Mike Morgan (meteorologist)

:This article is about the American television meteorologist. For the unrelated former Oklahoma State Senator, see . For other persons named Mike Morgan, see .
Michael Charles Carroll Morgan (born 1963 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American television meteorologist. Since January 1993, he has served as a meteorologist for KFOR-TV (channel 4), an NBC-affiliated television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Morgan - who, as its chief meteorologist, does weather segments for KFOR's 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts each weeknight, in addition to helming the station's severe weather coverage - is a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Weather Association (NWA).
Early life and career
Morgan was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Morgan gained his first experience tracking weather on June 8, 1974, at age 10, when his father took him on an amateur storm chase as a thunderstorm that produced five strong tornadoes in the Tulsa area (including an F3 that caused significant damage in the city's Brookside district, and an F4 that tracked from southwest of Drumright to west of Skiatook). The two parked near Oral Roberts University, as an F3 tornado that touched down near Sapulpa passed just northwest of the university.
In 1977, 13-year-old Morgan was a volunteer observer with , where he learned about the meteorological profession first-hand (he was taught to operate weather radar at age 15). Two years later, at 15, he became an intern at Tulsa ABC affiliate KTUL (channel 8), where he was mentored by the station's longtime chief meteorologist Don Woods. Morgan talked Woods into allowing him - accompanied by Morgan's father - to chase and photograph storms for the station.
Morgan joined KFOR-TV on January 1, 1993, and became chief meteorologist within months of joining the station. At KFOR, Morgan also implemented newer forecasting and storm tracking technology (such as "First Video," a system similar to the KOCO "First Pix" system that disseminated frame-by-frame moving video via cellular phone lines, and "The Edge," a radar with near-real-time updated scans and satellite mapping, which Morgan claimed in 2000, provided faster updates of "20 to 25 minutes" ahead of the NEXRAD data used by KFOR's principal competitors, a claim disputed by then-KWTV weekend meteorologist Brady Brus and then-KOCO chief meteorologist Rick Mitchell) Morgan has been criticized by local meteorologists for a perceived "sky-is-falling" approach to tornado coverage, either by providing too much coverage of tornadoes that do not pose an immediate life and property threat or by misidentifying benign cloud formations in thunderstorms (an issue that led to the firing of a KFOR storm chaser in 1993).
On May 31, 2013, with memories of the devastation caused by the EF5 tornado that struck Moore eleven days before still fresh in the minds of Oklahomans, Morgan faced criticism for advising Oklahoma City-area residents that did not have an underground storm shelter or safe room to evacuate south of the projected path of a destructive EF3 tornado that was forecast to move into the city by vehicle. This advice was contrary to standard tornado safety procedures, which recommend escaping a tornado in a car only as a last resort and if the storm is, at least, of significant distance from their location. (Estimates projected that the tornado could have easily killed over 500 people in the heavily congested area highways, had it not lifted before entering the city's outlying western suburbs.) Morgan responded to the criticism, that "full well knowing that tornado was a very large violent monster and moving directly towards , I was, for lack of a better word, to help you in any way I could. Your safety is my/our number 1 priority, and that will never change."
Awards and honors
Over his career, Morgan has earned numerous regional and national awards chronicle his on-air severe weather coverage, having been honored with several Radio-Television News Directors Association awards, as well as five Regional Emmy Award wins and eleven nominations. He has also received the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters Award for "Best 10 p.m. Weathercast" eleven times since 2000 (seven of those years consecutive). Morgan was presented with the Oklahoma Humanitarian Award by former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating for KFOR's coverage of the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak on May 3, 1999.
Morgan, along with Gary England and KOCO chief meteorologist Damon Lane, received the Lee Allan Smith Spirit of Oklahoma Award from Oklahoma Christian University in 2013, for their efforts in covering the tornadoes that struck central Oklahoma on May 19, 20 and 31 of that year.
Personal life
Morgan currently resides in Edmond, Oklahoma. Since 1991, he has been married to Marla McCullough, with whom he has a son and daughter.

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