This article appears in the July 2011 issue of LouisvilleMagazine. To subscribe, please visit loumag.com [4].
Kevin Harned, 35, started at WAVE in 1998 and became chief meteorologist last September, when John Belski retired.
Louisville Magazine: “Your first weather memory?”
Kevin Harned: “As a kid? Being scared of thunderstorms, especially at night. I can remember begging my parents to let me sleep in their room and my brother to let me in his room. Always the answer was, ‘No, go to bed.’
“When I was in the seventh grade, I invited John Belski to come down (to New Haven, Ky.) and speak to our 4-H Club. Ever since then, that’s what I always wanted to do.”
LM: “Some viewers only watch you when there are dangerous storms in the area. Is there a certain segment of the population that associates you with stressful weather — or with breaking into The Office?”
KH: (laughs) “I’ve never viewed it like that. There are times when you feel like you’re crying wolf, even though you know the potential is there. I prefer that people associate me with 70-degree sunny days, but we haven’t seen many of those lately.”
LM: “We get everything in Louisville — flooding, windstorms, ice storms. In what U.S. city would a meteorologist have the easiest job?”
KH: “San Diego, maybe? ‘Morning fog burns off, sunny later in the afternoon, highs in the mid-80s.’ It’d pretty much be that every day.”
— Josh Moss