10/15/26 Beyond the Forecast: Catching Up with Local Legend Miles Muzio

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Thursday, October 15th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com https://www.moneywiseguys.com/ facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.facebook.com/moneywiseguys/ LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneywise-wealth-management-bakersfield/ Guest: Miles Muzio, Retired Chief Meterologist & Local Legend website: https://www.milesmuzio.com/ The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Miles Muzio is not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Live from the basement inside the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:09Speaker 02

  I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Well, I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Said I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. And if I share with you my story, would you share your dollar with me? Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the basement of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you are on News Talk 96.1 and 1230 AM K E R N, streaming live at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. We are your hosts. I'm Sharad Waite and

• 1:04Speaker 04

  Dustin Weaver.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  D-Dub.

• 1:06Speaker 04

  Yes, sir.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  We have some really, really exciting guests that's coming up. And, but we also have some really great listener questions and comments. And so, let's, let's start with the question comments. If anybody is out there listening that has any other questions or, or comments, please send them our way. 661-396-1000.

• 1:29Speaker 04

  I'm thinking we're going to have some questions for our guest.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  I've got some.

• 1:33Speaker 04

  Once they find out who it is.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, we should just announce it. Miles Museo.

• 1:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:37Speaker 03

  Miles Museo.

• 1:37Speaker 04

  Miles is here, in the building.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  He's in the building. We're going to, we're going to bring him on here shortly. Of course, if you don't know who Miles Museo is, maybe you haven't been

• 1:47Speaker 04

  Are you new to Bakersfield?

• 1:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. Weather legend and now retired chief meteorologist. I say, I put retired in air quotes because, you know, there's, he's, he's still very active, so excited to talk to Miles about what he's been up to and about his career. And I think there's also some really interesting questions that I have in terms of retirement, transitioning to retirement. And then I am, I'm an armchair meteorologist myself. I love, I love meteorology. I love weather. I pay attention to it. I, I love that kind of stuff. But I know nothing about it, but I love to learn and hear about it.

• 2:27Speaker 04

  It'll be great. I'm sure we're going to get a question or two.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Definitely, definitely. Well, let's get right to the listener questions.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, this first one. I've been keeping a lot of my retirement money in CDs because I don't trust the markets right now, but seeing stocks continue to climb makes me wonder if I'm making a bigger mistake by sitting on the sidelines. What do you guys think when it comes to my scenario?

• 2:46Speaker 03

  So Dustin, I want to hear your thoughts, but you know, I'm glad they answered, they asked this question explaining that they don't trust the markets because that's the key. If you don't trust the markets, when, when you, if you don't trust the markets today, you likely would not have trusted the markets in the 1940s or the 50s or the 60s. If you would have invested just a few dollars back in either of those decades, any of those decades, you know, 50 years ago, you, you would be a very wealthy human being. Yet, what were, what were the challenges we were faced in the 40s? We had, we had the world burning down around us in World War II.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  We were, we were, we were, we felt as though we were on the brink of Nazi Germany taking over the, the, the democratic world. And yet, never in a million years would you have thought that that $1 you invested in IBM or whatever at that time would today be $10,000.

• 3:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, oftentimes the confidence to get back in, when we say, oh, we do trust it now, that's usually after a long period of growth.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:54Speaker 04

  Where there's euphoria.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  It's like, oh, look how great it's been from that recent history.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  Right? But what do we know about years and years and years of good growth? Sometimes there's setbacks.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  And none of us know when that's going to happen.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  That's, that's another interesting point is that people want to time it just right, especially if they've inherited something or there's a windfall, they won a lottery or they've got some big, big, big windfall. Then they're like, well, when do I put my money in the market? They want to wait for that right time. And it's like, you're never, you're never going to time that right. And the time that you're, that, that is passing you by without putting, getting in the market is going to cost you far more than if you happen to just time it perfectly. And there's really interesting studies that show that. What if you only invested one time a year and you picked the very low of the market that year? And you did that every single year? Like, which is, first of all, it's impossible.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  But if you do that versus dollar cost averaging and not even paying attention to it, it is almost negligible.

• 4:58Speaker 04

  And that's if you were able to time it at the bottom, right?

• 5:00Speaker 03

  That's if you were able to time it. So again, we say it Money Wise over and over, it's not timing the market, it's time in the market that's most important. And, and so it just, not everybody though is invested in the stock market. And that's where there can be some, if you're working with a good investment advisor, they're helping you understand the relationship to risk and time and those types of things.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  With time usually being one of the biggest components, right? Because when we're building a portfolio, we're looking at how much access to, to this portfolio do I need and when, over what timeframe? We're balancing out the really three, it's like a three-legged stool. I need some amount of income at some point. I need some amount of growth because that's future income. But a lot of times it's why somebody like this person would be buying a lot of CDs is for that third leg of the stool, the capital preservation or keep my money safe. I don't want to lose it here, right?

• 5:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:55Speaker 04

  Well, that time horizon really is so important. If you're building a retirement strategy that you want to last for 20, 25, 30 plus years, I mean, time and time again, you go back 100 years, CDs is probably not the best fit for that.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  No.

