Gary England, forecaster who kept watch over Tornado Alley, dies at 85

Gary England, a meteorologist who became Tornado Alley’s most influential TV weatherman, adopting early Doppler radar technology so effectively that he often issued lifesaving warnings on twisters before the National Weather Service, died June 10 at a hospice center in Oklahoma City. He was 85.

Bob Burke, an Oklahoma historian who wrote a biography of England, confirmed the death and said England had a stroke three weeks ago.

In the early years of TV, the Weather Service banned weathercasters from even using the word “tornado” on air for fear of inciting widespread panic. Often the first sign of a tornado was seeing the storm take shape. One of England’s earliest childhood memories of a tornado was taking shelter in a chicken coop with his father on their Oklahoma farm in 1947. His father asked, “Good Lord, will we ever know when these darn things are going to hit?”

By the time England began his broadcasting career in 1972 at Oklahoma City’s CBS affiliate KWTV, tornadoes were no longer a taboo subject on the air. However, the business of weather forecasting was still limited to primitive radar and drawing lines on a map.

In the 1970s, England kept abreast of the cutting-edge weather forecasting technology being used at the Tinker Air Force Base and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, both in Oklahoma. He pushed for KWTV to purchase a Doppler radar, military-grade technology that doubled the lead time for tornado warnings by providing more rapid and geographically precise predictions.

KWTV was the first TV station in the U.S. to acquire the device in 1981. At the time, the majority of Weather Service offices nationwide still lacked such a sophisticated device, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist who has written extensively about the profession.

The technology could pinpoint twisters “to an accuracy of 750 feet throughout the entire western two-thirds of Oklahoma” – not just to a particular neighborhood or town, England told the Washington Post in 1985. This provided a critical advantage over standard radar detection by giving viewers up to 10 extra minutes to seek shelter from incoming danger.

“It set an expectation for local tornado warnings,” Henson said. “The National Weather Service is absolutely and passionately dedicated to tornado warnings as well. But Gary was the public face for many people. He was who they saw on their TV sets.”

Henson said England helped develop “First Warning,” an automated map in the corner of the television screen to overlay weather notices without interrupting regularly scheduled programming. He also worked on “Storm Tracker,” a KWTV initiative to show audiences the exact time a severe storm would reach their location. Both graphic techniques have since been adopted for all types of natural emergencies.

In his four decades at KWTV, England guided viewers in the lead-up to nearly 2,000 tornadoes, and he sometimes worked 12-hour shifts during storm season. When tornadoes were active, he took special care to give step-by-step instructions to children home alone on how to take cover.

“We’ll interrupt the pope, the president, God or O.J. for that,” England described a tornado emergency to the Los Angeles Times in 1996, referring to former football star O.J. Simpson and his highly watched criminal trial on charges of killing his ex-wife and her friend. Simpson was acquitted.

England used his own small-town Oklahoma upbringing to connect with viewers. He became known for quirky idioms – calling tornadoes “rotating tubes” – and his signature end-of-week sign off, “It’s Friday night in the big town.” He built a nationwide following as an authority on dangerous weather and made a cameo in the opening scene of the 1996 movie “Twister” about storm chasers.

In May 1983, England warned viewers of an incoming twister in southeastern Oklahoma, giving viewers 20 minutes to seek shelter. He beat the National Weather Service’s advisory by 15 minutes and later touted this achievement on air. He was also unafraid to issue tornado alerts for towns that the National Weather Service did not deem at risk, Henson said.

“It was when he began issuing tornado warnings based on the station’s Doppler radar that his popularity really took off,” Henson added. “In some cases, those were different from the warnings issued by the National Weather Service, which was sometimes no small controversy.”

In 1984, Mr. England joked on air that the National Weather Service sent him “a letter bomb” for his birthday, further souring relations. Despite the tension, Burke said that the Weather Service held Mr. England’s work in high regard. “If Gary England says there’s a tornado, then even the National Weather Service took note of that,” he said.

His influence proved critical in May 1999 during a blitz of 74 tornadoes touching down in less than 21 hours in a corridor from Oklahoma to Kansas. The twisters claimed 46 lives, injured 800 people and damaged or destroyed more than 8,000 homes, causing nearly $1.5 billion in losses.

Survivors painted “God Bless Gary England” and “Thanks Gary England for Getting Us Out Alive!!” on storm-ravaged homes.

England told the Oklahoman that he was especially shaken by the scale of this twister and stayed awake all night worrying about the human toll. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I had visions of hundreds of people dead in their cars. I didn’t know until the next morning.”

England was born in Seiling, Oklahoma, on Oct. 3, 1939. His parents ran a grocery store.

His fascination with weather took shape as a teenager when he bought a camera and became entranced with the clouds. “I liked storms. They scared the heck out of me, but I loved them,” he told the Oklahoman.

England spent two years in the Navy and graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1965 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and meteorology. He was an oceanographer in Louisiana for four years before returning to Oklahoma. He began his broadcasting career at a radio station before moving into television in 1972.

He started a traveling show called “Those Terrible Twisters” in 2001, collaborated with the Oklahoma Department of Education, created “Gary England’s Tornado Alley” video series in 2015 and wrote Oklahoma weather-related books.

After retiring from forecasting in 2013, England became vice president for corporate relations and weather development at KWTV’s parent company, Griffin Communications.

In 1961, he married Mary Carlisle. In addition to his wife, survivors include his daughter, Molly Lutowsky; a brother; and two granddaughters.

In a career rooted in science and technology, Mr. England spoke about storms with a poetic mystique.

“They’re born, and they grow and they grow,” Mr. England told the New York Times in 2013. “And when they reach a mature size and they run out of conditions – they have to have warm, moist air – they’ll start to die. And they go away. They’re just like humans except they don’t last very long. But I’ve known some humans about as mean as them.”