April 1st Showers 🌧️, Brings Matt Jordan 🌈☀️

This week, we welcomed Matt Jordan, Chief Meteorologist at KOBI-TV NBC5, for an engaging and surprisingly fun look at the science behind our everyday weather. 🌥️ ☁️ 🌧️

Matt broke it down in a way that stuck:

• Weather is your mood
• Climate is your personality

In other words, weather changes quickly, hours to days, while climate is the long-term pattern we experience over decades.

He also unpacked some local phenomena that make Southern Oregon unique, including the Chetco Effect, and clarified what those “percentage of showers” forecasts actually mean. Spoiler: it is about coverage area, not how likely you personally are to get soaked.

Matt shared his journey from growing up in Junction City to becoming Chief Meteorologist, with a few unexpected stops along the way, including pizza chef, farm hand, and even a CNN internship. A good reminder that careers are rarely a straight line.

His core message was clear and worth repeating:

His job is not just to tell us the weather, but to explain why it is happening and how we can prepare, plan, and stay safe.

We wrapped up with a live weather experiment creating a cloud, which proved that science is a lot more fun when it is not stuck in a textbook.

A big thank you to Matt for helping us better understand the skies above the Rogue Valley. And for making meteorology feel just a little less mysterious. You can follow Matt on Instagram @MattFromOregon

If you missed it you can find recordings of our meetings posted (may take a few days) on our YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/@MedfordRogueRotary-j6y