By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER

It’s early April 2025, and Lynchburg native Christopher King is up by 6 a.m. giving severe weather updates on his public service severe weather Facebook page. He’s not seeing any tornado threats, yet, but several severe thunderstorms with straight line winds and potential hail are headed this way. By around 6 p.m. the storms dissipate, and he gives the all clear.

It’s just a day in the life of a self-proclaimed weather junkie looking to do a little good in the communities he loves.

King is a Lynchburg native who graduated from Moore County High School in 2003. He says his interest in meteorology began in childhood while watching WHNT Channel 19 chief meteorologist Dan Satterfield.

“My parents used to tell people that when other kids were watching cartoons, I was tuned into the Weather Channel,” he jokes. “Anytime a severe weather event was happening either in North Alabama or Southern Middle Tennessee, Dan would be on TV warning people. He did it in a way that he explained the science behind it. No one else at the time was explaining it the way he did, and that’s what really ignited a passion for me.”

King now lives in nearby Tullahoma with his wife and two kids. He teaches a West Middle School as a seventh grade math teacher.

Closing the gap in weather coverage

King says he started covering live, weather events because it felt, at times, that our rural communities weren’t getting the attention they deserved.

“We’re on the southern tier of the Nashville network and the northern tier of the Huntsville network, so we can get left out – especially when multiple severe weather events are happening simultaneously,” he says.

In 2010, he began reporting on weather events from his personal Facebook page to fill the gap. Then in 2017, he launched his weather page, Christopher King WX.

“I felt that it could help impact more people around me that weren’t just my friends on Facebook,” King says. “It also gave the public something very specific to our area that nobody else was really doing at the time. Also setting up a weather page gave me the capability to do more things from a live stream standpoint.”

The Christopher King WX page focuses on severe weather events like tornadoes, damaging, wind, hail, and snow instead of the daily forecast. His goal is to give locals as much advanced warning as possible. He also live streams during weather events to keep the information timely and accurate.

“I have been told on several occasions that I’m kind of like Batman. I only come out when needed.”

A source you know and trust

He also says there’s a lot of weather misinformation and that he felt that if it came from someone his viewers knew personally, they’d trust it and take it seriously. It hit his bullseye. Kings says people have told him that they use his info to keep their families safe, which is what really matters most to him.

He uses the typical sources – the Storm Prediction Center, the National Weather Service, and the same forecast models that all meteorologists use – to pinpoint activity while adding a hyper-local focus.

He also says it’s important not to overhype weather events – all while helping people stay calm and grounded during high-stress situations.

“Most of my information I share is time sensitive, and foremost I stick to the facts,” he says. “It’s easy to create fear where fear isn’t needed, so I choose my words very wisely. I always remain calm because if I don’t, that creates unnecessary anxiety.”

He also says that his years of experience helps him to know exactly what information needs to be passed on, and what can muddy the waters. He says he tries to keep things simple and easily digestible – just like Dan Satterfield did for him when he was a kid.

He also says he’s trying in a way to teach weather fundamentals, so that locals feel empowered to monitor weather events themselves and know what to look for in the raw data.

“But it’s not like I’m trying to work myself out of a job,” he jokes.

Kings says covering weather in a rural, small town is vital, but he also wishes people knew the importance of owning NOAA Weather Radios.

“In 2016 an EF0 tornado passed about 100 yards from my house and caused damage in the surrounding neighborhoods. I knew what was happening because of my weather radio and police scanner. All other lines of communication were down or jammed,” Kings says. “Having something as simple as that weather radio can keep you informed when the worst-case scenario hits.”

Time, energy, and emotional bandwidth

Running a volunteer weather page is a lot of hard work. It takes time, energy, and emotional bandwidth – especially when storms hit, and storms are hitting more often and with more severity. King says his passion and desire to keep his friends and neighbors safe are what keep him going.

“Growing up our severe weather season only lasted in March, April and May. Now we seem to have bouts of severe weather starting in November and running through May,” Kings says. “What keeps me going are the people that follow me giving me positive feedback and letting me know that what I do matters to them.”

When we ask about the future for his public service Facebook page, King says he’d really like to connect with and assist county and city governments as well as local emergency management types in Southern Middle Tennessee with weather information to help more citizens become weather aware. He also says he’d be open to others joining his team to increase his reach.

Though he now lives in Bedford County, Kings says Lynchburg is never far from his heart, and that he maintains relationships with locals that keep him grounded. He says it will always feel like home, and the people here will always feel like family.

He also encourages other “weather junkies” to start their own pages because there can never be too much good information, especially with something so potentially dangerous as severe weather.

“I often tell my students that while I don’t know what job or career they will have. I do know what it should look like. It’s at the intersection of your passions and talents that you’ll find your purpose in life.”

If you’d like to follow King’s weather page on Facebook, you can find it by clicking here. He’s followed by over 2,000 area users. •

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