John Wheeler

John Wheeler

Meteorologist

John Wheeler is Chief Meteorologist for WDAY, a position he has had since May of 1985. Wheeler grew up in the South, in Louisiana and Alabama, and cites his family's move to the Midwest as important to developing his fascination with weather and climate. Wheeler lived in Wisconsin and Iowa as a teenager. He attended Iowa State University and achieved a B.S. degree in Meteorology in 1984. Wheeler worked about a year at WOI-TV in central Iowa before moving to Fargo and WDAY..

Wheeler covers weather for WDAY TV and radio, as well as for The Forum and for inforum.com. Most meteorologists find stormy and extreme weather fascinating and Wheeler is no exception, but his biggest interest is severe winter weather.

When making a post on social media about how cold it is here, the wind chill number is used much more frequently than the actual air temperature.
Our memories tend to retain the more impactful winter weather because it is more memorable.
Cold Weather Advisories have higher thresholds in warmer climates
Mercury is toxic to the touch and would be dangerous should the thermometer bulb break.
The three elements are advection, radiation, and mixing.
The boiling temperature of water on Mars is actually lower than the freezing point.
Fargo-Moorhead has recorded 12 days warmer than 32 degrees and Grand Forks has recorded 11.
Most of the Dust Bowl-era winters in our region were mild and dry, with very little snow and many days well above freezing.
This can give the false impression that metal objects are much colder than other objects.
These high winds are focused in the canyons and do not impact all of coastal California evenly.