Ben Frechette grew up in Somerset, MA and has experienced turbulent New England weather since day one. His passion for the atmosphere was ignited in 2001, when a powerful thunderstorm rolled through and mystified him with heavy rain, lightning, and roaring thunder. That passion translated to communication in 2003, finding himself glued to The Weather Channel as Category-5 Hurricane Isabel barreled toward the Carolina shores. From this, he provided daily “weather briefings” to his third grade class about the tropics, and hasn’t stopped talking about the weather since.
Ben sought to turn his passion into a profession at Lyndon State College, where he earned his Bachelor’s of Science in Atmospheric Sciences in May 2018. During his time at Lyndon, Ben excelled in the classroom and in front of the green screen. He also served as a two-term President of the renowned Lyndon State College Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and National Weather Association, where he chaired the annual Northeastern Storm Conference. Boasting over 300 annual attendees and over 70 abstracts, this conference is the largest and longest-running student-run conference in the nation.
During the summer of 2016, Ben interned at his home station WPRI in Providence, RI, working under Pete Mangione and Lyndon alumnus T.J. Del Santo. He crafted blog posts for their website and prepared graphics in WSI MAX. Ben wanted a change of scenery for the following summer, and participated as a research intern on Vermont EPSCoR’s Basin Resilience to Extreme Events (BREE) project. There, he worked on the climate modeling team to help optimize a regional climate model to simulate extreme rainfall over the Lake Champlain Basin. He extended this work to his undergraduate thesis, which examined the efficacy of different microphysics schemes within this model.
Fresh out of college and before arriving at NBC5, Ben worked for Maxar Technologies as an operational meteorologist in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He produced daily forecast products for energy and agricultural interests, and provided technical support for the company’s WeatherDesk platform. Though he loved his time there, he couldn’t pass up the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the First Alert Weather Team. Ben is thankful for all those who mentored him and helped him achieve his dream.
Outside of meteorology, Ben is a self-taught graphic designer and can often be found creating content in Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Pro. Ben loves to travel and will always jump at the opportunity to explore somewhere new. He is particularly fond of music festivals, and has a strong affinity for Ultra Music Festival in Miami, FL. When life quiets down, Ben can be found spending time with family and friends.