John Morales

Tuesday, Apr 2, 2013 | Updated 4:36 PM EDT

John Morales

Award-winning meteorologist John Morales joined NBC Miami as Chief Meteorologist in May 2009. John has been a familiar face and reassuring presence in South Florida for 20 years. His accurate weather predictions aided viewers during Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Irene in 1999, and throughout the numerous hurricane landfalls in the mid 2000’s. In 2005, John was honored with the second of his three Emmy Awards for his coverage of Hurricane Wilma. In what could be considered his most important scientific recognition, John earned the 2007 American Meteorological Society Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied Meteorology Award. He is one of very few broadcast meteorologists elected to be a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Born in Schenectady, New York of an Irish-American father and a Puerto Rican mother, John was raised in Puerto Rico and later returned to his roots in upstate New York to attend the meteorology program at prestigious Cornell University. After graduation in 1984, he was hired by the U.S. National Weather Service to work in Puerto Rico, Louisiana, and Washington DC. During his government career, John became a Lead Forecaster before accepting a position as Chief of the South American Desk at the National Center for Environmental Predictions.

From 1991 through 2002, John served as Chief Meteorologist for the Univision Network and its Miami Affiliate station, WLTV. From 2003 through 2008, he served as Chief Meteorologist for the local Telemundo station, WSCV Channel 51, the sister station of NBCMiami. While there, he became the first Hispanic to substitute as meteorologist on NBC’s weekend edition of the Today show and did so multiple times.

Among his many credentials, John holds the National Weather Association and the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval for Radio and TV weathercasting, and has won the Broadcaster of the Year Award from both organizations. In addition, he is accredited by the American Meteorological Association as a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist.

In 1997, Morales participated in Vice President Al Gore’s White House conference on global warming and climate change. He is the author of "Hurricanes: Know Your Enemy," an everyday reference book on hurricanes. John has received Emmy Awards at each television station he has worked at, including in 1993 for "48 Hours Before the Storm," and in 2010 for “Hurricane Season 2010”.

Most recently, John Morales has been selected to serve on the National Academies’ National Research Council, as part of a committee studying our country’s National Weather Service.

John, his wife Carmen and their family reside in Miami. In his free time, he enjoys piloting his Cessna 210.

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