• 6:10Speaker 04

  Now, for a short-term goal, three, six, nine, 12, 18 months out.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  That's a specific goal. A CD will get you a great rate of return for that period of time.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  And it's accessible when you need it.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 04

  So.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  Great. Let's get to the next message.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  My wife wants us to pay the house off before we retire, and I keep thinking that money could be earning more if we invested it instead. Help me or am I way off?

• 6:34Speaker 03

  This is another one of my favorite topics because it's not, I think there is a natural tendency for people to just want to get out from debt, all debt at all costs. And, and that is not always, that is sometimes is the best thing, depending on you, how you, how you are and how you manage that debt and how you, how you function and move through the world. But there's, there's also a, a, a strong argument to say that if you were responsible with debt, and if you have the right mindset with that, if you're looking at, at, at a choice mathematically of whether you should pay a home off or not, it's, it's generally, if you have a low interest rate and a lot of people are locked into really low mortgage

• 7:19Speaker 03

  rates, it doesn't make sense to pay off the home. Like mathematically, it doesn't make sense because you're, you're taking, that's, and usually what you're doing is you're taking an asset like, or, or a long-term savings account or a 401K, and let's say you're averaging seven or eight percent a year in that account. So you're taking money that's earning seven or eight percent and you're paying off a debt that's, that's costing you three or three and a half percent. What, that doesn't make any sense at all mathematically, financially speaking, like you, you would be a dummy to pay it off. But there are people who are, they will not save on their own otherwise.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  And/or stay invested.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  Or stay invested.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  When things get, go up and down or hit volatility, right?

• 8:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:04Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  So like, another way to say, say, let's say you own $100,000 on your mortgage and your mortgage is, is 4%, but your $100,000 is earning 8%. Well, if you are disciplined enough to keep that $100,000 there working for you and, and keep it invested properly, great, then that's, that's the answer. Keep it there and keep it growing for you and then pull off interest from it and keep paying off the, keep paying off your mortgage with the interest that you're getting from that money. It's just that some people, when the money's there, they can't help themselves but to get that ski boat.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  You know, or, or something, some depreciating asset.

• 8:46Speaker 04

  So what do you say to somebody that got a loan more recent and they had a six and a half, seven, or even, gosh, the new rate right now around seven and a half percent.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Almost seven and a half now, right?

• 8:55Speaker 04

  So now we're talking. That mathematical side, it's like, okay, yeah, I think it makes a lot more sense to pay that down.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  You could finish my sentence if I said a penny saved is

• 9:04Speaker 03

  A penny earned.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  A penny earned, right? Meaning if I'm not paying the bank seven and a half percent, that's like earning seven and a half percent.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Right? And that's a risk-free investment.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  Perfect example of that is not, so we don't see it so much in mortgages, but we see it in consumer debt or credit card debt, consumer loans. Those are 15, 20%. Now, if you're asking me, should I take my $100,000 and pay off a 20% credit card?

• 9:34Speaker 04

  No doubt.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, that's a 20% guaranteed return on that money.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  So do it. You know, just don't go back to the credit card.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  Now, don't go around and rack up that debt again.

• 9:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Hopefully that helps.

• 9:46Speaker 04

  Great question though. And a lot of people are thinking about this.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. Let's get to the next one.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  So, hey guys, how many years do your advisors have to have before becoming an official Money Wise guy? Justin is my family's advisor and I know he's been doing it for a while, but I was just wondering.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Justin is a Money Wise guy. Justin's been with Money Wise, was it 15 years now? 12 years?

• 10:10Speaker 04

  12, 13 maybe?

• 10:13Speaker 04

  Over a decade.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Over a decade. And, and so, you know, how many years does it take to become an advisor? That's the question, right? Not just a Money Wise advisor, because if you're, if you're an advisor at Money Wise, you're a Money Wise advisor right away.

• 10:26Speaker 04

  Oh, right.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Right? But I think I interpret this as how long does it take to become an advisor? What's the timeframe?

• 10:33Speaker 04

  That depends. There's a lot of folks that call themselves advisors out there. Some of them are licensed for insurance. That's a relatively easy, you know, 40, 50 hour course to go through. There's an argument there on whether that's comprehensive advice or not, right?

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  But with securities licensing or becoming a, like a certified financial planner, for example, Justin and I in the office have that. That's multiple years of schooling and a pretty rigorous test. So the answer, like, we hear a lot, it depends.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:07Speaker 04

  But it depends on if you're in a financial institution or if you're working with an independent firm like ours, it does look different. But really, the skill set is built over a number of years. There's just so much information to follow.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  From the markets to different account types, to the tax and estate planning element.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  There's a lot of moving parts. So really, if you're a student of the craft, it's going to take you a long time. But.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  It's, it's kind of similar to like a CPA. But I'm not going to compare us exactly to CPAs, but you, you can, you can go through the course and become a CPA and pass the tests. But until you start having real world activities and you're actually real world advice, that's the only place that you're going to sort of retain that information, be able to put that information into practice, and that takes years.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  And the same thing with financial advisors, like we're, CFP specifically, which you were a certified financial planner, went through that, it's very rigorous, you know, coursework and, and examination, because it entails all of these different areas that we have to deal with, estate planning, insurance, tax law, investments and.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, there's a lot of little nuanced rules in social security and Medicare planning and, you know, specific to retirement planning, there's, there's just a lot to pay attention to. So it does take time.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Well, our next message that has just come through actually is for our guest. So I think it's an appropriate time right now for us to just skip through this break and go right to our guest, which I am, as I mentioned, very, very excited. We have with us here today, Miles Museo. He is, Miles, if you don't know, is retired in December of 2024, after 44 years in television broadcasting, including 22 years at KBAK, KBFX, before television. He spent 12 years as an air force meteorologist and even provided weather support for astronaut Gene Cernan, is it Cernan, right? Apollo 17 training. He continues to teach aviation meteorology at California Aeronautical University, right out here at Meadows Field.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  He, and for, super excited to have him here with the Money Wise show. So welcome to the show, Miles.

