Welcome to Meteorology Matters, the podcast that
dives deep into the science chaos and stories
behind the weather that shapes our world. This
show was created by meteorologist Rob Jones.
Now let's get into today's episode of Meteorology
Matters. It's great to be here, especially with
all the energy in the air right now. Absolutely.
We are recording this on Saturday, January 17th,
2026. And if you are anywhere near South Florida
or, you know, frankly, if you're just tapped
into sports at all right now, you know, the atmosphere
is just electric. It really is. We are less than
48 hours away from the College Football National
Championship game, which is happening this Monday,
January 19th, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Right.
The biggest stage in amateur sports. Usually
when we look at these huge events from a weather
perspective, the conversation is pretty dry.
Yeah, it's logistical. Exactly. It's always,
is it going to rain during the halftime show
or how will the humidity affect the players?
That kind of thing. Right. It's a three hour
forecast basically. But for this deep dive, we
wanted to zoom out way, way out because while
the football game is the headline, the real story
here is the setting and the home team. When you
look at the University of Miami, you realize
their identity The hurricanes isn't just a mascot
they picked out of a hat because it sounded,
you know, intimidating. No, not at all. In fact,
it's arguably the most authentic identity in
all of college sports. I would agree with that.
Because it's rooted in, well, in trauma, in survival
and eventually in scientific mastery. Exactly.
This is a university and really a whole city
that is just it's inextricably linked to the
weather. specifically to tropical cyclones. We're
talking about a history that goes back to the
very foundation of the school. It's a story that
involves a catastrophe that leveled the city,
a legendary meeting to name the team, and then
this pivot toward becoming one of the world's
leading centers for atmospheric research. It's
a fascinating case study. I mean, you have to
think about the geography. South Florida is essentially
a natural laboratory for atmospheric science.
A peninsula, just stick it out there. Right.
It's sticking out into extremely warm water.
sitting right in the bowling alley of the Atlantic
hurricane basin. So the thesis we're exploring
today is that the University of Miami, the Hurricanes,
they really earned that name through blood and
water. Their identity was forged in the aftermath
of a catastrophe that happened nearly a century
ago. And that legacy, it spans from the football
field all the way to the highest levels of government
research. So let's unpack this. To really understand
the hurricanes of 2026, we have to go back a
full century. We have to start with the catalyst.
And I'm not talking about a football game. I'm
talking about the great Miami hurricane of 1926.
Yeah, and to really feel the weight of that event,
you have to understand what Miami was like before
the storm. We have to transport ourselves back
to the Roaring Twenties. But this wasn't just
the Jazz Age. In Florida, This was the era of
the great Florida land bone. The era of anything
goes. Precisely. It was a time of just unbridled
optimism and wild, wild speculation. People were
pouring into the state to buy land off in sight
unseen. And if we look at the numbers, they're
just staggering. In 1920, the census counted
about, what, 42 ,000 people in Miami. OK. By
1926, just six years later, that number had exploded
to over 100 ,000. And that's probably a conservative
estimate, because it doesn't fully account for
the surrounding settlements like Lemon City or
Coconut Grove that were being swallowed up by
the metro area. So you have a population that
has more than doubled in just half a decade.
That creates a very specific kind of social environment,
doesn't it? It creates a dangerous one, a very
dangerous one. You had a city filled with new
residents who were optimistic, focused on getting
rich, and this is the critical part, woefully
undereducated about tropical cyclones. Right.
They had no idea what they were in for. None.
You have to remember the last major hurricane
to hit that part of Florida had been back in
1910. So you have a 15 -year gap. In a transient
boomtown where everyone just arrived, you know,
last week, 15 years might as well be a century.
No one has that institutional memory. Exactly.
Most of these people had never seen the ocean
turn on them. They saw the beach as a playground,
not a potential threat. And to make matters worse,
there was a false alarm earlier that same year.
Oh, that's not good. No. In July of 1926, a weak
storm hit the area. It caused some heavy rain,
knocked over some patio furniture, but that was
really about it. And instead of that being a
warning, it actually backfired. It completely
backfired. There's a quote from a resident at
the time who joked that the July storm was made
to order to scare the scoffers. But because it
didn't do much damage, it had the opposite effect.
