by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
TV-12/25 meteorologist Tim Deegan has been forecasting the weather for as long as he can remember.
After growing up in Corpus Christi, Texas and getting his degree in meteorology at Texas A&M, Deegan came to Jacksonville in 1982 and got his first full-time job on the air.
“That’s when Good Morning Jacksonville started,” said Deegan. “The news director told me that normally they wouldn’t hire someone as young as I was and right out of college. but since it was going to be Jacksonville’s first local morning show, they didn’t think too many people were going to be watching for the first six months, anyway. It worked out.”
Deegan said that he will never forget the time he flew into the eye of Hurricane Gilbert with the “Hurricane Hunters.” It was a record-setting flight. While Deegan was in the air the night of Sept. 18, 1988, the instruments recorded 888 millibars – the lowest barometric pressure in a storm until Hurricane Wilma set the current record of 882 mllibars in 2005.
“I was initially very excited about going just because of the meteorological interest. You put your name on a list and when your name comes up, you go, whether it’s a degrading tropical system or whatever. Of course, if you’re going to go, you want it to be a good one,” said Deegan.
When Deegan and his cameraman arrived in Miami and met the Hurricane Hunters, they were impressed by how cool, calm and professional the flight crew was, but after 200 flights, it was just a day at the office for them.
“Then just before takeoff, the chief mechanic looks at me and says, ‘You know what, Tim? We’ve never seen a hurricane intensify this fast so we really don’t know what to expect.’ So suddenly I’m wondering if I had enough life insurance. While we were there, it went from a Category 2 to a Category 4. We knew we were going into a big one.
“All of a sudden, somebody yelled out, ‘888!’ After that, it was a big party,” said Deegan.
Deegan added that the experience was almost like something you would see in a movie, “But even Steven Spielberg couldn’t touch it.”