Charlotte Carl
Charlotte Carl focuses on turning complex weather and environmental risk into clear, practical coverage for a general audience, with an emphasis on how conditions translate into day-to-day impacts. Her work as a broadcast meteorologist on the morning team at CBS12 News centers on short-term hazards, longer-lived patterns like heat and drought, and the mechanics behind severe storms. She combines on-air forecasting with an interest in research, reflecting a consistent effort to link atmospheric science to the decisions people make around safety and routine.
Heat, Drought, and Everyday Risk
Carl’s recent coverage shows a sustained focus on extreme heat, drought, and the cumulative effect of routine weather on safety and comfort. In her reporting on worsening drought in parts of South Florida during the peak rainy season, she highlights how rainfall deficits and lingering dry conditions contrast with typical expectations for that time of year, framing drought as an evolving risk rather than a static label. Her work on dangerous heat, including forecasts where isolated storms return but “dangerous heat continues” across the region, stays anchored in what heat means for outdoor activity, storm timing, and the likelihood of relief.
She gives similar treatment to heavy rainfall, connecting day-to-day storms with broader flooding concerns. In a piece on heavy afternoon storms raising flooding concern across South Florida, she stresses localized flooding potential and how repeated rounds of storms can compound risk over a weekend, moving beyond simple rain totals to discuss impacts on specific communities. Coverage of dry, seasonable weather and comfortable conditions under high pressure is framed in the same practical terms, emphasizing how a stable pattern reduces day-to-day hazards before the next system shifts the risk profile.
Her work on heat advisories in Palm Beach County fits this pattern, treating extreme temperatures as a public-safety issue and focusing on how heat exposure shapes decisions about outdoor work, travel, and events.
Short-Term Hazards and Daily Forecasts
Carl’s daily forecasts concentrate on short-lived but consequential phenomena: fog, smoke, wind, and quickly changing conditions around fronts. In a forecast discussing dense fog inland and summerlike heat before a weekend front, she ties visibility issues, warmth, and timing of the front together so viewers understand when driving conditions and comfort will change, not just whether a front exists. A separate segment on windy conditions as warmer weather returns keeps the emphasis on how persistent winds interact with rising temperatures, shaping marine conditions and outdoor plans.
She regularly covers atmospheric hazards that affect mobility and safety beyond rain and temperature. In a piece on dense smoke closing Alligator Alley, her forecast updates are embedded in a story about a major roadway closure, underscoring how smoke from nearby fires can rapidly alter visibility and travel even away from the immediate burn area. Forecasts that mention a foggy start to a breezy and cool day, followed by more showers, show the same structure: starting with an immediate hazard, then walking through the rest of the day so viewers know when conditions will ease or worsen.
Across these daily items, she reports in a concise, impact-driven style, giving just enough meteorological detail to explain why a risk exists while keeping the narrative focused on what people will experience.
Severe Storms, Tornadoes, and Coastal Impacts
Beyond the daily cycle, Carl’s coverage of severe weather and tropical systems centers on the interplay between large-scale dynamics and local damage. During a tornado event near Alligator Alley in Broward County, she was part of the meteorologist team providing live coverage as a large tornado crossed a busy highway, pairing real-time observations with ongoing explanations of the storm’s evolution and its implications for drivers and nearby communities. Her work on coastal flooding and dangerous surf describes how persistent onshore flow and swell translate into rip currents, erosion, and coastal flooding, tying marine hazards to broader weather patterns while keeping the focus on practical shoreline risk.
She extends this approach in explanatory pieces that unpack complex setups behind severe events. In a detailed article on how Hurricane Milton and the jet stream combined to produce a major tornado outbreak, she explains the meteorological configuration that made widespread tornadoes possible, including how the hurricane’s outer bands interacted with upper-level wind patterns.
The emphasis in that story is on transfer: taking a technical setup and making it understandable to a general audience without losing the specificity needed for serious risk communication.
Similar work appears in coverage of heavy afternoon storms and flooding concerns, where she connects moisture, instability, and storm organization to the likelihood of flash flooding in familiar locations. Together, these pieces show a consistent interest in explaining why certain patterns are dangerous, not just that they are.