It made them complacent. It solidified this dangerous
complacency. People thought, oh, a hurricane,
is that all it is? I can handle that. They were
inoculated against fear right before the real
plague arrived. So, okay, let's move to September
1926. The big blow is coming. The storm we now
call the Great Miami Hurricane. It likely formed
near the Cape Verde Islands around September
11th. But here's the thing we absolutely have
to remember about 1926. We were effectively blind.
No satellites. No radar. Nothing. no reconnaissance
aircraft flying into the storm to take measurements.
The storm was a ghost, a complete mystery. It
was known only by a few ship reports out in the
Central Atlantic. It passed north of Puerto Rico,
so it avoided the normal channels of communication
in the Caribbean. So it just remained a mystery.
It was a monster category four storm just lurking
out there in the blue and nobody really knew
exactly where it was or how strong it was. It
feels like a horror movie setup. The monster
is in the house, but all the lights are out.
That is a perfect analogy. On the morning of
September 17th, less than 24 hours before impact,
there were still no hurricane warnings issued
for Florida. 24 hours. It wasn't until 11 d .m.
that night as the barometer began this just precipitous
fall, that Richard Gray, the official in charge
of the Miami Weather Bureau, finally hoisted
the hurricane warnings. At 11 Berto PM, the city
is asleep. Or, you know, it's the roaring 20s,
so they're probably out partying. And just a
few hours later, their world ended. The eye of
the hurricane passed over downtown Miami around
630 in the morning on September 18th. And this.
This brings us to the greatest tragedy of this
entire event, and something that really underscores
the lack of meteorological knowledge at the time.
The lull. The lull. The eye passed directly over
the city. And if you've never been in the eye
of a hurricane, it is a truly surreal experience.
I've heard stories. The wind just stops. It stops.
The sun might even come out. It becomes eerily
quiet. In 1926, this lull lasted for about 35
minutes. Just long enough to be deceptive. Exactly.
Residents, who we already established didn't
understand the mechanics of a cyclone, thought
the storm was over. They thought they had survived
it. They emerged from their shelters. People
went out into the streets. There are reports
that the streets were crowded with people inspecting
the damage, looking at the wreckage. Some people
even started crossing the causeways back to the
mainland from Miami Beach. They were completely
utterly exposed. And then the backside of the
storm hits. And it hit with a vengeance. The
wind shifted to the southeast. And in Miami,
a southeasterly wind is the worst case scenario.
Because it pushes the water straight from the
Atlantic into the bay. Directly into Biscayne
Bay. This created a massive storm surge. A 10
-foot wall of water swept over Miami Beach and
extended blocks into the city of Miami. The water
from the Atlantic effectively met the water from
the bay. It was a catastrophe. The devastation
statistics. They're hard to wrap your head around,
even today. They're staggering. The Red Cross
reported 372 deaths, but historians estimate
the real number was likely much, much higher.
Right, because of all the uncounted workers.
Exactly. So many transient laborers weren't counted
in official records. It could have been over
500. And then over 6 ,000 injuries. And the financial
cost... In 1926 dollars, it was estimated at
105 million dollars. Which is just a massive
amount of money for that time. It's astronomical.
If you adjust that for inflation and wealth to
today's landscape, we're talking about damages
that would exceed 164 billion dollars. Wow. Effectively
ended the 1920s land boom, the party was over,
the bubble had burst. And this is where the University
of Miami enters the picture. Because the university
wasn't founded decades later in memory of this
storm, it was right there trying to take its
first breath when this happened. Exactly. The
University of Miami was founded in 1925. The
Great Miami Hurricane hit in September 1926.
It actually delayed the opening of their very
first fall semester. Talk about a rough start.