• 13:25Speaker 05

  Thank you very much, Sherrod and Dustin. Good to be here. And yeah, it's great, always great to be on the air.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  And now you are, you're live on the air. We have our live radio show and then, of course, our podcasts, our listener messages that grew up watching Miles Museo. I was wondering where he went off to. Hopefully, he's enjoying retirement, but we miss him. And that's in all caps, exclamation mark. I miss you too. You are my favorite meteorologist by far. You're, you're, you, you have to have a passion for this because it came through on the television screen.

• 13:58Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  You must be passionate.

• 14:00Speaker 05

  Ever since I saw a tornado as a little kid, I'm five years old, and also landing on Okinawa, my dad was in the air force, and so we were going to Okinawa, which is a part of Japan, and landed there right before a typhoon hit. And so I was only five, six years old, and then the eye came over and it got really windy and it was just what you would expect from a hurricane or a typhoon. And then it, it just calmed down and there was just nothing. And you could see the stars out. And I thought to myself, this, this is interesting. But all of the adults said, oh, it's not over yet. And so then the other side, you know, the eye went past, and I always wondered, how did they know that?

• 14:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:41Speaker 05

  That was sort of the kernel, the seed that, that got my passion going, you know? And so I've, I've enjoyed weather just my entire life. It's, it is a passion. And everybody has some passion, but this is, this is mine. So I'm always like a sponge, kind of soaking up all that I can understand about or need to understand about weather.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you spent 44 years in broadcasting, became one of the most recognizable faces in town. What's retirement actually been like? And is it, is it like what you expected?

• 15:14Speaker 05

  Well, let me say something that maybe some people don't expect, and that is, I don't live here anymore. We moved last year, a little over a year ago, to New Braunfels, Texas, which is this little town, it's not so little anymore, between San Antonio and Austin. That whole corridor is just, just booming. It's just really, you know, there's.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Populations booming.

• 15:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's more traffic on Interstate 35 than there is at the 14.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 15:39Speaker 05

  I mean, it's, it's really kind of a problem. That's a whole other thing.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 05

  But that's where I'm from originally. I actually graduated from high school there. So I have friends there, a lot of friends, and it's a, a whole different climate, too. I mean, when I left just the other day, it was so humid. I mean, the humidity was just, you, you get out of the car and your glasses fog up.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:01Speaker 05

  It's really great to come back here.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:03Speaker 05

  And by the way, whenever I come back to Bakersfield, it's always wonderful. I, I just remember the 35 years on TV here. I was at other stations as well in my career, but I spent the lion's share of it here, and it's, it's just always good. And whenever I come back, everybody recognizes me. Just a few moments ago, there was a guy upstairs here in Woolworths, and he said, Miles Museo, right? And he lives in San Francisco now, but he grew, he grew up here.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Oh, how about that?

• 16:31Speaker 05

  And it's, it's, everybody knows who I am.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  How, how do you handle that? Like, how is that, is that, I mean, is it become, is it a burden?

• 16:38Speaker 05

  It actually, it's a little bit of both. It's, it's, of course, ingratiating to, to know that people like you. Everybody wants to be liked. But at the same time, it is, just comes with the territory, I guess. You know, my wife, my sweet wife, Deborah, we've been married 51 years now. She, it was always kind of in the shadows, you know? And, and so now we moved to, to Texas, and it's like the opposite of cheers. You're going to a place where nobody knows you. And that's, that's, that's better, I suppose. You just be a regular person.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  But I, I always enjoy interacting with all the people here. They have weather questions and they remember me, and not just weather. I did all sorts of kind of skits and stunts and things like that. Abraham Lincoln does the weather, you know, and I was the swami and I would, and Aaron Perlman and I would, we'd have the fair, we would do funny things like ride, ride the bull, you know, mechanical bull.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:32Speaker 05

  There was all sorts of stuff like that that I really enjoyed. Plus, plus, one other thing, I did the, the moonwalk. The moonwalk was something where I would take viewers on a, on a moonlight hike up into a high Sierra Peak, like Mount Whitney or something.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:46Speaker 05

  Then we would, and you get up in the August moon and you don't need a flashlight because it's so bright and beautiful. And we'd watch the sunrise from the, from the peak and then come on down. And it was, it was just a great bonding experience and getting out into the, into nature.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  That's really neat. You mentioned your love for climate, and the climate is different in Texas. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're a bit of a storm chaser, you know?

• 18:11Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  Tell us about that. What's that like?

