Josh Morgerman

Joshua Morgerman (born January 21, 1970) is an American businessman, storm chaser, TV personality, and field correspondent best known for his multitude of tropical cyclone chases. Morgerman developed an interest in meteorology at an early age after seeing the effects of Hurricane Belle at his home in Long Island at age six. After graduating from Harvard University in 1992, he co-founded the digital advertising company Symblaze in 1999. His storm chasing career began in earnest in 2005 with Hurricane Wilma in Florida.

With no formal education in meteorology, all his experience comes from the chases. In all the years he has been chasing, Morgerman has intercepted 88 tropical cyclones, including Category 5 storms Hurricane Dean in 2007, Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, Hurricane Patricia in 2015, Typhoon Mangkhut and Hurricane Michael in 2018, Hurricane Dorian in 2019, and Hurricane Melissa in 2025. In total, he has successfully entered the eye of 62 hurricane-force tropical cyclones, with the strongest being Hurricane Melissa. Morgerman has also chased cyclones across 14 different countries or territories, but primarily in the United States and Mexico.

Early life Josh Morgerman was born in 1970 and grew up in Huntington, New York—part of suburban New York City. Living on Long Island, he developed an interest in meteorology at an early age; his mother attributes part of this interest to him seeing The Wizard of Oz when Morgerman was four. In August 1976, Hurricane Belle struck Long Island as a Category 1 hurricane, causing significant damage in his hometown, and beginning his fascination with meteorology. By 2004, he was living in Prague, Czech Republic, to work with Eastern European clientele.

Personal life Morgerman has no spouse nor kids, wishing to remain unburdened by family responsibilities to pursue cyclone chases.

iCyclone Since 1991, Morgerman has been chasing tropical cyclones. His goal is to "core punch" the storms and record atmospheric pressure and document the experience. In 2013, iCyclone expanded their chase region to East Asia, teaming up with fellow chasers James Reynolds and Mark Thomas. They ultimately intercepted four typhoons in one month including Typhoon Haiyan which devastated the Philippines. Since 2014, his chasing has been funded by multiple media agencies including CBS, the Weather Channel, and WeatherNation.

Data collection and usage Morgerman collects atmospheric pressure with multiple Kestrel 4500s. The data he has collected has been utilized by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in multiple instances to refine landfall intensities. 2011's Hurricane Rina's landfall in the Yucatán Peninsula was adjusted in light of his observations.

In 2014, Morgerman's measurement of within Hurricane Odile resulted in the landfall pressure being adjusted to from the operational estimate of . His observation of in 2015's Hurricane Patricia, in conjunction with two nearby automated measurements, assisted in more accurately analyzing the hurricane's strength at landfall. Meteorologists at the NHC concluded an approximate minimum pressure of , yielding estimated winds of ; this made Patricia the strongest Pacific hurricane on record to strike Mexico. The record was later surpassed by Hurricane Otis, which became the first Pacific hurricane on record to make landfall at Category 5 intensity, surpassing Hurricane Patricia accordingly.

Morgerman provided the only observed over-land pressure with Hurricane Willa's Mexican landfall in 2018. He observed a value of , corroborating the NHC's landfall intensity of .

In 2016, Morgerman collaborated with meteorologist Andrew Hagen and Mexican researchers Erik Sereno Trabaldo and Jorge Abelardo González to reanalyze the 1959 Mexico hurricane, then considered to be the strongest landfalling hurricane on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Their analysis determined the storm to have been significantly weaker than originally estimated and resulted in its downgrade from a Category 5 to a Category 4. These revisions were later incorporated into the NHC's Hurricane Database. In 2017, Morgerman co-authored an academic paper published by the American Meteorological Society on the intensity of 2015's Hurricane Patricia. He provided in-situ data describing the structure of the storm and allowing for a more thorough analysis of its landfall.

Tropical cyclone chases As of November 2025, he has chased 95 cyclones across Australia, East Asia, and North America. Of his successful core penetrations, six were Category 5, 14 were Category 4, and 21 were Category 3.

Typhoon Haiyan (2013)

On November 7, 2013, Morgerman flew with fellow chasers James Reynolds and Mark Thomas to Tacloban City in the Philippines to intercept one of the most powerful typhoons in the 21st century: Typhoon Haiyan.

