Friday, May 2, 2003 | 5:04 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION: May 4, 2003
For 14 years Nate Tannenbaum has been a weatherman in Las Vegas. He's also host of KNPR 89.5-FM's "Look Who's Playing the Classics." He even hosts the county's annual "Jazz in the Park" series, which kicks off Saturday at Clark County Government Center Ampitheater.
But really, he's the guy with the tie.
The 45-year-old Tannenbaum is to weathermen what Paul Simon is to senators.
His colorful -- and sometimes comical -- bow ties have become an institution to a city (its media in particular) that is all about "here today, gone tomorrow."
With a background in radio and TV commercials, Tannenbaum landed his first TV job in 1987 in Grand Junction, Colo., about 250 miles west of Denver. At the small station, Tannenbaum had two roles: weatherman and host of the afternoon "Big Money Movie Show."
Logically, Las Vegas was the next step.
So two years later he sent an audition tape to KTNV (Channel 13). He got the job in 1989 and worked at the station as a weatherman for five years before leaving for KVBC (Channel 3). He stayed at KVBC until 2000, when he returned to Channel 13 as chief forecaster. Tannenbaum can be seen at 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. weekdays.
The Las Vegas Sun recently talked with Tannenbaum about predicting Las Vegas weather, the drought that's gripping Southern Nevada and, yes, the bow ties.
Sun: Are you a meteorologist?
Nate Tannenbaum: I've been struck by a meteor, does that count? I am an associate member of the American Meteorological Society.
Sun: But at this point, it's probably safe to say you know as much about weather as most people do.
NT: I think I certainly know enough to tell folks whether it's going to be rainy or sunny. I have a fear sometimes of Ph.D. meteorologists on television talking over people's heads.
Sun: As far as forecasting Las Vegas weather, is it really that difficult?
NT: The standard joke that I tell people is that I go into the studio in January and I tape the weather for the entire year. I just call in from home: "Tape No. 92 today."
We do have our share of weather, certainly not as much as in many other parts of the country. But I think the main thing that newcomers to Las Vegas find themselves unaware of is the wind. They expect the heat and they're ready for it -- and sometimes they're surprised by how cool it is in the wintertime -- but throughout the year the wind is usually the biggest annoyance.
Sun: With a cooler spring, it seems this summer might be brutally hot. Will that be the case?
NT: I'm not a big believer in 90-day forecasting or basing forecasts for the summer by what happened here in the spring. We've had a somewhat cooler-than-normal spring and that leads some people to conjecture that, automatically, because it's cooler now, we're going to get our butts kicked in the summertime. And you can understand why people would think that. But my personal thinking is that Mother Nature is a trickster and she's got different cards up her sleeve and doesn't play the game that way. She just decides to do whatever she wants to do in the summertime, no matter what happened in the springtime.
Sun: How are we doing in our rain situation? With all the rain this year, it would seem as if we're ahead of schedule.
NT: Yes, we certainly are. The average annual rainfall for Las Vegas is 4.49 inches. We have 2.85 so far, which is .84 above normal.
Sun: How much rain do we need to relieve the drought?
NT: Do you have an ark? More than anything we don't specifically need rain here, what we need is for more of those monster Colorado blizzards on the western side of the Rockies. Lake Mead's low water level is staggering.
Sun: But what about the blizzards Colorado had this year? Won't that help us out?
NT: A little bit. But unfortunately Mother Nature pulled another trick on us. The bulk of that storm was on the eastern side of the Rockies, which is great for the farmers but didn't do anything for the Colorado River basin.
Sun: OK ... so why the bow tie?
NT: The agent who got me the gig here suggested the day I showed up on TV I should be wearing a bow tie. And I laughed at her. I said, "You've got to be kidding me. What kind of a gimmicky shtick do you think that is? I want people to know who I am for who I am and not for what I am wearing." Believe it or not, when I came to town I was not wearing a bow tie for two years. After two years in my own little peanut brain I convinced myself that people knew who I was for who I was and what I was doing.
One of the things that I think helped me was a weekly movie show on Channel 13 I had shortly after I got there called "Tarzan Theater." Every Saturday afternoon we would show a "Tarzan" movie. I would put on a pith helmet and a safari suit and the artist at the TV station made this really hokey-looking bamboo hut. We pretended I was out in the jungle and we showed "Tarzan" movies. And to this day, I have people say to me in the grocery store, "Hey, when're ya gonna start them 'Tarzan' movies again?" But in my own mind, I had established my identity and at that point I said, "OK, I'm going to go with the bow tie."
Sun: How many bow ties do you own?
NT: It's approaching 250. I am a bow tie guy and I'm a bow tie snob. I don't wear clip-ons. I only wear the ones you tie yourself.
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