MKY weather man

Story by Ethan Mitchell

Photo by Rebeca Mertins Chiodini

During the winter, many people are often checking the weather radar or tuning in to the local weather station to see accurate forecasts for the upcoming week. Being prepared for snow or rain is essential to a lot of people’s work or daily routines, and if these forecasts are inaccurate, it can make someone’s life a little harder. 

Justin Holland is the Geographic Information System and safety coordinator at Murray Electric System, but he also is the owner of the Murray/Calloway County Weather Facebook page. Created to keep people safe from the weather and help others, this page has been available for 10 years. Since creating it in 2013, Holland has provided the community with accurate weather forecasts from not only the Facebook page but also his texting service.  

“I send out important texts when active or severe weather is occurring,” Holland said. “People love it.” 

He calls his $1 texting service the thing he is most proud of since beginning his weather page.  

Working alongside the Paducah National Weather Service, Holland is the co-op weather observer for Calloway County.

“I started at a very young age, started watching The Weather Channel because I was fascinated by all the colorful weather maps and all the pictures and all the videos that they showed of storms and and alter tornadoes and stuff. I just fell in love with it,” Holland said. 

Part of running the Facebook page is reporting what the daily temperatures and precipitation levels will be. Holland does not have any type of meteorology degree. Instead, he graduated from Murray State with a master’s degree in earth science.  

“The hardest to forecast is winter precipitation,” Holland said.  

While his favorite types of weather to track are severe storms and winter storms, they can  prove to be very difficult. 

“Murray always seems to be right on the border of precipitation types in the winter,” Holland said. “It is hard to forecast that until about twenty four hours out.” 

Holland also has local sponsors that support his page. 

“I was approached by a business a few years ago to run their business logo, and they had very good success from it,” he said.

Holland has had weather sponsors ever since.  

Nicole Burcham has known Holland for nearly 10 years, and her business, Seventh Hour Living, is one of his weather sponsors. Burcham said she appreciates Holland’s page for the different things he provides while also reporting on the weather. 

“He does not feed into myths like heat lightning and also explains the weather educationally,” she said. 

Murray/Calloway County Weather is her go-to weather service, and she said it is the “most reliable in terms of honest weather reports.”

“I started it so local people could stay informed of the forecast and weather information from a local source,” Holland said.

Fifteen thousand people now follow Holland’s page for that exact reason.