When it comes to football players and weather forecasts, the image that comes to mind is some UCLA linebacker from 1995, flexing and barking, in reference to his biceps: “Thunder … and Lightning! DON’T GET CAUGHT IN THE STORM!!”
OK, but new Broncos tight end Owen Daniels could — he has a meteorology background, majoring in atmospheric and oceanic science at Wisconsin.
Daniels has become the talk of talk radio the past 48 hours, as this scrappy, Gary Kubiak-bred tight end will fill the shoes of the snazzy and oft-injured Julius Thomas. Daniels — who goes by “The Weatherman,” but, per his Wu-Tangy initials, I shall call “Ol’ Dirty” — has also been the talk of the Denver meteorology community.
“I was at work and I saw someone tweet that Daniels was a weatherman, and I thought maybe he’d done a stunt publicity thing with a weather person, but when I heard he actually got a degree in meteorology, that was pretty cool,” explained my man Chris Bianchi, a WeatherNation meteorologist based in Denver (on air Saturdays-Wednesdays 1-10 p.m. MT). I think meteorologists have a bit of a nerd-like perception — to those who don’t rip us for missing a forecast, so having a well-known NFL player on our side is a big plus. Owen has an open invite to come to WeatherNation anytime and talk upper air vorticity and the localized nature of upslope flow.”
Over the years, about Daniels’ affinity for the weather. He even joined Al Roker on a Weather Channel segment, to break down the forecast for the Broncos-Seahawks Super Bowl. (In retrospect, the forecast was cloudy with a chance of scattered snaps, with a 100 percent chance of boom. OK, that was dumb, Ben.) In college, he interned at the local ABC affiliate to learn about meteorology.
“Wisconsin is a seriously good meteorology school. I’m impressed,” Bianchi said. “Lots of weather nerds come from there.
“Most NFL players, from what I remember, choose easy majors so they can focus on football. Meteorology is — despite the perception of every, single non-weather person human being — quite difficult. Physics, lots of math — that takes some serious skill, to couple that with football. I could barely handle it and I didn’t have to play major college football on the side.
“And it takes some guts to do the weather with Al Roker.”
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• . Wait, the Nuggets beat the Hawks?? Here are some cool postgame notes:
– Danilo Gallinari led all scorers with 23 points (8-12 FG, 4-5 3FG) to go with five rebounds and five assists in 24 minutes. It was his sixth 20-point game of the season, with five of those coming in his last 12 contests. Gallinari joins Russell Westbrook and Stephen Curry as the only players to post 23-plus points, five-plus rebounds and five-plus assists in 24 minutes or fewer this season.
– Denver led by a season-high tying 34 points for the second consecutive game. The 34-point deficit is the largest Atlanta has faced this season. But Denver won by only 13 after it missed its final 14 field-goal attempts and Atlanta closed the game on a 24-5 run.
– The Nuggets outrebounded Atlanta, 44-32, their largest rebounding advantage since Jan. 14 against Dallas. Denver has only been outrebounded once in its last seven games after being outrebounded in a franchise-long 15 straight games prior to this stretch.
• ? Yes, please:
• Michael Jordan’s are going up for auction.
• Well, this was bizarre. Denver-based journalist Jonah Keri was on a flight to Denver, when the rock group Lifehouse started playing on the flight. Reverb’s Ashley Dean :
• And finally, happy 62nd birthday to actor .
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
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