Another Well Known Figure Among Us !!
 

First of all, I sincerely apologize to this individual if he is trying to maintain a "low profile"!!

Was watching WBZ TV (Boston) last night and low and behold they did a short interview segment with none other than the famous Don Kent (notable New England weatherman). Unfortunately, I missed the majority of the segment but DID catch the fact that Don is now residing in Laconia.

If you are among us here Mr Kent, you are a legand in our household. I grew up watching (& listening on the radio) your forecasts with the old "chalk board" maps, etc.

Don Kent was the best. I loved him and Jack Chase on channel 4.

A True Legend indeed...
 

If you didn't see it on WBZ, here is the link to a nice piece by Barry Burbank and the video interview with Mish Michaels is in the upper right hand corner of the page. He's 91 years old and has been married for 68 years!

http://wbztv.com/weatherfeatures/don....2.957787.html

BT

Thanks Blue Thunder for posting this. Don Kent continues to amaze me, and to have him and his wife living here in Laconia! WOW!

What a great video piece. He still sounds the same.

R2B

Great Thread !
 

Wow, this is a trip down memory lane. Our oldest son was born in the big storm, that was on 1/21/78. I seem to remember in was about 20 inches. Just a week or two before the Blizzard of 78.

(EDIT)
(I knew I could find the 1/21/78 storm) http://www.celebrateboston.com/disas...zardof1978.htm

I loved those old clips and hearing Don Kent's voice again was wonderful. Growing up in Saugus, Don Kent was "the weatherman".

He looks real good for 91. What a thrill to have him here in the Lakes Region.

Nice post Phantom and BT.

Downeaster Weather Instruments
 

Not having grown up in New England, I didn't know who Don Kent was, but when I purchased my home in NH a few years ago, I noticed that there was a nice-looking set of weather instruments (wind direction, wind speed, barometer, etc.) in a wooden case mounted on the wall with connections running up to the roof. It wasn't working anymore, but when I did some research on it (the "Downeaster" name was mentioned on it), I learned that Don Kent had founded this company in the 60s. It was only then that I read his story. Not sure how common these instruments were, but I would love to get them working again.

I remember an interview where Don Kent said something to the effect, after you check all the charts and make all the calculations ALWAYS look out the window before giving an on the air forcast. People don't want to hear is partly cloudy while they are shoveling 6 inches of snow.

Where is your house where the unit is installed?

What made me laugh-- I've said to my wife many a time that I want to be a weatherman, not that I have ANY skills in that area --BUT-- There is no other job where you can be wrong so many times and still get paid!! Wouldn't ya know it -- in the interview Don Kent said it -- almost word for word.

Don -- are you among us in this forum??? fess up! :)

I think we all loved Don Kent. He was the best. I don't know anyone who didn't like him.

I always thought this was a known fact. Seems I can remember Don Kent giving lakes region weather years ago on some station in the area, no idea which one it was.

fond memory
 

As a youngster growing up in Reading MA, and hearing Don Kent on "BZ" (why did we have to drop the W????? :rolleye1:), I remember his forecast for one day as being some occasional snow flurries, and the next day he stated he had received a call from a viewer, letting Don know he had shovelled off 15 inches of snow flurries from his driveway. :) It was said with a smile, and a reminder to all of us viewers that Nature will do what it wants to do.

Glad he is well.

May the weather people of today do their job with the down to earth genuineness that Don Kent personified.

More About Don Kent....
 

in this weather thread; http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/...9757#post59757
Posts, 119-124

blizard of 78
 

i could be wrong but i know there was only one weatherman who accurately forcasted the 78 blizard and i think it was don kent,,

I remember [sort of ] my 3rd grade class trip .Middleton ,ma. to the boston common for some kind of fair,around 1958 or 1959. there was a new disc jockey in town and he was there to show us around and to get known in the area ,as he had just started with WBZ..He taught me how to milk a cow...his name was Dave Maynard !

I seem to remember Don owned a house on an island (or the whole island) in Boothbay Harbor many years ago. And the Chase brothers, wow, we used to party at the old Playboy Club in Boston back in the 60s.

Isn't that Don Kent still doing the weather on NECN, weekdays at noon, from his NH hilltop home?

It would be nice to see maybe one day/week when the weather report drops the computer screen and goes back to a blackboard, chaulk, and the six state outline of New England. ... a little retro-weather report with a talky retro weather-man.

Anyone see the Don Kent bobble head doll? You wind it up, and it turns its' back on you and starts drawing pictures on a blackboard outline of New England!

Don did the local weather on WLNH in Laconia back in the 80's. He had retired and moved to Sanbornton during that same time. Glad to see hes still with us!

