Chloe Arroyo fell in love with weather in the process of learning how not to be afraid of it. Around age five, she found even the sight of a cloud to be frightening, a threat of impending weather. During visits to her local library, she would check out different books about weather, and the more she learned about it, the more interested she became and safe she felt.
When the 2011 Joplin tornado occurred, she was struck by the discord between the beauty of distant clouds and the devastation that severe weather can cause. “I was in Tulsa, so I didn’t even see the storm itself, but I remember looking off to the north-east and seeing clouds,” said Arroyo. “It was in the evening, and the sun off in the west was glaring on the storm. And I just thought it was so fascinating. Then we got home.”
She discovered what that storm had done while watching the news with her family. The lessons of that day stuck with her: “It was such a young age to this about how something so beautiful on one side can be so devastating and deadly on the other side.” Arroyo considers that storm to be a defining moment in her life. The storm further solidified her desire to learn about and understand the weather.
Now, she is a junior in the School of Meteorology. For Arroyo, the decision to come to OU was partially based on the esteem of the School of Meteorology’s program, and through it, she has found a home with OU Nightly. Currently, she is a senior weather producer with OU Nightly, sharing her knowledge on live TV.
Being part of the student-produced daily newscast has been an exciting journey for Arroyo, one she began as a freshman. “It was really nerve-wracking at first because I wanted to make a really, really good impression,” said Arroyo. As a sophomore, she became more comfortable and dedicated herself fully to being part of the Nightly team, showing up more and more nights a week.
Some of her favorite moments from her university experience have been open studio sessions with the other OU Nightly students, when the students have the opportunity to come to the studio and use a 15-minute time slot to practice their broadcast skills. “A lot of people will just come in and help and support and cheer each other on in the control room. We get to hang out there and uplift one another,” said Arroyo.
That hard work is already paying off: Arroyo has done two broadcast internships thus far, one with Fox23 in Tulsa and another with KOAM News Now in the Joplin, Missouri and Pittsburg, Kansas areas. With KOAM, she had the opportunity to handle the station’s weekend weather broadcasts, which gave her the chance to do everything from the shows themselves to handling social media uploads for the day. “It’s a real-world experience. It’s very stressful at first, because that means you get the whole area of social media. You get a lot of comments, and you really learn how to thicken your skin.”
After graduation, Arroyo hopes to settle in a good market with a news station, and perhaps also venture into forensic meteorology.
By Kathryn Gebauer
Article Published: Tuesday, October 31, 2023
