'Captain John' to @johnsauderCBC: 30 years on the air for CBC meteorologist

It's almost three decades to the day since John Sauder first went on the air, first as "Captain John" the flying traffic reporter and eventually becoming CBC Manitoba's resident meteorologist.

The journey from pilot to broadcaster to on-air meteorologist has come full circle for the 53-year-old, who will mark his 30-year broadcast anniversary on Friday.

"It's the weather and the interest in weather that got me into flying. Flying got me into broadcasting, [and] broadcasting kind of melded me back into the weather stream of things," he said in an interview.

"I've always been interested in how things worked, but I think in my flying days and trying to get a forecast that I could trust was really what sort of set me on the path to really getting interested in [weather] and studying it a lot more."

On Dec. 12, 1984, Sauder climbed into a Cessna aircraft and took to the skies as Winnipeg's first and only pilot/traffic reporter for radio station KY-58.

"I was the pilot and the announcer; they don't do that anymore," Sauder said, adding that he logged almost 8,000 hours of flying time over a 10-year period.

Sauder had planned to be an airline pilot before KY-58 started seeking candidates with pilot's licences.

"I didn't know I was supposed to talk. I thought I was just going to be the pilot," he said.

In a 1994 "It's a Living" segment from CBC's 24 Hours newscast, Sauder — known back then by his on-air nickname, "Captain John" — shows Peter Jordan how to deliver traffic updates live on the radio while flying an airplane at the same time.

"It was early mornings, it was a split shift," Sauder recalled. "These were long, long days and it was hard work."

He also took part in promotional events and was even the public address announcer for the Winnipeg Jets in the 1989-90 season.

And some Winnipeggers of a certain vintage may remember "Captain John" in commercials like this 1986 spot for a local car dealership:

So how did weather forecasting get onto the captain's radar?

The radio job ended in late 1994, amid a round of layoffs, and a few months later Sauder got a call from CKY-TV, which was looking for a fill-in weather person.

"I'd never been on TV but I knew a little about the weather because to study to become a commercial pilot you have to really study weather quite a bit," he said. "So that's how that all got started, but it was very part-time."

After various gigs in radio and television, Sauder joined CTV full-time in 2000 and moved to CBC Manitoba in 2007.

By the time he joined CBC, Sauder had earned a certificate in broadcast meteorology — with top marks — from Mississippi State University.

Sauder is endorsed by the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and is a member of the National Weather Association and the American Meteorological Society.

Memorable weather events

These days, you can find Sauder on CBC Radio One during the day and on CBC News: Winnipeg in the supper hour. He also shares his forecasts on Twitter and Facebook and on his weather journal.

What weather events stand out for our resident meteorologist? Here are some of his picks:

1. Elie tornado: An F-5 rated tornado hit the south-central Manitoba town of Elie in June 2007, but Sauder said it wasn't the only big weather event at the time.

"The Elie tornado was [on] June 22, 2007, and that was a Friday night. But people forget that the very next night was an F-3 tornado in Pipestone and the blowdown in the Whiteshell," he said.

"That weekend, nobody got hurt; nobody got seriously hurt, anyway. We didn't lose any life, and so that's been one that sticks out in my mind."

2. Live storm warnings: "Every summer, there's an event where I see lighting on the lightning tracker and I can walk into the radio studio and say, 'Hey, see that storm just west of you if you're in La Salle, Man.? Go inside, get the kids, get them inside, away from that lightning.' Or if I see some rotation in that storm, I can tell them to go into the basement," he said.

3. Blue sky blizzards: "Even when there isn't snow falling and you forecast blowing snow and zero visibility — because you know that we just got a centimetre and a half or two centimetres of very light, fluffy fresh snow, and then the wind's going to blow at 60 or 70 km/h — you got a blizzard, but yet you could have blue sky above you."

4 and 5. Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina: Sauder noted these two hurricanes for how well they were forecast. Sandy "was really, really interesting, just the way it was well forecast by all of the hurricane forecasters in Florida and especially in eastern Canada," he said. "It was forecast days in advance."

From captain to colonel

In recent years, Sauder has moved from "captain" to colonel — an honorary Royal Canadian Air Force colonel, that is, initially with the 402 "City of Winnipeg" Squadron at 17 Wing and now with 2 Canadian Air Division.

In his role as honorary colonel, and in his capacity as an on-air meteorologist, Sauder has made many appearances at schools and events in the community.

For example, he's flown in an F-18 fighter jet and even busted some moves on the dance floor — the latter being part of a Dancing with Celebrities fundraiser in 2008 for the Society of Manitobans with Disabilities. Check it out in our video highlights below:

- ON MOBILE? View the video highlights here.