• 18:14Speaker 05

  Deborah and I, we go chase tornadoes every year, and it's just something that I've done, we've done ever since the beginning, even before I married her in 1975. And I would go out and just chase storms before it became, before Twister came out, you know, before it became.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Before it was cool.

• 18:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, before it was cool. I went out supposedly for research, but not really. I just want to go out and get the adrenaline rush and get the, the sounds and the smells and, and the sights and, and see these storms develop. It's, it's, it's fun. It's, it's an adrenaline rush. Although I do have a friend, Jeff Petroski is his name, and we were buddies. And he saw the horrible tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri on May 22nd, 2011, and it changed his life in a very negative way. He has PTSD big time because he, he actually uncovered people who had just died and 100, 100 and some odd people. So there was that side of it, too. But that's not, I, I like the tornadoes that are, that are very photogenic and that

• 19:14Speaker 05

  are out in the middle of nowhere and they're not, but it's, it's a lot of fun.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  You know, one thing I really miss about, again, we're joined by Miles Museo, one thing I really miss about your, your broadcasts and your, your weather segments is your museometer. I thought, I found it so helpful because it was. It was like a way for the general public to sort of gauge beyond just what the temperature is. There's so many other things involved than just with the temperature. And you were always so good to take the time. I felt like you were taking time for me to educate me the importance of dew point or the importance of humidity or

• 19:52Speaker 05

  It sort of boils it all down to like a letter grade is what it was.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 05

  Like, like, and not only weather, like, like right now, I'm having an A plus on the museum meter, just being here with everybody. It's really wonderful. But yeah, I do the little things like that.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  You came up with that, I'm guessing.

• 20:08Speaker 05

  Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. That and also the museo discomfort index, the MDI. You can go, you can go on weather, weather I dot com. That's weather, the letter I dot com. And I update that every, every week.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  Oh, nice. I've got to sign up for that. I mean, it's still around.

• 20:25Speaker 05

  Well, there's more. I don't know if we have time right now. Do you need to take a break?

• 20:28Speaker 03

  Not, not, not yet. We've got a few minutes.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  Not yet. So, so there's more to it than that. I'm also a voice actor. And so I do commercials on TV and radio. And I'm also a narrator. So I read books like on audible dot com, stuff like that. So that's, that's the next thing I'm doing. You were talking about retirement. So this is what I'm, I can't just do nothing. You can't just go play golf. And I don't play golf, by the way, but if I did, I can't just do that.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  So is it all book types with the reading? Or is it weather related?

• 20:59Speaker 05

  Oh, no, no, it's just anything at all. It's anything at all. And it takes time, you know, it takes about 34 hours to do a 17 hour book. The, the average book reading from beginning to end is about 17 hours. And it takes about double that to, to actually voice it because there are mistakes and things like that. So 34 hours, you don't just sit down and read for 34 hours. So basically, it's two hours at a time, that kind of thing.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  This is, I imagine, I mean, this isn't, this is a retirement like side gig, right?

• 21:32Speaker 05

  I suppose.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  But it's something, I'm guessing, a skill that you really honed in over all the years in broadcasting, right? Because you have to be so deliberate and

• 21:41Speaker 05

  Well, people have always told me that I have a good voice.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 05

  And people recognize me on the street, not necessarily by my face, but by my voice. They've heard me speak. Oh, that's the, you know, they don't even need to see me. Oh, that's Miles Museo. So, yeah, it kind of dovetailed well into, into this. So I have a whole new thing. It's called Unlimited Miles Productions. And you can go to milesmuseo dot com and read all about it. So that's something.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  I love it. I love it. I love this. I love this, this story because of a, a small pet peeve of mine is this misconception that a lot of us Americans have about retirement, which is you work and you suffer and you struggle for 65 years.

• 22:27Speaker 05

  Then you cross the goal line.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  And you cross the goal line and then you're just drinking Mai Tais on the beach and you're just happy with no other problems. And like, that is not, nobody does that.

• 22:36Speaker 04

  Well, maybe some people.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Maybe, but they're miserable after a few months.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  I think so. And if you're not fruitful and productive,

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 05

  then you just lie down and die.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Everybody hears that. It's like, it's cliche. Everybody says, oh, you gotta do something, you gotta be involved in something. But yet, people still go through their life, not really preparing, trying to prepare themselves financially, but not preparing themselves mentally for what's going to take up their time. And usually, it can be a period of adjustment that can be very depressing or very anxiety ridden. After three months of, of drinking Mai Tais by the poolside, they realize they're miserable. You know, they, they're just, they have other misery that they were suffering during their 65 years working for whoever they were working for.

• 23:19Speaker 05

  Well, let me say this. There was an adjustment period after my last show on KBAK back in December of 24. And I was a little bit unsure about what the future held. And so about a year, there were, there were interesting little, and I've got, I have friends who retired like from the air force after 30 years and, and went through this as well. I think this is somewhat common.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Very common.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  When you've done something all your life, you're used to it, you get into the routine, and then it's over. And then, then what do you do next? You know? So I went through that. But now, in my retirement, I'm chasing tornadoes, I'm reading books on Audible, and I'm also making forecasts for agriculture, right here in the San Joaquin Valley. That's right. I live in central Texas. You can make forecasts. I can make forecasts for the South Pole.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 24:10Speaker 05

  I got the data.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  It's such a great example of not just retiring from something, but really retiring to something.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  Right?