They initially planned to ride out the storm south of the city, where the eye would ultimately make landfall; however, owing to a lack of sturdy shelters they opted to stay in Tacloban itself. The chasers came prepared with a week's-worth of food and water. Around 6:45 a.m. local time, the northern eyewall began battering Tacloban and winds rapidly became violent. Morgerman described the winds to have a "tornado-like quality" at times. Windows and doors at the hotel blew out and the roof was torn off. Trees in the region were completely defoliated. Around 7:50 a.m. a powerful storm surge swept through the city, with flood waters reaching a depth of at Morgerman's location.

The fast-rising nature of the water incited panic, residents sheltering at the hotel scrambled to the building's second floor and some broke windows to escape their rooms. Morgerman jumped into the water to help people get from flooding rooms to the stairs. Thomas severely injured his leg in the water while assisting trapped people. They returned to the hotel that they rode the storm out in, and the hotel celebrated their return with a banner welcoming them back to the city. Morgerman revisited locations that were memorable to him from his time chasing Haiyan and reviewed the city's recovery since then. He also visited a burial site where hundreds of unidentified bodies were buried following the storm. The trio also attended a commemoration ceremony at the Tacloban City Convention Center for the cyclone's victims and met with locals who remembered them from their time in the city, and later attended a lunch banquet with President Bongbong Marcos. They also planted mangroves on an island the San Juanico Strait to "replace the ones lost in Haiyan". Morgerman also visited a family who he had met during the storm and whom he had helped rescue their eldest daughter out of the water.

Hurricane Odile (2014)

In September 2014, Morgerman intercepted Hurricane Odile in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Successfully entering the eye, he recorded a pressure of . Industry experts later expressed concern over possible conflicts of interest with storm chasers and the catastrophe bonds. Initially staging his chase in Treasure Cay, he ultimate chose to ride out the storm at Central Abaco Primary School—a designated concrete shelter—in Marsh Harbour. At 11:40 a.m. EDT on September 1, Morgerman reported board to be flying off the structures windows and children being wrapped in blankets for safety. After tweeting this information, contact with Morgerman lost for two days before he was able to contact the Weather Channel.

Around 2:00 p.m. EDT, Hurricane Dorian made landfall over the Abaco Islands with maximum sustained winds of , making it the strongest such storm on record in the Bahamas. The eyewall of Dorian proved exceptionally violent, battering the school with "the force of a thousand sledgehammers". He and others sheltering at the school held furniture against window shutters to prevent them from blowing in. Hundreds of residents, many injured during the storm, sought refuge in the structure for the second half of the hurricane.

Hurricane Melissa (2025)

On October 25, 2025, Morgerman flew to Montego Bay, Jamaica to intercept Category 5 Hurricane Melissa, his first chase in the country. Morgerman staged in Mandeville so that he could be central and near coastal locations as at the time it was unclear where Melissa might make landfall. Three days later Morgerman relocated to Crawford in Saint Elizabeth Parish, where he sheltered in a hotel, and he would ride out the storm there with a local family in the hotel's kitchen.

At 10:25 a.m., Morgerman sent his last tweet before landfall at approximately 1:00 p.m. in which wrote: "Frightening power. Whiteout. Roofs teaing off. Gusts like bombs going off. Painful ears. Praise the lord for solid concrete." Morgerman was not heard from for more than 24 hours until 8:03 p.m. the following day when Jamaican parliamentarian Floyd Green posted on Twitter that he had met Morgerman in Black River. An hour later, Morgerman posted to his own Twitter again in which he described how he rode out the storm in the hotel and that he was aware of two deaths in Crawford, one of a man who died from a heart attack in a school next door and a woman who drowned in storm surge on the beach. Morgerman wrote that Melissa was "perhaps the mightiest hurricane" he had witnessed and that through his meeting with Green that he had been inspired to "spread awareness of this catastrophe and get that aid flowing in". In addition to following Morgerman's experiences, the show also focuses on victims of the storms, sharing their experiences and how they're coping with its aftermath. and June 12 in Australia on BBC Knowledge. The show debuted on September 15 in the United States on the Science Channel. The series' first two episodes focus on 2018's Category 5 Hurricane Michael and its effects in Panama City, Florida.