PUNXSUTAWNEY – The National Meteorologist Hall of Fame officially opened Friday “in the shadow” of Gobbler’s Knob, where Punxsutawney Phil has delivered his annual weather prediction for more than a century.
The first inductee is Dr. Joel N. Myers, founder and president of AccuWeather.com, and the person The New York Times once dubbed “the most accurate man in weather.”
The Hall of Fame is part of a multi-year renovation and expansion project at the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center, an interactive science center that explores the technology and folklore of predicting the weather. Six new exhibits — the first of more than a dozen currently in the works — were also unveiled during a ceremony that was part of the town’s larger Groundhog Day celebration.
Selecting the first inductee into any national hall of fame is no easy task, but Myers quickly moved to the top of the list. The Hall of Fame will continue to induct a new member annually, officially adding their name to the list every Groundhog Day.
“Pennsylvania’s own Dr. Myers was a natural choice to inaugurate the Hall of Fame – he’s the man who transformed weather into an industry in just four decades,” said Mary Jean Johnston, project director for the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center. “He has influenced how the public receives their forecasts, from developing the colorful weather maps we see in newspapers and on TV, to patenting a system that has all-but made the wind chill factor and heat index obsolete.”
Over the past 45 years, Myers has been the force behind the world’s leading commercial weather company. Today, AccuWeather and AccuWeather.com are among the most known and respected names in weather information, a brand recognized by nearly every American.
Myers founded AccuWeather in 1962 while he was a Penn State graduate student in meteorology. Today, AccuWeather serves more than 130,000 paying clients with weather forecasts, date, broadcasts, color graphics consulting services, computer hardware and software. Dr. Myers received his B.S. (‘61), M.S. (’63) and Ph.D. (’71) degrees from Penn State. He has received numerous awards including the American Meteorological Society’s Father Macelwayne Award and a National Science Foundation Fellowship. In 2003, he was named winner of Ernst and Young’s Western Pennsylvania Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Myers has appeared on many radio and television shows, including “ABC Nightly News,” “To Tell the Truth,” “The Nightly Business Report” and “The Larry King Show.” Dr. Myers has also received the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters’ annual “Taking Pride in Pennsylvania Business” award and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcaster Hall of Fame in 2000.
The Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center opened in 2000 in a town landmark: the old Federal Building and Post Office. Located one block off the main street, it was a natural fit for Punxsutawney, known as the “Weather Capital of the World” and the setting each Feb. 2 for the folklore festival known as Groundhog Day. It’s this unique address that gives the Weather Center a unique opportunity to excite and educate visitors about the old and new ways of predicting and studying weather. Since its founding, the museum and science center has continued to evolve, recently completing the first phase of a renovation and expansion project.
For information on the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center, call 938-1000 or visit the Web site.