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  Or we talk about the push and the pull. You know, you're pushed away from a job, but what are you being pulled to?

• 24:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Right?

• 24:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  This is so cool.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  I love it. I love it. And it just really, you're right, it does, there is an adjustment period. You know, a year would probably be a very good average amount of time that it takes most people, especially if they're really into their career before they sort of move on. We're going to take a real quick break. We're going to come back right back to Miles Museo, weather legend and retired chief meteorologist. We're Money Wise. We'll be right back.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  Welcome back. We're Money Wise. We're your hosts today. I'm Sharon. That's Dustin. We're joined today by our guest, Miles Museo, weather legend and retired chief meteorologist. Miles, over your career there in, in meteorology, and when you started forecasting weather, the technology was very different than what we, what we see today. How much better are we today than 40 years ago? And kind of where do you see us going?

• 25:26Speaker 05

  Well, I always talk about the art of weather and the science of weather. And the art of weather has been around forever.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:32Speaker 05

  Woolly worms of the, you know, looking at nature and red sky in the morning, sailor tech warning, stuff like that. But then, in the 1940s and 50s, we started getting into computers. And of course, they were just really basic back then. But with time, they've gotten faster and faster and faster. And right now, the computers that we use for the American models, and they're, and every country seems to have their own, you've heard of the European models, I'm sure, but the Australians, the Canadians, they all have that, operated at about 42 petaflops. And what that means is 42 quadrillion floating point operations per second.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  So is that, that's the computer processing that is required?

• 26:14Speaker 05

  Yes. And they're processing these very sophisticated, you know, equations and things like that. So, yeah. And it's getting better and better and better. But still, the, the model, the model error will double every five days. You go five days out, there's a little bit of an error, then five more days to 10 days, you've doubled it, 15 days, you know? So really, the, the best forecast is just as close to now as possible, maybe two, three, four days, something like that. But even that has improved. There was a time that, you know, just, just a one day forecast.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 05

  And I remember that, too. I remember TV weather people way back in the 1950s. Everything was in black and white. The, the entire newscast was like 15 minutes. And there was a weather guy who would basically start off with a map that had nothing on it and like draw things. And that's the way that was. And then, we, we finally got to a point where we needed people that had some credibility. So meteorologists. And so the American Meteorological Society came up with the, the AMS Seal of Approval. And then we had, you know, degreed meteorologists. And then they started using computers themselves for the graphics. And things have just really improved. And now, you know, you, you watch

• 27:30Speaker 05

  a weather cast, especially like the Weather Channel or some of these stations in LA, it is just so, it's, it's like AI. In fact, it is AI. But it just looks so real that it's just really kind of interesting. I mean, they get, they get right into where the floods are. And the guy is right there, or the gal is right there, you know, showing you what's happening and how high the, the, the damage is going to be, how high the flood is going to be. And, but as far as the accuracy goes, it is getting more accurate. But at the same time, I've noted that there are some big mistakes that, that can happen, like really missing the forecast, not that far into the future. Right now, about a week out, you can be pretty sure.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  You can be pretty confident about what the predictions are.

• 28:14Speaker 05

  Yes. Like, for example, right now, it's 76 degrees in Bakersfield with clear skies. But by tomorrow, we may be up into the 90s.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  And that's going to probably happen. But then after that, it's going to cool off again. Another big low is going to develop. It's going to be much cooler. And the, the models are pretty good about that.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it used to be, I mean, it was nearly, my understanding and reading about the history of forecasting is that you go beyond seven days and like, forget about it. I mean, you have, you have no clue, because we didn't have the, the processing power available to even like calculate that or model that out.

• 28:52Speaker 05

  Well, it's not just that. It's the analysis. It's the, the diagnosis at the very beginning. What is the weather really like right now? And if you're wrong, even a little bit about that, then that error just expands into the future, you know?

• 29:04Speaker 04

  And the farther you go out, the, the more that expand, the error, margin of error is

• 29:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, I call it the verification cap. And what that means is that you go out to like five days, you would never put more than a 50% probability of rain, even though the models say 70, something like that. It's just a cap due to the uncertainty of the, of what happens in the future.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  One thing, another thing I really appreciated about your, about your, the, the airtime that you had as a meteorologist is you would, you would point out things that were happening around the world that were interesting or related to weather, you know, hurricanes, for example. You would talk about that and explain that, even though it's like, it wasn't coming to us. It wasn't another part of the world. But I always found it fascinating. Is the same advancements happening in terms of predicting hurricanes and the path of hurricanes? You're seeing the same improvements there?

• 29:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, there are scientists that are just always working on new methods of forecasting every type of weather, but in particular hurricanes. We've had so many. We're up to Trudy now, the T storm, you know, in the Eastern Pacific. It'll probably be more because the water is so warm. But yeah, there's always, they're always doing, doing that. They're always coming up with new methods and testing them out. My, my philosophy is information, education, and entertainment, in that order. And that's because when I was a little kid on Okinawa, there was this, there was this radio station that said, the voice of information, education, and entertainment. This is the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service,

• 30:42Speaker 05

  Channel 8 on Okinawa. And that was burned into my mind. And I, and that is my philosophy now.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  That is so cool. You know, we actually got a question in that pertains to what we were hoping to talk about anyway. So I'm going to read this. It says, hey, Miles.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Hearing we might have a pretty strong El Nino this year, does that mean we could actually see a good amount of rain this winter? Or is it something that people are just getting too excited about?