You're trying to launch a brand new university
and your city gets leveled days before classes
are supposed to start. It's the definition of
a baptism by fire, or in this case by wind and
water. The university wasn't just named after
storms. It was literally born in the wreckage
of one. I can't imagine. The campus must have
been a mess. Covered in debris. The economy that
was supposed to support the school had completely
collapsed. And that timing, that's what makes
the whole identity so potent. OK, so let's talk
about that name, the hurricanes. How did that
stick? Because usually when a city is destroyed
by something, people want to forget it. They
don't want to be reminded of the trauma every
Saturday on the football field. That's what's
so fascinating. It's this incredible psychological
pivot. The legend goes that the 1927 football
team held a meeting to choose a name. Now you
have to imagine the scene. The university dignitaries,
you know, the people concerned with image and
tourism and marketing, they wanted something
pleasant. Something safe. Right. They were pushing
for names based on local flora or fauna. I can't
imagine the University of Miami Hibiscus striking
fear into the hearts of opponents. or like the
University of Miami Pelican. Exactly. It doesn't
quite have that badge. And apparently, the players
couldn't imagine it either. There's a famous
story about a player named Porter Norris, who
was an end on that 1926 team, when he heard these
soft, nature -based names being suggested. He
reportedly stood up and said the players wouldn't
stand for it. Good for him. And he suggested
hurricanes, specifically because their opening
game had been postponed by the storm. It's a
reclaiming of power, isn't it? Precisely. It
is psychological judo. Instead of fearing the
force that destroyed their city and delayed their
start, they adopted it. They took the chaos and
they made it their own. And it caught on. It
did. By 1929, the student newspaper had officially
renamed itself the Miami Hurricane. The identity
was set in stone. And you can't have the Hurricanes
without the mascot. And Miami has one of the
most unique and I would say misunderstood mascots
in all of college sports. Sebastian the Ibis.
Sebastian is an icon. But you're right, on the
surface, it is a bit confusing. An ibis is a
marsh bird. Right, a long -legged waiting bird.
It doesn't exactly look like a killer. So why
the ibis? It's all about the folklore. It's rooted
in folklore that's specific to the Everglades,
though some people trace the symbolism all the
way back to ancient Egypt, where the ibis was
associated with Thoth, the god of wisdom. OK.
But for the University of Miami, the legend is
that the ibis is the last wildlife to take shelter
before a hurricane hits. And the first to reappear
after the storm passes. Exactly. So it's a symbol
of resilience. It represents the ability to weather
the storm. The Ibis stands firm until the last
possible second and is the first sign that life
is going to go on after the destruction. It's
the perfect counterpart to the chaotic energy
of a hurricane. You have the storm and you have
the survivor. And Sebastian? Well, Sebastian
hasn't always looked the way he does now. He's
got quite an evolution. He does. The character
demands swagger now, but the early versions were
very humble. In 1957, a dorm called San Sebastian
Hall sponsored an IDES entry in the homecoming
celebration. And that's where the name comes
from. That's where the name Sebastian comes from.
It was named after the residence hall. I love
that. It's not named after some mythical hero,
but a dorm building. And the costume. Mm -hmm.
Well, the early versions were rough. In 1958,
a student named John Stormont created a costume
that was basically glued, sewn, and pinned together.
They actually called it icky. Icky? That doesn't
exactly scream national champion. No, the swagger
definitely came later. But it's important to
note that performing as Sebastian today is a
very serious business. There are strict physical
requirements. I've heard this. You have to be
a certain height. Right. You have to be between
five foot eight and six foot three to fit the
suit properly. And there's a code of silence.
Like a superhero's secret identity. Exactly.
The students who perform as Sebastian are not
allowed to reveal their identity until they graduate.
It maintains the mystique. The character demands
a certain attitude, that famous U -swagger. You
have to be able to command an entire stadium
without ever saying a word. Okay, so we have
the name. Born from the 1926 disaster, we have
the mascot symbolizing resilience in the face
of that disaster. But the University of Miami's
connection to weather goes way, way deeper than
just Saturday football games. This place is a
legitimate scientific heavyweight. It is. And
this is where we shift from symbolism to hard
science. We had to talk about the Rosenstiel
School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science.
Which is located out on Virginia Key, right?
Yes, just off the mainland. And it is a powerhouse
for oceanographic and atmospheric research. Their
entire mission is fundamentally about understanding
the natural processes that affect weather and
climate. And because of where they're located,
I mean, literally in the tropics, surrounded
by warm water, they specialize in tropical meteorology,
cloud processes, and climate dynamics. So basically,
they studied the very monsters that the football
team is named after. And they don't do it alone.
There's a massive partnership there called CMOS.
