FORT MITCHELL, Ky. – It's a dream that's hard to reach for a Northern Kentucky man. He wants to be a professional weather forecaster. But technology just hasn't caught up to his needs.
“I'm going to be doing the talk show in a little bit,” said “Weather Jokester”. We can't use his real name for HIPAA and privacy reasons — so we'll go by the name “Weather Jokester” which he uses on the show.
He does a weekly weather segment by memory on the amateur talk show is hosted by a nonprofit called Redwood.
The disabled blind man said he loves the weather.
“For me it's been fascinating ever since I was a little boy. I've been through a lot of bad storms and heard about bad storms and really scare me,” ‘Weather Jokester’ said. “I'm totally blind. I could only see light. like sunlight.”
But he loves telling the forecast and not being able to see has become an obstacle that he's working to overcome
“Me not be able to see the weather maps to actually try to put in more perspective for people,” ‘Weather Jokester’ said.
The Weather Jokester said his call for action is that one day technology can catch up so he will be able to read the radar or have a computer talk back to him with a description of the radar.
“I think that they should have something for the blind and visually impaired people that love the weather like me because I feel like that. I mean as far as technology is you would have thought they would have something up by now,” ‘Weather Jokester’ said.
But for now, he's enjoying entertaining the audience watching him in Fort Mitchell.
The ‘Weather Jokester’ is able to do his research with the help of a producer and a computer that talks back to him.