• 31:05Speaker 05

  El Nino.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 05

  Okay, so this is a super El Nino. And it really is. The numbers that we have now, or it sounds like something Trump would say, never seen numbers like this.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:14Speaker 05

  So the, the temperature is of the ocean in the El Nino region, that's the equatorial Pacific, have never been measured this, this high. And the, the specific measurements, the explicit measurements will go back to 1950. That's when the whole thing started. But these numbers, these anomalies are so dramatic, I talked about it last night at a weather seminar that I did, that we, we're in uncharted territory. We, we really don't know how dramatic this is going to be. So I've come up with something, this is another acronym, it's like the museometer. And so this is the Museo El Nino Diagnostic System, MENS.

• 31:55Speaker 05

  So if, if you have trouble understanding this will mean, and it has three different parts to it. Teleconnections, and a teleconnection is something happening over here, like in the Pacific, but it has this palpable influence in like the Alps or something like that. That's a teleconnection. Regionalization, because El Nino is different depending upon where you're at. I, I brought up the, the idea of earthquakes. There's like a 7.1 earthquake that happens right there in Ridgecrest, and it's bad. But then if you're like 100 miles away, it's not as bad. And there's another thing that, that deals with that called a Mercalli Shake Index. So the regionalization tells you what impact this is going to have on, on you, where you are.

• 32:40Speaker 05

  So it'll be different. It'll be different in Northern California from Southern California and here in Central California. And then the last one was a thing that I called cyclogenetics, and that is the ability of low pressure systems to develop. So I have this, I can boil it all down to a number.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 05

  And, and it's, it's got biases and things like that. And then finally, the, the El Nino Impact Potential, the EIP, there's another one, comes up with, with categories. So I've come up with El Nino categories, like one through five. This is just like the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. You know, we just had a, we had, what was it? Isaias just hit in the Gulf.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:22Speaker 05

  That is a, a six-letter word that has four syllables. Isaias. And that hit, so, but you've heard of these categories. You've heard of tornadoes and EF1, EF5 and something like that. And when I was here on TV, I, I actually categorized heatwaves. By the way, we just had a heatwave end a little over a week ago. I think we're done with triple digits. It's going to be maybe close tomorrow in some places, probably 90s.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:48Speaker 05

  But I had categories for that too. So here, we're going to have categories for El Nino, but it'll be regionalized. Okay? And so for Central California, and this was just last night, I debuted it, it turned out that we are going to be seeing a category four out of five, category four, El Nino, which means that it will, it'll be raining a lot. But, but you remember 2015?

• 34:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:14Speaker 05

  It was the biggest El Nino prior to this one. And nothing happened here. Nothing at all happened.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:21Speaker 05

  So I have a friend, he's with the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. His name is Chris Broyles, and he did a study of big El Ninos and what has happened with big El Ninos. And he determined that there is a two-year lapse, in other words, two years after this big El Nino. And then El Nino is gone. It's not even there anymore. This is like something, just, just a weird statistical correlation. That's when the big rains happen.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  And what do you know? In late 2016 and early 2017, this big five-year drought, the one that Governor Brown was saying, you know, you've got to stop using water, basically.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  It, it ended. It, it just summarily ended in about a six-week period. And nobody predicted that. I didn't predict it. The, the government forecasters in, in autumn of 2016 didn't say, hey, there's big rains coming. But it was about two years after the big 2015.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  So it's possible for that to happen again?

• 35:18Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. Although I, I think it's going to be a little bit more direct. I think we're going to see rain here probably in the December to March timeframe, and it'll be about 125% of normal.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  Right around that time, as you said, 2000, this would be 2017 or 18, was right when I started hearing about these atmospheric rivers.

• 35:39Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  You know, it's like, what? I've never heard this term before. What's an atmospheric river?

• 35:44Speaker 05

  Well, you, you've probably heard of the Pineapple Express.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 05

  You heard that like way back.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Long time ago, yeah.

• 35:50Speaker 05

  That's the same.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  Same thing, yeah. Now they just kind of call it something.

• 35:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, they come up with new terms. It's sort of like polar vortex. Nobody heard about that either until about 10 years ago.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that had been going on. People knew about that a long time ago.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Well, nothing is new. I mean, I mean, you know, El Nino has been, you know why it's called El Nino?

• 36:07Speaker 03

  Uh, why is that? It used to be something to do with Christ, right? The birth of Christ, the baby, baby Christ.

• 36:14Speaker 05

  Exactly. So the conquistadors back in the 1500s were in Peru, and they noticed that the water normally cooled because of upwelling, sort of like the cool water we have off San Francisco, would get very warm all of a sudden. And all of the sardines and the anchovies would die. And so there was this effect, and it happened right around Christmas. And so they thought it was the baby Jesus. And so that's where, that, that is the El Nino.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:40Speaker 04

  Interesting, I'd never heard that.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  So, so the prediction is just more, more rain, we'll get more rain here in the central, in the Central Valley, which that, we need that. So it, I mean, I guess some people would say, oh, this is, this is great. This is, El Nino is great.

