John Lavin, CCM
Director, Forensic Services
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
John has over ten years of professional meteorology experience working directly with many Fortune 500 companies.
As the Director of Forensic Services at AccuWeather, John leads a team of highly qualified expert meteorologists. John himself has over ten years of professional meteorology experience working directly with many Fortune 500 companies. In early 2018, John earned his CCM designation from the American Meteorological Society, which is only awarded to highly qualified meteorologists.
John has worked on many forensic cases involving hail and wind verification, slip and falls, auto accidents, and wrongful death suits. John's experience working directly with businesses has translated well as an expert witness, which allows him to demonstrate his skills at communicating complex meteorological topics to non-scientists.
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Dr. Joseph P. Sobel
Director Emeritus of Forensic Services
Dr. Joe has appeared as an expert witness at hundreds of trials and depositions and authored thousands of expert reports.
Joe’s decades of experience in forecasting and broadcasting weather information to the public, coupled with his doctoral degree, make him a real asset in the courtroom. “Dr. Joe”, AccuWeather Senior Vice President and Expert Senior Meteorologist, has appeared on ABC, WABC-TV NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and Bloomberg Television, MSNBC, and CNBC. He has provided more than one million weather forecasts and discussions to radio stations across the United States since 1972.
A nationally recognized meteorologist and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Joe’s decades of experience in forecasting and broadcasting weather information to the public – coupled with his doctoral degree – make him a real asset in the courtroom for forensic meteorology. Dr. Joe has appeared as an expert witness at hundreds of trials and depositions and authored thousands of expert reports.
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Steve Wistar, CCM
Expert Senior Forensic Meteorologist
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
At AccuWeather, Steve constructs impartial scientific reports for use in courts of law to support both plaintiff and defense.
As a Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM) and Expert Senior Forensic Meteorologist with 45 years of experience with AccuWeather, Steve has worked on numerous cases involving slip and falls, flooding, highway accidents, building and crane collapses, severe wind impacts, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy.
Steve uses his tremendous attention to detail and his excellent communication skills to explain meteorology to the non-scientist. At AccuWeather, Steve constructs impartial scientific reports for use in courts of law to support both plaintiff and defense. He has testified more than 150 times in courtrooms or at depositions in 18 states.
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Bob Smerbeck, CCM
Expert Senior Forensic Meteorologist
Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Bob is the coordinator of AccuWeather’s continuous education program and has been an operational meteorologist since 1984.
Bob is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and Expert Senior Forensic Meteorologist at AccuWeather. He has been an operational meteorologist since 1984, after graduating with a B.S. Degree in Meteorology from Penn State. Bob is the coordinator of AccuWeather’s continuous education program, which requires him to attend many national conferences and workshops in his never-ending pursuit of staying up to date with the latest in meteorology.
Bob has presented the AccuWeather long-range and hurricane forecasts at many conferences and workshops. One of his greatest professional accomplishments was going through a rigorous program and becoming a Certified Consulting Meteorologist from the American Meteorological Society, of which he is currently a member. He also built a hands-on tornado vortex simulator on wheels, which he demonstrates for local area schools, colleagues and friends.
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Jim Rourke
Senior Forensic Meteorologist
Climatologist
As a Senior Forensic Meteorologist and Climatologist at AccuWeather, Jim gathers and analyzes a wide range of weather data to provide a variety of forensic weather services. Cases have included snow/ice analysis related to slip and fall cases, wind verification for insurance claims and lawsuits, rainfall analysis, and sun angle analysis in auto accidents.
Jim has over 17 years of experience explaining meteorology to non-scientist as a weather consultant for a local minor league baseball grounds crew and as a guest lecturer for general education meteorology courses at a local university.
