Kai Risdahl

But when he got a job at a local station in college, he realized he didn't like the constraints of TV.

So he quit and did other things for a while before starting the YouTube channel.

One of our first streams for severe weather was the Mayfield, Kentucky tornado, which is like one of the deadliest and worst tornadoes the United States has seen in a very long time.

And we were alive for that while a lot of other networks weren't because it was like in the middle of the night.

And we helped a lot of people that night.

It was after that, in 2021, that Ryan Hall y'all exploded, and he started doing it full-time.

These days, he says, the channel generates millions of dollars a year through ads, sponsorships, and merch, and employs about 30 people, both full-time and contract.

I say I took a non-traditional path into meteorology, and I think it's opened up a door where this is a real career path now for people who want to get into, you know, doing the weather, not on TV.

Hall is an outlier, though.

Most people running their own online weather accounts are not making that kind of money.

But increasingly, many are making a name and a living doing forecasting online.

I always say we're at the golden age of meteorology because so much data is at your fingertips and so much opportunities are at your fingertips.

Stephen DiMartino is a meteorologist who started his own account focused on New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania weather back in 2007.

When like YouTube was like cat videos and Twitter had like five people on it.

He's always had other jobs too, but today he has tens of thousands of followers on social media and says he could do this full time now.

It's kind of like a 20-year overnight success type thing.

I always tell young meteorologists, look, build this, but also have other income to supplement.

It takes time because what you're doing is you have to build trust.

Trust is key in a world where anyone can post a forecast online.

Social media is like kind of a choose-your-own-adventure during weather events.