• 36:55Speaker 05

  Well, it is great if you get the rain, but you don't want it all at one time.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:59Speaker 05

  And that's the thing.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  The, the thing that causes flooding is not the amount of rain so much, it is the rate of rainfall. And sometimes we can get three, four, even five inches per hour, and that ain't good.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it just ends up getting drained out and doesn't trickle down and stay in. Does it, does it also, will it, because what matters more for us also is, more importantly, is snowpack.

• 37:24Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Right? And so would that, would that, would the El Nino also bring more snow?

• 37:29Speaker 05

  Yes, but high elevation snows. So this would be what might happen, and it's not always really, really warm. We get one little cool thing, and then the snow gets down to maybe 5,000 feet. And then a big atmospheric river comes, you know, a big Pineapple Express with a lot of tropical moisture coming in from the Southwest. And then we'll have heavy, heavy rains and the snow level go up to like 10,000 or 12,000 feet. But all of that snow that's already 5,000 feet and above will all melt. And then, and then you get all of this runoff and stuff like that. It might be sort of like what happened back in 2023.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 38:05Speaker 05

  When we had Lake Teleri.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 38:07Speaker 05

  We had all of this snow loading, and, and there were, there were places like at Lake Arrowhead where they were collapsing due to all this snow. You know, they have A-frames, but it wasn't good enough, I suppose. So yeah, that could happen. And that, I do anticipate, like I said, about 125% of normal. Although the big El Nino in 1997, 98, maybe you remember this? Do you remember this?

• 38:29Speaker 03

  You'll have to remind me. I remember it.

• 38:31Speaker 05

  It was the big one. We had over 14, 14.73 inches of rain.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  It's over, that's over double what we normally get, and that was a big deal. That was an El Nino. That was the big El Nino until 2015, which was a nothing burger. It was a, it was a no Nino is what it was. But then two years after that, we had the big rain.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. Now, kind of talking about this El Nino, there's also, you know, concerns about is this, is this at all a consequence to human, human action or behavior or carbon in the air? Or is this part of like a human-caused climate change issue?

• 39:14Speaker 05

  No.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Or is this something that just?

• 39:16Speaker 05

  This is always, this is always so controversial. But, but there's research that was done back in the late 90s, 1999, ice core samples from Vostok, and they go back 400,000 years. And it turns out, looking at carbon dioxide and oxygen ratios, that what happens is that everything warms up and then carbon dioxide is released. It's just the other way around. They're saying all of this carbon dioxide is causing warming. In fact, it's the, the other way around. And that has to do with, with outgassing. So carbon dioxide is mixed into the ocean. 70% of the Earth's surface is water. Okay? So a lot more water than there is land.

• 40:00Speaker 05

  And so all of that carbon dioxide is mixed into, just like you can mix a carbon dioxide into a soft drink. But have you noticed that your soft drink, which is all fizzy when it's cold, if you leave it at room temperature, it's not as fizzy anymore? Because there is a solubility issue there. So you can only mix so much carbon dioxide gas into the liquid. So as the oceans warm up due to something else, not because of human-caused carbon dioxide, there, there will be this release of carbon dioxide from the oceans. That's called outgassing. So, so, so it depends what happens first, you know?

• 40:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:36Speaker 05

  It is the, the oceans warming up first due to some other thing, something cosmic, something big, some.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Not, not human-caused?

• 40:46Speaker 05

  No, human-caused is just so, so small. I teach my classes, we look at the, the thermogenic qualities of different gases, you know, oxygen and, and methane and water vapor. Now, water vapor has a thermogenic quality much greater than carbon dioxide. It's not that carbon dioxide is nothing, but what we put into the atmosphere is not going to change the climate of the world.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  So what, yeah, so then, yeah, what do you make of then sort of the, the, the green technology movements and sort of what, what, what, what the, what I understand, the general scientific community is pointing to one of the biggest, one of the major causes being the increase in, in carbon fuel consumption and other, other, other sort of gases that humans are emitting, either whether it's through coal production or carbon fuel.

• 41:46Speaker 05

  I think, I think it's, I think it's inconsequential to natural things. You know, in the jungles, things decay and they release carbon dioxide. And then the carbon dioxide sink in the, in the ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean is a sink. That's where they take in all of this. What, what humans produce is, is pretty small. I, I actually came up with a, an analogy. In a, in a house, which is a little, it's like 2,500 square feet, in that house, the human output would be the size of a, one-third the size of a postage stamp. Very, very small. And the rest of it goes into sinks, the rest of it is processed naturally.

• 42:27Speaker 05

  There are natural things that are much bigger than anything that people can do. So to the notion that humans are causing more hurricanes, or that is just ludicrous, I think.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  Wow. Yeah, that's such an interesting.

