32 Years of Floods, Winds and Thunderstorms…

(Yesterday was J.B.’s birthday, by the way…This article was from the month he retired in 1989)

From the Birmingham News: Monday, April 17, 1989…

It was his first day on the job, and as he arrived at the office on that morning of April 8, 1957, the wind was whistling and thunder was rumbling. Within a short time, tornadoes raked North Alabama, killing two people and injuring 90 others.

It would have been a notable first day at work if he had been selling rugs or dricing a truck. But it was more so for J.B. Elliott because it was his first with the U.S. Weather Bureau. “We were so busy that we didn’t even get to fill out the employment papers until the next day,” he said.

After 32 years with what is now called the National Weather Service, Elliott, 57, is retiring, ending his career on Ma 1. Behind him are dozens of days and nights when tornadoes, hurricanes, floods or ice storms threatened the state. A native of Havana Junction in Hale County, Elliott grew up with an awareness of the weather, a sense t hat many rural people seem to develop. “When I was a kid, I bought a 25-cent thermometer to keep track of the temperature,” he said. “I would get up at 4:40 or 5 o’clock in the morning and listen to radio stations from around the country and see what the weather was in those places. Then I’d draw a weather map before I went to school.”

His already strong interest in weather became even more so in 1946 when a tornado rolled through Havana Junction and took part of the roof from his family’s home. “I knew that I had to be in weather forecasting then,” he said. After graduating from Akron High School, Elliott came to Bessemer and worked for a wholesale grocery company, but on his off days he would visit the U.S. Weather Bureau office at the Birmingham Airport.

He didn’t have formal training, but the Meteorologist-in-Charge, Charles Bradley, saw that Elliott had a keen eye and ear for weather. As luck would have it, the government issued a paper saying there was a shortage of personnel in the U.S. Weather Bureau. Elliott applied and got the job. “It was a streak of luck,” he said. One thing about being a forecaster, he learned: The weather keeps changing and so do work shifts. Sometimes he would work days, other times nights. In addition to issuing forecasts and warnings, he became the unofficial historian on Alabama weather.

Read the complete article from Birmingham News Staff Writer Frank Sikora…

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