Vince Condella says teaching kids, 'Condella's Weather Class' among his top memories: "Very rewarding"
BROWN DEER -- FOX6 Chief Meteorologist Vince Condella's last day with WITI is Wednesday, May 25th, and after 34 years, he has plenty of memories to take with him as he heads into retirement. Vince shared some of the highlights of his three decades at WITI with FOX6's Ted Perry.
When you become part of the fabric of a town, memories are made stitch by stitch, so it's no surprise that some of Vince's fondest memories came from schoolchildren -- not the studio.
"When I came to Channel 6, it was just a natural thing, a natural extension for me to go out and talk to students in the classrooms. The coolest thing though is, even to this day, having students who are now adults, who have kids of their own, come to me, recognize me in public and say 'hey, you came to my school when I was in fifth grade,' or 'I remember when you came to my school when I was in third grade and it was awesome. You got me all fired up about weather,'" Condella said.
Soon, there were more demands for appearances than there was time available. The solution was the Condella Weather Class -- a VHS tape that became as fun to make as it was to watch.
Condella's Weather Class
"We would invite teachers to request a copy of Condella`s Weather Class for that year. Send in your request on school letterhead and we`ll mail you out a VHS. We had them in libraries. People would check them out of the libraries as well. Very rewarding. Very fun to do that. And again, I`m so grateful that the television station allowed me to do this because I was able to flex some creative muscle and I just loved it," Condella said.
Each year, Vince would try to top the Weather Class from the year before.
"One of our photojournalists, Alan Block, who has since retired from Channel 6, he and I went down to Costa Rica with Professor Alan Young in September of 1990 and we were there for six days and basically documented the cutting of the rainforest. We put together a three-part series on our 10:00 news and then also I used it for Condella`s Weather Class that year. It was just really a fantastic window into science," Condella said.
As great as his teaching was, you are judged by how well you keep viewers informed, and on the big days, there was no one better.
"I`ll never forget December 15th of 1987. This was back in the days before there was any morning newscasts. A huge blizzard hit Milwaukee. We came on the air early -- 5 or 6 o`clock in the morning and broadcasted live. I remember being up all night and doing various cut-ins from the weather office and so on -- to guide people through some of the slippery travel and the hazardous travel, trying to predict where the heaviest snow will fall and when. The ultimate forecasting challenge, but also very rewarding," Condella said.
The blizzards never became routine -- always bringing new challenges, and spring and summer brought their own monsters -- tornadoes -- when a forecast can literally be life or death.
"The Oakfield tornado. July of 1996. That occurred early in the evening. The Eagle tornado," Condella said.
One memory Condella will not forget is the responsibility of knowing people are counting on you in the scariest moments.
"There it was, moving through Eagle and southwest Waukesha County, moving across Waukesha, right into Milwaukee County, highly-populated areas and a tornado on the ground, and to be on the air live, tracking it and telling people, you know, if you live in this community get to safety now, those kinds of things, those urgent kind of announcements to be made. You know, I tell you, that`s where the adrenaline really is, and it`s challenging," Condella said.
Challenging maybe, but Vince always made it look so easy, and easy to understand for all of you at home.