• 42:42Speaker 05

  I'm all for clean, by the way. I'm all for clean. We don't want particulate matter. L.A. is cleaned up, and Mexico City, I've been down there before, really dirty. Beijing, a place that is very, very dirty. So I'm all for clean. But the concept that carbon dioxide is the bane of our life is just wrong. Carbon dioxide is very important. Carbon dioxide is used by plants for photosynthesis, and their byproduct of that process is oxygen. And then we, as humans and animals, use the oxygen, and our byproduct is carbon dioxide. So we have a symbiotic relationship between plants and animals, which is perfect, which is the way it's supposed to be.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:28Speaker 05

  And there are many more plants than there are animals.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  I guess, yeah, I've heard of some of the benefits that we could see for the increase in carbon in our air, in our atmosphere. One of them being, well, you're going to get, you know, the greenhouse effect means you turn it into a greenhouse, right? The earth becomes more of a greenhouse, and you see you...

• 43:52Speaker 05

  And the alternative is very, very cold, you know, very, very cold. And that has happened in the past. In fact, in the 1300s, when the plague was taking one out of every three lives in Europe, that was a very cold time. And at the very beginning of, like, the revolution back in the 1700s, it was the Little Ice Age, and people were dying back then. It's actually better to be a little warmer.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I guess that does, the increased temperatures do have an impact on ocean levels, right?

• 44:26Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  And ice caps, and so we're seeing...

• 44:30Speaker 05

  Warmer it is, the higher the sea level.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  The higher the sea level goes, and like, we're okay here in the Central Valley, but for the millions of people that live along the coastline across the world, there's predictions of mass migrations over the next several decades, because, you know, these island communities and these coastal communities are going to be flooded.

• 44:50Speaker 05

  Well, it was much warmer back right around 1,000 years ago, back when Greenland was green, at least that's where Leif Erikson saw it. And ocean levels were a little bit different then. And so all I can suggest is if this happens, you know, don't, like if a tornado is coming, I don't try to mitigate it. I simply get out of the way.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 05

  And so if the ocean levels rise, and there's nothing that anybody can do, then you adapt. You simply adapt. That's what we do.

• 45:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, and do you see that happening? Not necessarily people adapting, but do you see that the temperatures continuing to rise as they have been?

• 45:29Speaker 05

  Well, I had been here in Bakersfield since 1990. That's when I started, and I was keeping records, and it's incontrovertible that we have seen warmer temperatures. And every year, it seems warmer. And yeah, it is warming up, there's just no question about that. Is it going to continue? Well, one thing I'm not going to do is rely on these computer models that go 50 years into the future and say, here's what it's going to be, because that, nobody knows. But I don't really know, I would say. But if it does warm up, it's not going to be because of anything humans do.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  So much of this is so, there's so much, especially in the state of California, where we have, you know, we're a large state, we're long, and, you know, most of our water, two-thirds of our water, comes from the top third of our state. And so we have this scenario where we have to, our politicians in Sacramento are trying to make these predictions, especially now with Sigma and the groundwater, you know, sustainability issues, that we're relying on what we hope science can figure out, which is predicting how much water we're going to get, because that dictates how much our farmers get.

• 46:41Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  And it doesn't, I don't know, I don't have a lot of faith in that. I don't have a lot of faith in our bureaucrats to be able to make these decisions.

• 46:49Speaker 05

  Why not?

• 46:50Speaker 03

  It just doesn't seem like it's, we're moving in the right direction. We had Steve Murray on the show yesterday, and it came up, you know, about just some of the mismanagement in the Delta. And, you know, it's just, it's, for us Central Valley people, that, you know, it's such a part of our culture and part of our history, agriculture and the ag community, it's really frustrating.

• 47:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. I would say mismanagement of water is one of the top, on the top tier of the problems we have with water for agriculture, water for people. It's mismanagement.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they do, they are relying on forecasts, because they have to make these, you know, allotment decisions of how much water is going to be, you know, given out and that kind of thing.

• 47:36Speaker 05

  And that's a big deal with El Nino coming. I know, because one of the water districts has contacted me about forecasts, about the big El Nino coming, and they need to know whether or not it's going to be a big problem for them.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  Good. Well, I hope you give them some good information, I hope they use you. So we're finishing up now. Miles, is there anything that you'd like to share, or any other tidbits that, before we end the show?

• 48:02Speaker 05

  Well, my big thing is going to be reading books, but then again, commercial, commercial voice acting. I'm going down to L.A. right after this to talk to a potential agent for that. And yeah, if anybody would like my voice on anything that they're doing, for any reason at all, just go to milesmuzio.com.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Wow, nice URL. You snagged, you must have snagged that.

• 48:26Speaker 05

  Who would have thought that?

• 48:27Speaker 03

  And then you have that other website?

• 48:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, the other one, weather, the letter I, weatheri.com. That's Weather Intel, by the way.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  Weatheri.com.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh, well, thank you. Thank you so much.

• 48:39Speaker 05

  Oh, it's been my pleasure. It's always great to come to Bakersfield and see you guys, too.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you. Please come back. Don't forget us here in Bakersfield. Thank you for taking the time and being on the show, and answering our questions, educating us. Miles Museo, again, weather legend and retired chief meteorologist.

• 48:59Speaker 05

  And a wealth of knowledge.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  And a super wealth of knowledge.

• 49:01Speaker 05

  Thank you all so much, I appreciate it.

• 49:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you. Want to remind all our listeners that if you'd like to listen to this or any of our past programs, go subscribe to the Money Wise Podcast. It's commercial-free and on all major podcast platforms like iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And of course, remember these three things as we leave: be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.