Chris Orr

Meteorologist/Anchor

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Chris Orr joined NewsCenter1 as the weekend meteorologist in May 2004.

Chris began his forecasting career in 1978 in Upper Michigan, moving on to Detroit, Green Bay and Minneapolis. He has had the privilege of forecasting for a variety of users including hot air balloon races, major motion pictures, power utilities, government agencies, construction companies and major airlines. He has also been heavily involved in agriculture, forecasting for commodities brokers and for individual farm operations and stockyards. The forecasting he is most proud of has been for the movies, the construction of the Mall of America, and many successful harvest seasons without a crop loss.

His broadcast career has also spanned four decades. He has produced weather broadcasts at KSTP-TV in St. Paul, Minnesota in the mid-1980's where he also became one of the first Doppler radar meteorologists in the state of Minnesota. During the 1990s his long range forecasts were a regular addition to Minneapolis's KARE-TV weathercasts and the weather page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Chris was designated a Certified Consulting Meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society in 1997, an organization he has been a member of for over 30 years. He is a charter member of the National Weather Association, has served on several of the association's committees and currently reviews papers for its journal.

In 2000 he retired from one of the largest worldwide commercial weather services - where he supervised 35 meteorologists - to start a new career: training meteorologists how to forecast the weather. In addition to providing training, he still forecasts weather for agricultural interests, writes a weekly column for the Rapid City Journal and provides expert testimony for court cases.

Chris, his wife and two children have planted permanent roots in western South Dakota, the best place to live in world.