That's the Cooperative Institute for Marine and
Atmospheric Studies. Right. And CMIS is a center
of excellence that's linked directly with the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Or NOAA. NOAA, yes. This partnership is crucial
because it focuses on what we in the field call
transitioning research into operations. What
does that mean in plain English for us? It means
they aren't just doing theoretical math on a
whiteboard just for the sake of publishing a
paper. They're taking that science and turning
it into practical, usable tools that help forecast
storms. They're working on improving the models
that predict where a hurricane will go and how
strong it will get. They're doing the work that
helps prevent another 1926 scenario where people
are caught completely unaware. And speaking of
forecasting, there's a really cool historical
nugget here that I think a lot of people just
don't realize. For a long, long time, the National
Hurricane Center, the place that the entire country
looks to when a storm is brewing, was literally
on the UM campus. It was. This is a fascinating
chapter in meteorological history. In 1943, hurricane
forecasting officially became centered in Miami.
But in 1964, the National Hurricane Center and
the Miami Weather Bureau Office moved into the
University of Miami computer building in Coral
Gables. So you had the federal government's top
hurricane experts sharing a hallway with university
researchers. Exactly. It created this incredible
synergy, this feedback loop of ideas and data.
And they stayed there until 1995. What happened
in 95? Well, the reason they moved was Hurricane
Andrew in 1992. Andrew damaged the radar in the
facilities, and they realized they needed a true
bunker. a hurricane -hardened facility which
they eventually built at Florida International
University. But for those crucial decades, the
60s, 70s, 80s, the heart of hurricane hunting
was beating right there in Coral Gables. And
just think about how much the technology changed
during that time. If you look at the snapshots
of history from that era, it's just wild to see
how far we've come. It's a journey from analog
to digital, truly. In the 1950s, before they
even moved to the campus, all the weather data
was moving via teletype machines. Clack, clack,
clack. That old sound. That's it. And telephone
circuits. Then in 1959... The radar era really
begins. The very first WSR57, which stands for
Weather Surveillance Radar 1957, was commissioned
at the Miami office. And I've seen pictures of
this. It doesn't look anything like the computer
screens we have now with the colorful maps. No,
not at all. Forecasters used grease pencils.
They would literally trace the storms directly
on the radar screens. They'd physically draw
the outer bands and the eye on the glass to track
the movement. That feels so tactile, so hands
-on. It was. And then you move into the 60s and
70s and the satellite era arrives. You get Tyros,
Nimbus, the Go -Away satellites. Suddenly we
aren't blind in the Atlantic anymore like they
were in 1926. We can see them coming. But even
then, the images were received via phone lines
on these special processors. It was an instant
high -def video like we get on our phones today.
And there was the famous wall map. The wall map.
In the operations area, They had this massive
map where legends like Dr. Neil Frank would track
the entire season's activity. It was the focal
point of the whole room. It was where the story
of the hurricane season was told pin by pin,
line by line. There is one other piece of tech,
or maybe old school tech is a better word for
it, that I think is really cool. The amateur
radio station. WX4NHC. Sounds like a license
plate. It's a call sign. It was established in
1980 at the National Hurricane Center. And even
today, in the age of satellites and supercomputers,
this is vital. When a storm is within 300 miles
of landfall, ham radio operators activate. Why?
I mean, what can they do that a satellite can't?
Ground truth. That's the key. Satellites can
tell you cloud top temperatures. Radar can tell
you rain density. But a ham radio operator can
say... I am looking out my window and a tree
just snaps, or the water is up to my front step
right now. They provide eyewitness damage reports
and real -time data that fills in the gaps of
what the remote sensing is seeing. It brings
the human element back into the data. Exactly.
It's like crowdsourcing survival information.
It's incredible. That is incredible. Now, before
we move on, I want to address a bit of a rumor,
a myth. Really? That's been floating around.
Ah, we talked about Kate. We are talking about
Hurricane Kate. If you dig into the UM lore,
sometimes you see references, even in some student
newspapers, like an article from 2007 referring
to that 1926 storm as Hurricane Kate. Yeah, we
need to debunk this immediately. There was no
Hurricane Kate in 1926. So where in the world
does that come from? It's most likely a retrospective
error or maybe confusion with a much later storm.
But historically, it is completely impossible.
Because we weren't naming storms back then. Correct.
In the 1920s, storms were tracked by their latitude
and longitude. This will be the storm at 25 North
80 West. Exactly. Which, as you can imagine,
is cumbersome. And it's really prone to error.
