a power. A corporation's got all the power. You know, that you're sort of working, there.
01;12;41;19 - 01;12;46;04
Mike Nelson
As long as they decide you're going to work there and you know, you'll get your 1% or whatever, maybe.
01;12;46;04 - 01;13;04;16
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. Now, I, I don't think we have young I'm guessing that my podcast isn't reaching too many youngsters, but moms and dads and aunts and uncles and grandparents who would like advice for their young kids if they are looking towards a career in meteorology or climatology, what would you tell them?
01;13;04;18 - 01;13;12;25
Mike Nelson
I was a weather nut since I was a little kid and I've always loved weather, I still do. I just forecast it mostly for myself and friends. Now, if you ever need a forecast, let me.
01;13;12;25 - 01;13;13;20
Tom Green
I got you number.
01;13;13;22 - 01;13;35;06
Mike Nelson
Yeah. But, don't ever doubt your dream. I have for years, I always said to people, you know, if you look at the odds of making it in television, they're pretty small. If you look at the odds of making it in professional sports, they're even smaller. But every year we have new rookies that come into professional sports and do great.
01;13;35;08 - 01;13;51;04
Mike Nelson
And if those kids ten years earlier said, well, that that I can never do that. Yeah. The odds you would never have it. Whether it be it my grandson wants to be an actor. It's like the odds of that working out or for a little small, but doesn't mean you can't be an actor in local theater as an adult and have a great time.
01;13;51;11 - 01;14;16;09
Mike Nelson
Maybe you'll do better. Follow your dream. Now if you want to get into meteorology, it's not just, the weather. There's math, chemistry, physics. So you got to pay a lot of attention in that. In middle school and high school. Take as much math as you can because they don't differentiate in college. Oh, you're going to be the television meteorologist, and you're going to be the guy that designs the computer models.
01;14;16;09 - 01;14;32;04
Mike Nelson
So we'll give you, you know, putting on hair and makeup and you take the calculus. Now you got to pass all the stuff, all of it. So make sure you're good at. But I also say, when I was in high school, I did go out for the the plays in the musicals. I was never the leader. And they I was just involved in the production.
01;14;32;05 - 01;14;33;15
Tom Green
Comfortable in front of people.
01;14;33;15 - 01;14;52;27
Mike Nelson
Yeah. You get comfortable in front of people. You get comfortable getting something done on a deadline and you use a whole different side of your brain. And so have a good, broad breadth of it. And, part of the reason that I retired from TV was I wanted to get out of the way for some younger people to still have a show.
01;14;53;00 - 01;14;57;14
Mike Nelson
You say that because the industry's changing a lot. It's kind of going the way of the newspaper business.
01;14;57;20 - 01;14;58;19
Tom Green
That's not good. By the way.
01;14;58;19 - 01;15;19;25
Mike Nelson
I hope it sticks around a little bit longer. But when Daniel Grant, called me in October of 2023 and said, this is my last day at Nine News, I was stunned because I thought, oh my God, she's great. And I it's already been a bit of a friend and familiar enough with her. And, I immediately went to my bosses at channel seven.
01;15;19;25 - 01;15;36;25
Mike Nelson
I said hire her. So I saw when my contract's up in the end of 2012, I want to be done. I I've had a great career. I don't want to do this anymore. Hire her. She's already well-known. She's very talented. She's a nice human being. And, it worked out for D.G that, you know, she came over to channel seven.
01;15;36;25 - 01;15;57;09
Mike Nelson
She's doing a terrific job, as are all the other women at channel seven. And I think that's interesting, because when I first got to Denver in 1991, we might have had two women doing weather on all of the stations combined. And now at that station there are four, I know there are, several at all of the other stations.
01;15;57;11 - 01;15;58;06
Mike Nelson
I think it's great.
01;15;58;07 - 01;16;21;13
Tom Green
Yeah, well, I don't know if you miss it much, but you are missed. So it's great to see you catch up, share some thoughts. And, I think a lot of people just love seeing you, hearing you, and especially hearing you expound a bit. Such expertise on things that, you know, for most of us, we don't have time to necessarily understand, but we'll share the information on the world's, a little loose book on climate.
01;16;21;15 - 01;16;24;10
Tom Green
And hopefully, hopefully we'll get you back here another time.
01;16;24;10 - 01;16;32;06
Mike Nelson
Sounds good. I'll give you a little weather call card. Okay. Sign up for your own, severe weather call service there, so I'll give you that.
01;16;32;06 - 01;16;33;11
Tom Green
Still, you're still working?
01;16;33;11 - 01;16;42;22
Mike Nelson
I'm still working. But it's all related. It's all weather, climate, energy. And if you're down at the March for Science on Saturday, I'll be speaking around noon.
01;16;42;22 - 01;16;43;19
Tom Green
At the state capitol. At the.
01;16;43;19 - 01;16;44;07
Mike Nelson
State Capitol.
01;16;44;07 - 01;16;46;03
Tom Green
Mike, it's great to see you. Thanks a million.
01;16;46;03 - 01;16;46;25
Mike Nelson
Such a pleasure.
01;16;46;27 - 01;16;47;12
Tom Green
Good to see you.
01;16;47;12 - 01;16;50;22
Mike Nelson
I see my bread.
01;16;50;24 - 01;17;10;02
Tom Green
Well, that was great. Getting a chance to visit with Mike Nelson again. Mike and I worked together for several years, but we've always been close, and it's, great for him to share his knowledge. And just to finish up on on sports and weather. I do have some good news, because we've been talking about how warm and how dry and how nervous that's making people.
01;17;10;02 - 01;17;26;07
Tom Green
Colorado has been so far this year. The Rockies home opener Friday, April 3rd should be snowing. At least that's the way it's going these days. Maybe, maybe we'll get a really good snowfall for that one. Thanks again for tuning in. We'll see you on another edition of the other Tom green Show.