With age, I’ve come to realize I’m a nerd about a lot of things.

I’m a nerd about all aspects of sports, especially statistics. I’m a nerd about geography, history, and sociology. I’m a nerd about documentaries with great storytelling. I’m a nerd about newspapers, about increasing my personal efficiency, about tacos.

Good thing “nerds” are considered much cooler than they once were.

One of the other categories I nerd out on is weather. I watched the movie “Twister” as a young person, enamored with the maverick group of storm chasers the film portrayed. I pictured myself in an alternate universe, driving toward and not away from dangerous storms, trying to see the awe and power of a tornado.

I’ve always studied the radar, trying to look for clues to what the next weather event might bring. I’ve been known to pull up a chair as a thunderstorm approaches, one eye on the sky and one on a weather app, waiting until the rain and wind become too heavy to bear before I go back inside.

I’m the guy who alerts family members when I see that something weather-related may be happening. I follow a popular YouTube storm chaser/weatherman when there are major storm breakouts in our country, including this spring, when tornadic conditions hit here in Ohio.

This week, our recent very dry and hot spell was broken when some giant shelf clouds rolled in from the north. I was awed by their grandeur and speed, a giant warning sign that weather was soon on its way.

As I saw wind swirling and skies darkening from my work office window, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I jumped up and walked around our parking lot, needing to feel the approaching weather. I ran into one of our reporters and we remarked about the unique clouds above us.

“It’s rather ominous out there,” I stated, and he agreed.

Eventually, lightning struck close enough that I darted back inside, but I realized something about myself: Only a weather nerd would knowingly go out into a storm.

I think we find weather so fascinating because it is so powerful and rapid, so uncontrollable and unavoidable.

A few years ago, I drove into our office to survey the damage of a straight-line windstorm that did extensive havoc around town and knocked out the electricity at our paper. That happened around 6 p.m. as I was driving home. By 7 p.m., I was cruising the streets with a beautiful sun and no clouds overhead. If you had only looked up, you would never have known a storm ripped through minutes before.

I’ve heard similar stories of the Findlay flood of 2007. As the water rose, it was actually sunny and beautiful outside.

Weather is one of those ultimate things we cannot control.

People inherently try to control as much as they can in all aspects of their lives. So we create apps and turn to meteorologists to get us as prepared as possible.

It’s impossible to tame Mother Nature, but one reason I like to understand weather is that it makes me feel I am doing something to prepare for the unknown.

Weather remains unpredictable, powerful and moody.

It’s fun to track.

In each of my lanes of nerd-dom, I always find people who go deeper down the rabbit hole than I. People who break down the biomechanical data of pitchers. Those who have found a geocache in every county in the United States (I know a guy who has!). Those who use high-level mathematics to predict weather patterns.

I suppose that puts me in a place I enjoy being — somewhat nerdy about a good handful of things, but not overly nerdy about any one thing.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

In the end, we’re all nerdy about something. We aren’t robots, after all, although some of us probably geek out over robots. Our individual interests are what makes us unique.

So Star Wars, classic cars, and gardening aren’t necessarily my thing, but I respect those for whom those are their things.

If nothing else, being nerdy about something makes for great conversation topics. The weather remains undefeated as the world’s top talking point.

Here in 2024, we’re all nerds, and the geeks of the world drive our passions, our entertainment, our desire to discover what is new.

Nerds unite!

Alpena native Jeremy Speer is the publisher of The Courier in Findlay, Ohio, the Sandusky (Ohio) Register, The Advertiser-Tribune in Tiffin, Ohio, the Norwalk (Ohio) Reflector, and Review Times in Fostoria, Ohio. He can be reached at jeremyspeer@thecourier.com.