He may only be 21 years old, but Ethan Clark has become one of North Carolina’s most trusted sources for weather forecasting — and the one thousands turned to during Hurricane Helene. “Leading up to Helene, I knew it was going to be bad,” the NC State junior says. “Most meteorologists knew it was going to be bad, and this is my passion. Forecasting weather and saving lives has always been my passion.”
In the weeks before the storm hit, Ethan already had more than 350,000 followers on his Facebook page, North Carolina’s Weather Authority. Now, he has more than 575,000. But more important than the new followers are the messages he’s been getting in the days since the storm came through — from people saying his warnings saved their family members.
“Some lady contacted me and said she read my stuff and convinced her parents to leave, and they would have died if they’d stayed,” he tells us. He got a similar message from another loyal follower. “It’s surreal; this lady told me her house was gone, and they would be dead if they’d stayed. They left Asheville Thursday night after seeing my forecast.”
The college student says he carefully crafted his messaging in the days leading up to the storm. “I just tried to do what I know best, and that’s to tell it as straightforward and from the heart as possible. I like to be personal,” he tells us.
He adds, “Friday, the storm was coming, and I knew it was going to be bad. I wanted to get the information out without scaring people, but I needed them to know I was very concerned. I always tell people this is not an official source, but people like my stuff, and I wanted to make them aware of how bad the models looked. I just tried to be heartfelt and as in-depth as possible.”
Ethan has posted the forecast every single day for the last nine years, but he says his love of weather dates back even further — to the third grade, when a rare snowstorm hit the Raleigh area where he grew up.
“School was out for a week because we had three inches on the ground,” he says, laughing, knowing that a small amount typically only has that effect in the South. “I remember when school went back, I went to the library and asked if they had any weather books. I started reading about it, and then, in fourth grade, I became the school morning newscaster and presented the weather.”
Things got serious in the sixth grade when Ethan started a weekly newsletter for friends and family, in which he offered an in-depth look at the weather for the week ahead. He launched the Facebook page in seventh grade, and when he hit 1,000 followers, he thought he was big-time.
“In eighth grade, I started to get some real traction, and I reached 5,000 followers,” he says. “I was doing the forecast just for Raleigh, and then I expanded to all 100 counties in North Carolina.”
He spent all of high school building the Facebook page, thinking it might help him get into college, even learning everything he could about meteorology on YouTube.
“I write very in-depth forecasts, and I think that’s what really works with people,” says Ethan. “With TV, you only have a few minutes, so you can’t go very in-depth, and I also like to be very personal with what I write. I like to respond to people’s comments and really interact with people.”
He says he’s still working through the more than 20,000 messages in his inbox from the last two weeks and still can’t believe how many people his page has reached.
“It’s surreal. I love the weather, and I love this state. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve never seen anything this bad. This is North Carolina, and I’m just grateful I can do what I can to help.”
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