DETROIT – Local 4 meteorologist Paul Gross was born in Detroit and has spent his entire life and career right here in southeast Michigan.
He was initially terrified by storms, but fear transitioned to fascination after his second grade teacher took him to the school library and pointed out a section of books about weather. The more Paul read about thunder and lightning, the more interested he became and, at the tender age of seven, he announced to his family that he was going to be a weatherman someday at Channel 4!
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Paul studied meteorology at the University of Michigan Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Science, an extra-challenging curriculum due to its location in the prestigious College of Engineering. During his sophomore year, WDIV meteorologist Mal Sillars selected Paul to be the first ever weather intern in station history. In the middle of his senior year, WDIV news director, Bob Warfield, took a chance on Paul and hired him to a part-time, off-camera position. Later that year, Paul added the on-air weekend meteorologist position at WJIM-TV (now WLNS-TV) in Lansing, and two years later he also earned the back-up meteorologist position at WKBD-TV when its Ten O’Clock News started.
By 1986, Paul was working on the air at all three television stations at the same time, and occasionally on two of those stations on the same day!
His passion for meteorology quickly earned him recognition among his peers, as Paul became one of the youngest meteorologists ever selected to serve on the American Meteorological Society’s Board of Broadcast Meteorology in 1987, and was named chairman in 1990. But it is Paul’s science and environmental reporting that has helped change the paradigm of broadcast meteorology.
Early in his career, Paul started pushing producers to let him work on science stories. Since that time, Paul has researched, written and produced eight half-hour documentaries for WDIV, as well as many science, historical and environmental stories. During this time, Paul kept preaching to his colleagues at conferences about the need to do more of the same type of work. Meanwhile, his work started earning Emmys and other awards, and even national attention when his documentary, “Forecast: Overlord,” the story about the weather’s impact on D-Day in World War II, was deemed so historically significant that it was added to the D-Day archives at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, the British Meteorological Archives, and the permanent collections of the Museums of Television and Radio History in New York and Chicago.
The American Meteorological Society acknowledged in 2006 that broadcast meteorologists needed to evolve into overall “station scientists,” and selected Paul to chair its new Committee on the Station Scientist, a position he held for seven years. Paul led the AMS’ national campaign to encourage and enable broadcast meteorologists to add more science and environmental material to their broadcasts.
One of Paul's most important professional accomplishments occurred after discovering in 1997 that Michigan law did not require public schools to conduct tornado safety drills. Paul contacted a state legislator, who agreed and introduced legislation to amend state law to require tornado drills. Paul testified before the State House and Senate Education Committees about the tornado threat in Michigan, and later joined Governor John Engler when the "Gross Weather Bill" was signed into law.
Paul has been awarded seven Emmys by the Michigan Chapter of the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences, and his 2014 live, forty-five minute climate change webcast that aired on ClickOnDetroit.com earned a first place award from the Michigan Association of Broadcasters.
A court qualified expert in meteorology, Paul also consults with the legal community in litigation involving meteorology, and has testified in over forty trials since 1986. Paul also follows the science of global warming very carefully, and frequently gives lectures to share the scientific truth about Earth’s changing climate.
Paul and his wife, Nancy, have two sons and one adorable goldfish that came home in a little baggie way back in 1998.
You can email Paul at paulg@wdiv.com.
PAUL'S FAVORITE 4
- Favorite Vacation Spot in Michigan: Charlevoix
- Favorite Book: The illustrated longitude
- Favorite Movie Apollo 13
- Favorite Song: Any Beatles song