Brains Bios
James Spann
I am the Chief Meteorologist for the ABC TV affiliate in Birmingham, and produces daily weather forecasts on over two dozen radio stations around the nation. He has been doing the weather on radio and TV since 1978, making him an old geezer, but a guy that still has a blast doing weather across a variety of media platforms. WeatherBrains is my creative outlet of the week; I host the show simply because I have the toys to put it together. I love sitting behind the golden PR-40 every Monday night for our weekly WeatherBrains session.
My TV career started in Tuscaloosa, Alabama at the local CBS affiliate at the time, WCFT, Channel 33. Along the way I have spent time at WSFA-TV in Montgomery, Alabama (Channel 12), WVTM in Birmingham (Channel 13), KDFW in Dallas (Channel 4), and WBRC in Birmingham (Channel 6). I have been at my current station since 1996; clearly the longest stop in my long career. And, I hope it is the last!
I hold the AMS CBM (Certified Broadcast Meteorologist)… 33rd in the nation. I wanted to be in the top ten, but I just didn’t have time to take the exam right when the program started.
I have been married to my wife Karen since 1981, and we have two boys that happen to be 13 years apart. One is out of college, the other is in middle school. Away from the weather business I serve in children’s ministry at a local church, and still enjoy amateur radio as my hobby. I hold the extra class license, and my call is WO4W.
J.B. Elliott
My name is J. B. Elliott, a 32-year veteran of the National Weather Service all in the Birmingham office. Lots of action during those years, including uncountable severe weather threats and winter storm threats. I worked a number of disastrous tornado outbreaks.
I retired from the National Weather Service in 1989, relaxed for a short time, but got right back in weather as a member of The Weather Company. They say when ink gets in your blood, you want to always be a newspaper reporter. I guess when weather got in my blood at a very early age, there was no way I could retire and expunge it. I think I was born to be in weather, because I was extremely weather conscious at five and six years old. Even got a $4.00 plastic rain gauge, when I was about 13. I thought I was in “high cotton” or should I say, “high kudzu”.
I sure do enjoy the association with all of the Weather Brains crew.
Bill Murray
I was factory designed to love weather and have loved it since I came into this world. I am the official weather historian for WeatherBrains. My hero is the late, great David Ludlum. Snow is my favorite weather phenomenon, but I am fascinated by hurricanes and tornadoes.
My junior year in high school, I did a science project that stopped hurricanes. In May 1979, that project, entitled “Using Monomolecular Sea Surface Polymer Films to Suppress Tropical Cyclone Development” went to the 20th International Science and Engineering Fair in San Antonio, Texas where it won several awards.
I did television weather for fun at the CBS affiliate in Birmingham for five years in the early 90s and created a weather company called The Weather Source with John Oldshue. We sold it in 1996. Our group formed The Weather Company in 1998. In 2002, I was asked to author an annual weather calendar published by Andrew McNeel. It puts a lot of my weather trivia information to use.
I also own a hotel management company that manages 37 hotels across the country from New Mexico to Maryland. My work on Integral Hospitality Solutions takes me all over the nation, which leads to some interesting settings for my forecasts. Many reports have originated from AMTRAK trains and other forms of transportation.
Brian Peters
As a kid, I used to kneel on the sofa looking out the window watching thunderstorms in progress. When my family moved to Florida, Hurricane Donna piqued my interest in weather due in part to the professional presentation of a television meteorologist named Roy Leep. Roy was a true degreed meteorologist well ahead of his time who broke the mold of the entertainer as weather person.
It was on to Florida State University where I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology. I was fortunate to work for the Weather Bureau, predecessor to the National Weather Service (NWS), each summer following graduation from high school. While other kids were doing the typical part-time jobs like clerking, grocery bagging, and life guarding, I was learning to take surface weather observations and processing upper air observations.
Working with the NWS across the Southeast US nurtured my interest in severe weather. Another influence on my life came from Alan Moller. I used to go with Alan on some of his spotter training presentations and gained a valuable understanding of the importance of spotters and storm structure. Over time I also gained experience in storm surveys. My exposure to training by Tim Marshall on the effects of wind on structures has proven beneficial when trying to sort out details after a storm.
Having done weather forecasting across the Southeast, I was again fortunate to serve on the Olympic Weather Support Team during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. During my first year with ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, I fulfilled a lifelong desire to fly with the Hurricane Hunters. I was on a flight that went through Hurricane Ivan four times including several passes while it was a Category 5 storm. I later was detailed to Gulf Shores to greet the storm as it came ashore.
Weather has been more than just a profession with me. I have a passion about the weather and appreciate the opportunity to share insight into the weather each week as part of the WeatherBrains crew.
Kevin Selle
I was born in Hartford, CT and grew up all up and down the East Coast. Radio took me from New England to Texas to Birmingham where I met James Spann who got me interested in weather and the TV business (and one day I’ll get him for it). I guess my TV legacy, to those who remember, is the Hat that I wore during live coverage of the Blizzard of ’93. Bill Bolen called me “The Shadow” on the air and the WeatherBrains crew will never let me forget it.
The decision to do television weather was the best of my life. It allowed me to meet my wife in Richmond, VA. She was also a meteorologist, for the local NBC station, while I worked for the CBS affiliate. We got some strange looks at restaurants when we were dating (“Hey you two aren’t supposed to be together”).
I feel so lucky to be included among the WeatherBrains staff. The fact that this group of very talented and wonderful people launched this show, did a great job for a year, then let me join them is truly an honor.
Please let us know what we can do to improve WeatherBrains for you. Thanks for listening and God bless!
Dr. Tim Coleman
Tim Coleman is currently a research meteorologist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. His research is mainly on atmospheric gravity waves, and how they may cause tornadoes and damaging winds. Tim also works in radar meteorology, where he is attempting to make radar rainfall estimates more accurate for flash flood and river forecasting, and he also does some research work on tornadoes, atmospheric bores, and the effects of inland lakes and rivers on the weather. Tim works for Dr. Kevin Knupp, a nationally-recognized expert on severe weather and instrumentation, and author of 32 refereed publications.
Tim graduated with a degree in Physics and Mathematics from Samford University in 1996, and received a Master’s degree in Atmospheric Science from UAH in 2000. He recently completed his PhD in Atmospheric Science.
Tim became fascinated with the weather around age 3. He began coloring weather radar pictures at school by the first or second grade, and became much more interested in weather when his parents bought him a NOAA Weather Radio for Christmas in 1983 (Tim was 9). J. B. Elliott was like a movie star to Tim as a kid!
