"I'm a goofy dude. I don't like taking myself or anything too seriously… unless the situation demands it."
For CBS Austin meteorologist Avery Tomasco, that last clause does a lot of work.
The Austin native was, by his own admission, a hellion growing up, a trait he traces directly to his father.
"My dad was a bit of a hell raiser as a kid," Tomasco said, "and I've learned that I'm just a clone of him."
But beneath the humor lives a meteorologist driven by something genuine: a love of weather that began before he could fully explain it.
It started in a deer blind in West Texas. Hunting with his father, the sky clouded over, and sleet began falling through the trees, a sound he'd never heard before.
"That is still, to this day, my favorite sound," Tomasco said.
Weather became an obsession. He fell asleep to News 8 Austin's "Weather on the Eights" and woke up to it. He later corrected his high school earth science teacher on meteorological concepts more than once, until the man told him to knock it off.
His desperation to be seen and heard got creative, and maybe even criminal. Around age 12 or 13, Fox 7 Austin put out a call for viewer photo submissions. Tomasco Googled "clouds over Austin," found a photo, slapped his name on it, and submitted it. It aired. He has since confessed to the crime. The statute of limitations, he figures, has long expired.
"Whoever I plagiarized, my apologies," he said, laughing.
That drive eventually became a career. After graduating from Texas A&M in the fall of 2015, he was on air in Abilene three days later. His first day at CBS Austin in 2017, Hurricane Harvey was making landfall. His news director skipped the handshake and pointed him toward the radar.
"Trial by fire," Tomasco said. "It's been recurring disasters ever since."
None tested him quite like the February 2021 winter storm Uri. Tomasco knew what was coming. He posted warnings online, then went on air and laid out the full picture: historic cold, six inches of snow, layers of ice, power outages, burst pipes.
Then came July 4, 2025. Catastrophic flooding tore through Central Texas, and the losses were incomprehensible — among them, children at Camp Mystic on the Guadalupe River. Sitting across from the father of two, as he recalled those days, the emotion in his eyes was impossible to miss. His voice carried the weight of someone who had felt every second of it.
"I wish I could have screamed at the top of my lungs, louder, for everyone to get their kids out," he said. The what-ifs still follow him. "There's always going to be regret with every big forecast that hurts or takes away from people."
He’s not a fortune teller, and he knows it. But that tension — between doing everything humanly possible and accepting what no forecast can guarantee — is something he carries, even as he shows up the next morning ready to do it again.
That refusal to sugarcoat has earned him five regional Emmy Awards, six Texas Association of Broadcasters Awards, and one Texas AP award. The trophies, though, trigger imposter syndrome.
"I feel like there are so many other great meteorologists in Texas. How am I a part of that club?" he said.
His greatest broadcast joy remains the same as what first captivated him as a boy. Winter weather in Central Texas is "my bread and butter," he said. "The most complex forecast puzzle a meteorologist can solve." A single atmospheric deviation a few thousand feet up can mean the difference between a snow day and catastrophe.
For Avery Tomasco, that's not a burden. That's the whole point. And when asked where in the world he'd forecast for one week, he didn't hesitate.
“Alaska,” he said. “Bering Sea storms, extreme winds, weeks where the temperature stays 40 below.”
But there was one condition, he said. "I would have to come back to Austin."
Rapid Forecast with Avery Tomasco
Favorite taco? Torchy's “Wrangler.” He'll also send you to an unnamed taco truck off Rundberg. "There are about 15 of them. Take your pick."
Pre-show fuel? Celsius energy drink, Arctic Vibe flavor. "I drink what the kids drink." He admits kidney stones are probably in his future.
Best spot to watch a storm? Mount Bonnell faces west, which helps. But kid Avery's answer was simpler: his front yard, mid-thunderstorm, to his parents’ dismay.
Day off activity? Road tripping in his Tesla — if his wife allows — or golf at Lions Municipal.
Most dramatic word on air? Mesocyclone vortex. "It sounds dramatic, and it is dramatic."