Melvin Village
 

I remember as a child back in the 60's that Don Kent (a weatherman, not a meteorologist as I recall) would very often cite the temperature in Melvin Village in his weather reports. As a Boston area kid I imagined it was some far off place in the NH wilderness - and in fact was more wilderness-like then than now... checking on a map I always wondered if Don had a place on the lake- or a buddy up there who'd call in the air temp for his weather reports via some exotic short wave radio, they certainly couldn't have telephones up there!

many moons ago...
 

I remember my mother and I watching Jack Chase and Don Kent on the news every morning before school. One morning we were surprised by a bald Jack Chase! They went to commercial and when they came back he had a full head of hair. With a chuckle, he immediately thanked his older brother for filling in. I don't think it had ever occurred to me that he wore a toupee - probably didn't even know what that meant - but I'll never forget how hard my mother was laughing!

I was working in Boston at the time, and living in Framingham. Believe me, the forecasts didn't call for anything of the sort. Until around 9 or 10:00 am, it was flurries or some snow. As the highway departments decided whether they would strike that day or not, the snow mounted up on the roadways.

hundreds of vehicles were stranded on Route 495. Most were abandoned. It took me 2 1/2 hours to make the journey home that day. The following day, it took me quite awhile to fine my car amidst the drifts. Nobody was a hero that day, especially the weathermen.

I'm sorry, VtSteve, I'm confused. I'm assuming you're referring to the Blizzard of 78, but I'm not certain which post this is in answer to, if any.

Thanks

In my opinion, he is replying to post #14. I agree with him on the one issue, the forecast the morning of the storm was for 1-3 inches of snow,(Boston). It wasn't until the storm was literally upon us that most of the forecasters started pulling out all the stops.

BT

If that's the case, I'd have to disagree

Scroll down to the usenet posting quoting Bob Copeland

also:
http://www.boston.com/news/weather/a...zzard_of_1978/

The timing was off, but the forecast was there from many of the meteorologists who were more comfortable relying on the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. Onset of precipitation can still be a very difficult variable to forecast.

I'm sorry Rose, what I meant to say was that I specifically remember listening to Don Kent on 'BZ Radio that Monday morning, forecast 1-3 inches of snow. I was a senior in High School at the time. I remember it like it was yesterday. Also, don't get me wrong, I truly feel that Don Kent is a legend as I posted earlier in this thread. I don't want to leave the wrong impression.

Blue Thunder

No worries, Blue Thunder. I just wasn't sure if VtSteve was referring to the Blizzard of 78, which was forecasted by some meteorologists, or the forgotten snowstorm of Jan. 20-21, 1978 that SteveA referred to, which was not forecasted.

With regards to Don Kent, my memory is not of his forecasts but of my parents constantly saying Don Kent was always wrong. :eek: But he certainly was a weather vanguard. I love this snippet from an interview of him by Eric Pinder: "But the going wasn’t easy at first—the Weather Bureau jealously guarded its treasure trove of data from private meteorologists like Kent, who were in effect competing with the Bureau. Kent began with no Teletype machine and thus, no easy way to get the data vital to a forecast. To learn what was going on, he bought some old ham radios and eavesdropped on airplane conversations between Boston and New York. The pilots would frequently ask about or relay the weather conditions and Kent would listen in and jot down the data on a map." Boy, have times changed. I can remember during the World Series in 2000, one of the National Weather Service forecasters in New York mentioned the "Subway Series" in a forecast discussion (a somewhat technical discussion of the reasoning behind the forecast not usually read by the general public but available to them). The private forecasting firms screamed bloody murder that the NWS was competing with them. [insert crybaby smiley here]

"WBZ-Boston"
 

I'm really glad to see your post! I only thought I recalled the same thing.

My Melvin Village grandmother would more often refer to "Don Kent says..." than mention the words "weather-report". This was back when the station would announce itself as, "WBZ-Boston—WBZA-Springfield".

(On a radio like this one: ) :)

http://www.oldradios.com/strat/strat004.jpg

That Jan 21-22 storm was the foundation for such deep snowpack after the Blizzard. We had 18 inches here in that one and then the Great Blizzard dumped the 30-36 inches on top of it. We plowed the roads with bulldozers and front end loaders, which by the way, weren't anywhere near as common as they are today. One for the ages, for sure. Thanks Rose.

BT

I'll have to dig out.
 

.. our copy of the Boston Globe for 1/21/1978. We have it saved somewhere :confused: because of our sons birth. I recall the headline was something like, Storm of the Century

Dear Rose....
 

I must add that my very large family, from NH VT MA CA FL UK SA AU and many others.... and Don got some forecasts wrong, but we would all put our bets on Don getting the forecasts right over any other weather forecaster, To This Very Day, here in NH and New England.

Just my $4.00 worth.

Thanks so much for the links, memory must be a wonderful thing:confused:

I didn't remember the earlier January storms either, merged them into one just as many have. But my memory of the February blizzard was not too bad.

Interesting how after this bad winter, it actually (so far), has ended pretty early.