Meteorologist Glenn ‘Hurricane’ Schwartz is back at work, kind of

In less than a year after retiring from NBC10, Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz was in the best shape he’d been in a long time. So he decided to go back to work.

“I never intended to go from 100 to zero,” said Schwartz, reminding The Inquirer that it was always his plan to continue working in meteorology, he was only retiring from television and commuting to work after roughly 42 years in the TV business, including 27 at NBC10.

“I definitely missed accomplishing something,” he added.

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His latest gig: climate change consultant at AKRF, an environmental engineering and consulting firm.

The audience: engineers working on projects who need to weather the storms, floods, and other manifestations of climate change.

Think of Schwartz as a sort of science whisperer, though he prefers “science communicator.” A job he’s been doing in one way or another his entire working life.

When he worked at the National Hurricane Center in Atlanta, Schwartz said, he coordinated with emergency management personnel from different backgrounds in preparing for hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. Of course, there are all those years he helped explain all sorts of weather events to viewers at home and that time he explained hybrid vehicles to lawmakers at the Pennsylvania Capitol.

At AKRF, Schwartz is tasked with breaking down how climate change could transform communities and how projects emerging in these vulnerable communities could be prepared.

“I’m especially talking about water, you know, rainfall, hurricanes, rising sea levels — that affects a lot of areas in a lot of cities,” said Schwartz, who described himself as a middleman of sorts.

He’ll be translating the science to engineers, business owners, and decision makers in government.

Though Schwartz can’t say what specific projects he’s working on, AKRF’s website offers some clues.

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The firm has worked on a project to reduce flood risk and “facilitate access to the waterfront along 2.4 miles of Manhattan’s East River shoreline” as well as a plan to create a more climate-resilient Lower Manhattan shoreline.

AKRF has offices across the East Coast, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, so Schwartz will be consulting throughout the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic.

But don’t worry, the beloved meteorologist is not all work and has so far been enjoying retirement.

After hanging up his microphone, Schwartz started swimming about three times a week and reading — the kind you would do on vacation — to a degree he hadn’t done since college.

Over the fall, however, the work bug started to kick in and Schwartz started writing hurricane updates for the website Currently, which focuses on climate change and offers weather services. Now, he’s adding consulting to the mix with hopes he can dabble in some solar energy-related work by the summer.

Maybe by then, he’ll have a better idea of what to do with his famous bow tie collection, which he pulled from to dress up for this interview.