Scientific Background and Communication Style
Carl’s communication approach is shaped by a formal background in meteorology and direct involvement with weather research. She describes spending part of her undergraduate career researching lightning and completing graduate work on how broadcast meteorologists can effectively communicate risks associated with hurricanes, experience that informs how she frames hurricane and severe-weather coverage on air. She remains engaged with the broader meteorological community while producing daily graphics and forecasts, developing original visual explanations to tell weather stories in ways that retain scientific accuracy while staying accessible.
Across her body of work, she favors plain language, short sentences, and tightly focused segments that emphasize impacts over spectacle. Routine forecasts on showers, fog, or cooler temperatures sit alongside detailed explainers on tornado outbreaks and long-form pieces on drought, indicating a reporter who treats environmental and weather coverage as a continuum: from everyday comfort and minor disruptions to high-impact, life-threatening events. The through-line is consistent risk communication, grounded in meteorology and designed for audiences who need straightforward guidance on what the atmosphere is likely to do next.
4 more environment journalists.
Alan Halaly
Alan Halaly is a water reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who treats the Colorado River as a working system, not a backdrop, making its governance, infrastructure and risks central to his beat. He covers how policy decisions and infrastructure projects shape the region’s water future, linking high-level choices on the Colorado River, dams, mining and data centers to everyday consequences under mounting heat and growth pressures. He reports deeply on new laws, lawsuits and regulatory shifts, focusing on on-the-ground impacts. His coverage spans Colorado River cuts, Hoover Dam operations, extreme weather, heat and parks, septic system rules, workplace and public health risks, lithium and gold mines, protected landscapes, data centers, AI infrastructure and public funding. Previously he reported for metropolitan dailies, digital outlets and public media, including the Miami Herald, WUFT, The Daily Beast and Miami New Times, with work recognized by Hearst, ONA and the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Alejandra Borunda
Alejandra Borunda reports on how climate change affects human health for NPR. Her work treats global warming as a direct cause of physical and mental health risks. She covers extreme heat, including undercounted deaths, lost sleep and local efforts to track heat-related fatalities. She also reports on wildfire smoke, hurricanes, disease spread such as dengue fever, trauma, stress and unequal health impacts. Her stories examine how communities protect themselves and recover, as well as practical solutions involving climate-resilient crops, agriculture and diet. Before NPR, she wrote about climate science and environmental issues for National Geographic, including glacier retreat, shade and heat inequity, and shrinking ice-fishing seasons. A former climate scientist, she combines field reporting with scientific data to connect atmospheric research to everyday risks, choices and people’s lived experiences.
Alex Lubben
Alex Lubben is an environment reporter at The Times-Picayune/The Advocate who connects climate risk to policy, industry and community change. He covers Gulf warming, flood protection, coastal restoration, wetlands litigation, industrial projects such as SpaceX’s possible expansion, invasive species and local ecosystems. His reporting tracks how law, politics and corporate decisions shape levees, drainage, marshes and long-term resilience. He also examines climate relocation, housing and labor, showing how hurricanes, floods and wildfires displace vulnerable communities and expose gaps in government systems. He works on a small environment team and brings an investigative background to document work, data analysis, legal and policy research, and field reporting. His work has appeared in VICE News, The Center for Public Integrity, The Nation, Jewish Currents and NBC News.
Alex Wigglesworth
Alex Wigglesworth reports on how climate, land use and public policy shape California communities. She covers the Inland Empire and Mojave Desert for the Los Angeles Times and is part of its environment team. Her beat includes wildfires, megadrought, extreme weather, desert development, conservation, wildlife, industrial hazards, aging infrastructure and regulatory enforcement. She has covered Western Joshua trees, desert tortoises, beaver-led restoration, toxic lead pipes, air-quality concerns after industrial fires and the effects of nuclear war on food systems. Earlier, she was a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. She combines breaking news with detailed reporting grounded in scientific studies, modeling and expert interviews. Her work connects fires, drought and other hazards to climate change, while examining how agencies, companies and land-use decisions affect people and ecosystems.