Jake posing at his home studio with the backdrop of the map of the City, donated by the City's GIS Maps and Services Department (Photo: Jake the Weather Kid, supplied)

By Shaun Penner

Jake the Weather Kid

Jake the Weather Kid sharing passion for meteorology in Grande Prairie

Jul 13, 2020 | 2:55 PM

A young man with a passion for meteorology is quickly gaining a big fan base with his daily video weather updates right here in Grande Prairie.

Jake McKnight, more commonly known as Jake the Weather Kid, has been posting daily video weather updates to a growing audience on Instagram and Facebook for the last couple of months, with the help of his mom, Wanda.

The idea behind making the daily videos was a way of creating a bit of a family project, while sharing Jake’s love for meteorology.

“So, me and my mom went into our basement, and we gathered up a chair and a coffee table and just wrote up the weather and started making videos,” said Jake. “When the pandemic happened, it gave me time to really dive in.”

The passion for all things weather came a few years back when the family was living in Saskatchewan, where storm chasers made a visit to Jake’s class in school. From there, meteorology quickly became one of his top interests.

“I liked just how powerful tornadoes were,” he recalled.

Jake, who will be going into Grade 5 next school year, posts his weather reports on his Instagram and Facebook pages every morning for the day ahead. What started out as a small project for he and his mom has quickly led to a lot of notoriety that he wasn’t expecting when it all began.

“We just did this for fun and people really liked it,” said Jake.

For Wanda, she noticed the rapid growth after starting to post the videos onto Facebook, which they began doing just two weeks ago. Since then, he has been called on to provide weather updates for Q99, and even helped out Global Edmonton meteorologist Kevin O’Connell on Sunday morning by providing the Grande Prairie forecast on television.

“It’s just really been crazy and busy and kind of go-go-go,” said Wanda.

Now with the rapid growth of his daily updates, Jake has found himself a sponsor of sorts, that being the local food truck community here in the Swan City. As part of his daily weather updates, he also provides the whereabouts of where food trucks will be located that day in Grande Prairie.

That connection has also led Jake to host a food drive for the Grande Prairie Food Bank on July 21 and 22, where he will be set up outside the Fry Factory food truck in Muskoseepi Park collecting donations.

“I will be there from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on both days, and every donation gets an entry into a draw for a gift basket filled with hundreds of dollars worth of prizes from local businesses.”

Courtesy: Jake the Weather Kid / Facebook

Jake says when he finishes school he hopes to become a TV meteorologist.