My name is Buzz Bernard.  I’m a writer, retired meteorologist and vice president-elect of the Southeastern Writers Association.  My debut novel, Eyewall, which one reviewer called a “perfect summer read,” was released in May 2011 and by early July had become a best-seller in Amazon’s Kindle Store.  It’s a tale threaded with action, suspense, danger and romance.  It features characters not only in conflict with a devastating storm–a category 5 hurricane–but in many cases with each other. You can get a sneak preview of Eyewall here.

The book, which award-winning author Vicki Hinze described as a “one-sitting, white-knuckle read” was published by Belle Bridge Books in trade paperback and eBook format.  Eyewall is represented by Jeanie Pantelakis of the Sullivan Maxx Literary Agency.

My second novel, also represented by Jeanie, will be published by Belle Bridge Books in September 2012. Here’s a tease: A psychopathic terrorist is about to unleash weaponized Ebola, The Black Death of the 21st century, on the U.S. Only Richard Wainwright holds the key to stopping the attack. And he’s wounded, wanted for murder and being hunted by a German hit-woman.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about what I’ve been working on or about me, please feel free to click around my Website.  And don’t forget to check out my blogs.

In early 2009, after 13 years with The Weather Channel, I retired from the network as a senior meteorologist. Prior to joining The Weather Channel, I served as a weather officer in the U.S. Air Force for 33 years. I retired with the rank of colonel and received, among other awards, the Legion of Merit.

Prior to becoming a novelist, I’d published five nonfiction books about weather and climate, but those were scratched out quite a few years ago.

Hurricane Katrina just south of Louisiana/ Mississippi. (Naval Research Lab image.)

My background as a meteorologist lends credibility to being the author of Eyewall. I’ve  had first-hand experience with hurricanes, having penetrated the eyewall of such a storm with the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters. The mission I went on wasn’t nearly as exciting–or as terrifying–as the one described in Eyewall, but I did get an up close and personal look at how the job is done. Hurricane coverage, of course, is the lifeblood of The Weather Channel, and I worked with some people there who helped tremendously with the novel.

Category 5 Hurricane Andrew landfalling near Homestead, Florida, 1992. (NOAA image.)

Besides my trip with the Hurricane Hunters, I’ve flown air drops over the Arctic Ocean and Turkey, and was a weather officer aboard a Tactical Air Command (now Air Combat Command) airborne command post (C-135). Additionally, I’ve provided field support to forest fire fighting operations in the Pacific Northwest, spent a summer working on Alaska’s arctic slope and served two tours in Vietnam. Various other jobs, both civilian and military, have taken me to Germany, Saudi Arabia and Panama.

Category 5 Hurricane Camille in the southeast Gulf of Mexico, 1969. (NOAA image.)

I’m a native Oregonian and attended the University of Washington in Seattle where I earned a bachelor’s degree in atmospheric science; I also studied creative writing. After leaving active duty with the Air Force, I, along with my wife Christina, lived in New England and suffered through its winters for two decades. For the past 25 years, however, we’ve called Roswell, Georgia, near Atlanta, our home. It’s much warmer there. And on cold winter nights, we’ve got a Shih Tzu puppy named Stormy to help keep us warm.