How a Twisters movie superfan became a broadcast meteorologist

This October, Davion Huggins, age 24, packed up his life in North Carolina and moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to start his dream job as an on-air meteorologist.

His weatherman ambitions began in childhood, when he spotted his first funnel cloud on a road trip. “My mom and grandma were kind of horrified,” he remembers. “I was mesmerized.”

Not long after, Huggins started delivering pretend forecasts in front of the TV to his family. His father bought him a DVD of the 1996 movie Twisters, which he says he’s watched over 300 times. Today, he still carries trivia about tornados in his back pocket: “You can't outrun or outdrive a tornado if it's heading in the same direction as you,” he says. “You can get lucky, but we don't advise you to try.” The storms can move faster than 60 miles per hour.

On the surface, his career path looks like a straight shot. Huggins attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he studied atmospheric science and meteorology. After graduating in 2023, Huggins went into a master’s program in physics at the same university, where he conducted a research thesis on the deadly 2021 Hurricane Ida. He received his master’s degree in spring 2025, and by the fall, he landed the meteorologist position at KNWA/Fox 24 in Arkansas. Today, he creates and delivers weather forecasts, sometimes multiple times an evening, as a meteorologist on broadcast television.

But like any young person entering the job market, Huggins experienced his share of uncertainty. “I always knew I wanted to be a meteorologist, but I wasn't exactly sure how that would pan out,” he says.

One speed bump occurred after his first semester as a master’s student. After he received a poor grade in a course, his program reduced his stipend — a challenge many students face. Before the reduction, his stipend already wasn’t enough to cover his rent, says Huggins. “It was hard to know what the next step was going to be,” he says.

Huggins consulted with Chih-Kuan Tung, a physics professor at NCAT, about his situation. Huggins had worked as Tung’s teaching assistant for undergraduate mechanics physics labs. As a TA, Huggins “was very active with the students,” Tung says. “He thought a lot about how to help them.”

Tung encouraged Huggins to join the APS National Mentoring Community and served as his mentor. After joining the NMC, Huggins applied for and received money from the BEAM fund, now called EMERGE. “It helped a lot,” says Huggins. “It was kind of hard to focus on school when I was trying to make sure rent and groceries were still in the apartment.”

Huggins and Tung also met a few times a month throughout his master’s program, “talking about everything from life to physics to what the future would look like,” says Huggins. He knew that finding a job as an on-air meteorologist would be competitive, so he also used the NMC’s resources to learn about other possible career paths. Over the course of their meetings, Huggins seemed more prepared, says Tung.

During the last semester of graduate school, Huggins signed up for a workshop for meteorologists at NCAT, held by the National Association of Black Journalists. He and his friends drove from Greensboro to Charlotte, where they met the chief meteorologist at the WCNC station and watched him deliver the 11:30 p.m. broadcast. “Afterwards, he let us get on the green screen and practice a seven-day forecast,” says Huggins.

After graduation, Huggins searched for open meteorologist positions. In the meantime over the summer, he worked a full-time job on the production line for Lance crackers, making sure the machine packaging the crackers ran smoothly. “It was always messy,” he says. “You had to sweep the floor every 35 seconds, because when everything came out, there would be cheese and peanut butter on the floor.”

But Huggins continued to pursue meteorology in his spare time. He built a home studio with microphones, a camera, and a green screen, and he used weather models to make forecasts, which he posted on social media.

When the meteorologist job in Arkansas opened, Huggins was ready. He interviewed, got the job, and made his first on-air broadcast in early November.

Now, he works with a team of meteorologists to create weather forecasts, produce graphics, and present them on air. They also broadcast the weather over radio and on Amazon’s Alexa. He’s working on a podcast on weather history, too.

To create a forecast, they look outside, he says, and then look up nearby weather and consult several weather models. The meteorologists consider whether the models make sense scientifically, and they cross-reference the predictions with the National Weather Service.

Sometimes their forecasts disagree with the NWS, he says. For example, recently the NWS determined their local area in Arkansas was at risk for severe weather. “We didn't agree that our area should have been included in it, because there was so much rainfall during the day that there was no energy left for any storms to gain strength and pop off for our area,” he says.

Their weather broadcasts are never scripted, as forecasts need to be as up-to-date as possible. Sometimes Huggins finalizes a forecast just five minutes before broadcast. “Meteorologists get on air, and we just talk,” he says. “Everything is freestyle.” He embraces corny weather jokes. After local temperatures rocketed from the 20s to the 70s in a matter of days, “I was like, ‘You know, Mother Nature's playing Powerball,’” he says.

But he loves the fast pace. “Weather never stops, and it’s never the same,” he says. “The constant motion keeps it interesting, and keeps me coming back.”

Recently, a family at his new church in Arkansas recognized him from TV. “The meteorologist is part of the community,” he says. “I love being part of the community I serve.”