Rob Jones · Weather Channel tribute
Remembering Cyclone Jim
A contemporary broadcast remembrance of Jim’s life and influence.
Two preserved exhibits
The recovered websites.
Each reconstruction remains a self-contained historical website. Visitors browse either edition inside the modern archive viewer, with optional fullscreen and separate-window viewing.
Recovered edition · pre-2014
The original Cyclone Jim website
Jim’s own biography, chase record, photographs and Cyclone Tours pages, preserved as a single historical collection.
Explore inside the archive →
Recovered edition · 2014
The memorial website
The later edition honoring Jim’s life, friendships and extraordinary visual record of severe weather.
Explore inside the archive →Independent archive research
The history aroundthe chase.
Historical exhibits distinguish institutional records, firsthand recollections and later reporting. Citations appear where they clarify a specific claim.
Official weather record
Scientific contributions
Pressure readings, storm photographs and eyewitness material preserved in NOAA, NHC, NSSL and National Weather Service records.
Open the evidence record → Historical featureHurricane interception
The development of deliberate land-based hurricane chasing, portable cameras and an informal network of field observers.
Read the historical account → Western Pacific chapterThe Guam years
Jim’s Yuri and Omar films, his personal storm chronology and the friendships that connected Guam to the wider chasing community.
Explore the Guam record → Oral-history networkChasing with Jim
Cited accounts of companions, shared storms, mentorship and the gatherings where practical knowledge circulated.
View the companion accounts → Searchable people indexHurricane chaser directory
A documented, expanding catalog of historical and current tropical-cyclone field observers, organized by role and reach.
Search the directory → Primary-source investigationThe first hurricane flights
Separate the 1935 Povey and Tomlinson missions from Duckworth’s 1943 eye penetrations using contemporary records.
Examine the evidence →Firsthand voices
Jim remembered in motion and sound.
Two designated interviews anchor the oral-history collection. The full directory records creators, dates, source types, storm associations and available formats.
2015 interview · Jim Leonard segment at 10:14
Dr. Neil Frank remembers Jim
Frank recalls early chasers gathering at the National Hurricane Center to compare notes and play field audio.
A legacy formally recognized
Storm Chasing Hall of Fame.
Jim Leonard has been named to the National Storm Chaser Summit’s Class of 2027, recognizing a body of work that helped define modern field documentation of severe weather.
View the official recognition ↗Jim Leonard · 1950–2014
A life drawn toward the storm.
Raised in Miami, Jim traced his lifelong fascination with severe weather to Hurricane Donna in 1960. He began tracking every Atlantic tropical cyclone and experienced Hurricanes Cleo and Betsy as they crossed South Florida.
His documented interception record begins with Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Over the next four decades he pursued Atlantic hurricanes, western Pacific typhoons and Great Plains tornadoes with cameras, barometers and an exacting eye for storm structure.
Jim moved to Guam in 1991, returned to South Florida, shared his recordings freely and mentored younger chasers. His photographs, video and pressure observations now survive in personal archives and official meteorological records.
Connected weather archives
More history to explore.
Related projects connect Jim’s archive to South Florida’s defining hurricane and to Rob Jones’s personal weather and broadcasting work.
Help preserve the record
Do you hold a piece of this history?
Diaries, photographs, films, newspaper clippings, storm measurements and firsthand corrections can help recover the story before it disappears.
Share an archival lead