The Man Who Cancels School: Massapequa Meteorology Teacher Offers Expert Weather Advice

MASSAPEQUA, NY. — As a winter marked by massive snow drifts hopefully nears its end, Massapequa High School Ames Campus science teacher Nick Donohue has become the most important man in the district. Donohue, district officials said, is the one the district calls when it’s time to decide whether the weather is severe enough to cancel school.

Donohue is a Cornell graduate with a bachelor’s degree in atmospheric science and a master’s in education, and has been teaching in Massapequa for 24 years.

While he didn’t become a certified meteorologist until graduating college, he has always been curious about the weather. District officials said Donohue stopped to watch storms as a youngster, and spent 50 days between his junior and senior years of high school traveling across the country to visit national parks. Seeing the ways weather looked across the country, district officials said, was a crucial part of turning that childhood interest into a career path.

That career path allowed Donohue to launch meteorology as an elective in Massapequa qt years ago, teaching students how to deliver their own forecasts and culminating in an annual 12-week forecasting competition. During that competition, students apply their forecasting techniques to not only prognosticate the weather in Nassau County, but what it’ll do outside in cities across the country.

The prize for these efforts? The title of chief meteorologist in the district, a title that Donohue has had to live up to countless times in his near quarter-century in the Massapequa school district. This year, he has had to offer his expert opinion on two blizzards so far, joking that many of his family and friends turn to him for advice on whether or not to postpone plans when the

“It’s a lot of pressure and it gets pretty chaotic before a big storm,” Donohue said.

Luckily, the Massapequa graduate has plenty of tools at his disposal, including global weather data models, satellite images and surface observations. The hardest part of making a forecast, he said, is the fact that there’s almost too much data. To the best of his ability, though, Donohue tracks storms’ patterns and offers his opinion.

To Massapequa superintendent Dr. William Brennan, that expertise is invaluable.

“Making a call for a snow day is a nerve-wracking, pressure-filled situation and knowing I have the expertise of Mr. Donohue behind our decision, I have a lot more confidence and know it’s going to be the right call,” Brennan said. “In addition to the snow day information he provides, Mr. Donohue is a phenomenal teacher with an incredible ability to connect with students and inspire them to not just love science, but learning overall. His passion comes through in every lesson and conversation.”