While conversations about the weather can all too often come at awkward, even uncomfortable, times, they usually give 16-year-old Michael Page goose bumps and an adrenaline rush.
In fact, questions on the subject are exactly what the Hingham High School sophomore is used to hearing from his schoolmates and teachers, mostly from those wondering whether they'll have football practice or whether they should proceed with that fishing trip for the weekend.
And there's nothing Page would rather talk about. With his website, hinghamweather.com, receiving more than 1,000 hits per day and a reputation with Boston meteorologists as a reliable source for weather readings between the Hub and the Cape, Page has become something of a local weather-watching phenomenon. And he's not the first climate-crazed teenager to sprout on the South Shore.
For Page, it all started during a blizzard three years ago this month as the powder piled up outside the Page home in Hingham and the meteorologists at WBZ-TV (Channel 4) asked viewers to fetch a yardstick and call in their local snow accumulations. Seeing his readings and observations on TV gave him a rush, Page said recently.
"I had never seen Hingham on the news before," said Page, who soon found himself eager to learn more about the science of weather. "The more I could forecast, the more I got addicted."
He soon launched his website and engrossed himself in weather-loving networks online. Inside and outside of his parents' home, he sprinkled temperature- and precipitation-gauging gadgets, including thermometers, hygrometers, anemometers, barometers, and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hazard radio. He uses these instruments to take readings, which he calls into WBZ-TV, WCVB-TV (Channel 5), and WHDH-TV (Channel 7) in Boston at least once a day.
Harvey Leonard, a meteorologist at Channel 5, said the station has about 10 weather spotters who call in daily like Page, plus about 50 e-mails a day. "Many will call when the weather is eventful but not when it's not," Leonard said. "There are often times when you are having significant events -- like a big storm -- when, more than ever, the local weather watchers are important to fill the blanks for us."
Leonard said that while the National Weather Service provides readings every hour from reporting stations scattered throughout the region, there are sometimes huge gaps of miles between them that are unaccounted for. "Many times, it can be snowing in Boston and raining in Marshfield, and we're trying to estimate where the rain/snow line is," he said. "Nothing matches someone like Michael calling in and saying, 'Rain just changed to snow.' And his info is solid -- we're always comfortable when we use his information on the air."
While Leonard is impressed by the fact that Page could track a cold front before he got his driving permit, he is not surprised. That's because many who are serious about weather-watching start to show a great interest at a young age, he said.
Easton native Josh Nichols, a meteorologist at WHEC- TV in Rochester, N.Y., for example, began calling Boston stations when he was around the same age as Page is now, before eventually landing an internship with Leonard when the seasoned weatherman worked at Channel 7.
"Weather on the South Shore is always different from Boston and Cape Cod," said Nichols, 28. "I thought calling in would be a great way to get the word out about the microclimate in Easton."
Another of Leonard's former interns, Lee Goldberg, 34, started his career at Canton's Cable 8 -- at age 13.
"After my local paper in Canton did a story on me, they said, 'Why don't you come on to the cable station?' So I went in -- with my braces, bar mitzvah suit -- and went on the air, mimicking the local weather guys in town," said Goldberg, who would later earn the nickname "Lee-mometer" while attending Cornell University and working on-air at WSTM-TV in Syracuse. "There was something about weather that really jazzed me."
In October, Goldberg was named the chief meteorologist at WABC in New York City, making him one of the top meteorologists on TV in the country.
So what is it about this region that seems to have produced such experts on precipitation and relative humidity?
Nichols says it's the variety of weather conditions here.
"Whether you live on the coast or inland south of Boston, you're in a prime zone for everything from ocean-effect snow to extreme chill on long clear nights to hot days in the summertime," he said. "I think there's a multifaceted kind of weather regime taking place. In metro south, we have so many microclimates -- swampy areas to higher terrain northwest of Easton, plus proximity to Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic. It tends to be an area that we can take note of for weather."
Goldberg agrees the area's diverse geographical and weather conditions could be cause for local weather wannabes. But he says the community also plays a large role.
"The school system, at least in Canton, has an incredible math program. Local schools and cable stations are helpful. The towns pretty much spoon-fed it to me, and the people in the community got behind what I wanted to do. They're great to their kids."
Page has already had a taste of the benefits and support. He has received mentoring from several Boston meteorologists, has access to the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in Milton, and has visited the National Weather Service office in Taunton. He said his teachers are accommodating when snow hits, usually letting him use their computers to give breaking storm-related news to the class -- and they don't question when the straight-A student is gazing out the window during a lecture.
Besides the local weather, Page's website -- which he developed himself through trial and error -- features a five-day audio forecast, a podcast, picture contests, boating conditions, airport delays, and links to outlooks in other parts of the world. What makes hinghamweather.com stand out, he says, is the personal touch he gives to it -- for instance, a personalized weather forecast for travelers that will follow the course of their trip.
"I update my site frequently," he said. "People can get all the local information that they need, and there's a sense that there is actually a real person behind this. If you go to weather.com, that's just a computer spewing out forecasts -- it's not personal."
He said he can trace hits to his site through IP addresses, noting he gets many international visitors. During a blizzard last winter, the site got an unprecedented 14,000 hits, which Page believes was the result of someone promoting his site through a blog.
In school, Page for now will continue to concentrate on advanced math and science electives and is beginning to consider where he would like to go to college. He is focusing primarily on New England, which he calls "a weatherman's dream."
"A lot of kids don't know what to do or have anything to be passionate about," he said. "The weather is my place away from reality. I'm always tuned in to the weather, no matter what I'm doing, or where I am."