[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Name of WCVB meteorologist I was Trying to Remember

[Robert Primak]

During the post-presentation chatter, Ted Kochansky and I were trying to remember the names of local Boston meteorologists with good forecasting reputations. I had forgotten WCVB's Mike Wankum. He's not the only reliable weather forecaster, but he's been around awhile and is very good. 
That's the name I was fishing for.
No matter -- the best meteorologist is the one who gives the storm warning and saves your hide while you are watching.
I'm not kidding -- I grew up in the suburbs of the Chicago area, away from the protective effects of Lake Michigan. So I know what a tornado warning looks and feels like, and what happens when people don't get or don't heed the warnings -- as in Belvidere, IL in 1967 -- one of ten tornadoes that afternoon, with tragic death tolls. Forecasting has come a long way since then. 
Plainfield, IL (Coal City) tornado of 1990:https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-coal-city-plainfield-tornado-20150624-story.html (No paywall.) 

I did not find information about this tornado being anticyclonic, though I recall that at the time there was speculation that it was rotating the "wrong" direction. There were a few factors which raised the death toll, including no advance warning. There were several reasons for that lack of warning, not the least being that the local Doppler radar had been hit by lightning. Usually, anticyclonic tornadoes are much weaker and shorter-lived than cyclonic tornadoes. (This applies in both hemispheres, even though anticyclonic in the Southern Hemisphere would be counterclockwise.) 
Rare Clockwise Tornado
https://www.insidescience.org/video/rare-clockwise-tornado
 
-- Bob Primak 

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