If you have two storms active at the same time,
say one in the Gulf of Mexico and one in the
Atlantic, and a radio broadcaster says the storm
at 25 North, a listener might get confused about
which storm they actually mean. That sounds really
dangerous. It was. Confusion spreads rumors and
can lead to bad decisions. That is actually why
naming started in the first place. It was to
streamline communication and avoid that very
confusion. The U .S. officially began using female
names in 1953. 1953, so almost 30 years after
the 1926 storm. Right. And then in 1979, they
added male names to the Atlantic list to be more
equitable. So CATE is definitely a modern invention
or just a mistake. The 1926 storm is simply known
as the Great Miami Hurricane. And speaking of
names, you mentioned retired names earlier. It's
a similar concept of memory, right? Yes. When
a storm is particularly deadly or costly, the
names retired from the six year rotation out
of sensitivity. Names like Andrew, Katrina, Ian,
Helene, or Milton. You won't see those names
used for an Atlantic storm again. It's a way
of honoring the history and the tragedy associated
with them. Okay, so we've got the history, the
science, the myth busting. Now let's bring it
all back to the present, back to the field. Because
this Monday, the Hurricanes take the field. And
when they do, they're carrying all of this history
with them. They really are. The Hurricanes name
isn't just a label on a jersey. It's evolved
into a style of play, a philosophy. It's that
championship DNA you hear about. Exactly. If
you look at their history, the national championships
in 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991, and that legendary
2001 team, those teams didn't just win. They
swarmed people. They played with the chaotic,
high -pressure energy that really mirrored the
storm they were named after. The 1983 championship
is the perfect example, the miracle in Miami.
A true underdog story. They were playing Nebraska,
a team that was considered unbeatable, just one
of the greatest college teams ever assembled.
And Miami... This program that had almost been
dropped just a few years prior rose up like a
sudden storm and shocked the entire world. It
was a turning point for the program. And the
atmosphere they create. I mean, the entrance
smoke. That is one of the best traditions in
all of college football and has such a great
origin story. It started back in the 1950s. A
man named Bob Nolette, who was the transportation
director at the time, wanted to spice up the
entrance. So you use fire extinguishers to create
this white cloud. And it looks exactly like a
storm surge or a cloud wall rolling in. It mimics
the chaos and the power of a hurricane landfall.
The players running through that whiteout. It's
intimidating. It signals to everyone in the stadium
that the storm has arrived. And then there's
the four fingers tradition. At the start of the
fourth quarter, players and fans hold up four
fingers. What does that symbolize to you from
this meteorological perspective we've been talking
about? Well, in football terms, it means the
game is won or lost in the final period. It's
about endurance and finishing strong. But if
we connect it to our theme today, surviving a
hurricane is all about endurance. It's about
getting through the first eye wall, getting through
the deceptive lull, and then surviving the backside
of the storm. You have to last until the very
end. You have to win the fourth quarter of the
storm. Exactly. Holding up those four fingers
is a statement. It says, we are still here. We
are still standing and we're going to finish
this. That is really powerful. It ties it all
together so perfectly. It does. It shows that
this identity is so cohesive. From the tragedy
of 1926 to the research labs at Rosenstile to
the smoke in the tunnel, it is all one continuous
story. So as we wrap up this deep dive, let's
just look at the big picture here. The big picture
is resilience. The University of Miami is truly
a storm -built institution. The city was leveled
in 1926. It could have folded. The university
could have failed before it even properly opened.
But instead, they took the name of the very thing
that destroyed them. They wore it on their chests.
And then they decided to study it, to master
the science of it. And now they represent that
city on the national stage. Precisely. The name
stands for so much more than a football team
It represents a city's ability to rebuild to
adapt and to eventually study and understand
the very forces that threaten it It's a cycle
of destruction and creation, of chaos and knowledge.
So whether you're watching the game this Monday
or watching the skies during hurricane season,
remember, meteorology matters. It certainly does.
If you want to track the weather yourself or
just learn more about hurricane history, make
sure to follow meteorologist Rob Jones. You can
find him on Instagram at meteorologist. That
is a nice and easy one to remember. Great handle.
On TikTok, look for TV meteorologist and on YouTube,
follow Rob Jones hurricane. You can find the
full Meteorology Matters podcast. playlist there
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conversations coming. We appreciate you listening.
Enjoy the championship game, stay curious, and
we will catch you on the next one. Stay safe
out there.