Journalist, Teacher, and Storm Spotter Since 2001

Jen Henderson

“Only then do you begin to realize just how insignificant

you are in the midst of a very large machine in the atmosphere.”

---Dave Carroll, storm spotter and university instructor

Nearly an LP Supercell

The Whale’s Mouth

A Wall Cloud

1. ✴What I Do
   

A journalist, teacher, and storm spotter, I feel an obligation to help others understand the importance of weather in our lives. I do this by giving presentations, writing articles, and sharing the most recent research and resources about storms and weather safety via community and university classes, as well as online communities.

1. ✴How it began
   

I saw my first tornado when I was twelve years old. Technically a waterspout, the delicate spindle of gray wind danced across the surface of the Great Salt Lake. That day I had been making jewelry with my Girl Scout troop at a park on the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains. Someone noticed strange motion across the water. We all looked up from our crafts and squinted into the gray September sky and watched the waterspout, how it tapped at the lake impatiently, its funnel seeming to appear and then disappear, only to materialize at a different spot a few seconds later. It captivated a dozen girls and their baffled leaders. “I think it’s a tornado,” my scout leader, Paulette, said.  We squealed. A tornado! Like the one that whisked Dorothy away from her family in Kansas? 

That afternoon in Utah the adults among us panicked. Should we hide under the picnic tables? Should we get in the car and drive to a building for safety? Amid the commotion to pack up our things, I don’t remember any fear of the very real dangers that accompany such weather.  I knew nothing of gust fronts, of microbursts, of shelf clouds. The most I’d experienced were the lake effect storms unfurling over the lake, typical thunderstorms with lightning, rain, and blustery wind. From my vantage point—both as a twelve-year-old girl and as a Westerner unaccustomed to such beautiful violence—the tornado invoked a feeling of magic, luck, and faith.  I had no idea at the time what a rare experience our storm had been, nor did I understand anything of the scientific principles at work in the sky, but I did believe I saw the tornado for a reason, albeit one I wouldn’t fully understand for nearly two decades.

1. ✴WHO I AM
   

Today, I am always looking up to find meaning in the language of the skies; it’s a quest I engage in every day. I see myself as a guide for those who want to safely explore the natural environment, even as I provide insight about our role as responsible citizens and reflective learners. Whether it’s how the prediction of storms itself--an act we take for granted every day--impacts the quality of our oceans, or what socioeconomic injustices are perpetrated in the way houses are being designed and built in Tornado Alley, there is more to weather that mere sky and moisture.

A weather safety resource for others, I investigate the world around me in my writing, encourage others to pursue the science of their dreams in my workshops, and as a teacher, remind others that there is alway something magical—and instructive—to be found in weather and its impact on our lives.