WATCH: Meet South Africa’s hilarious Weather Hooligan Juandre Vorster

The Weather Hooligan is hilarious. Weather lover and meteorological hobbyist Juandre Vorster’s Facebook channel has become the go-to destination for close to damn accurate weather forecasts with the tornado of his larger-than-life personality woven through the selfie shot programmes.

Vorster started the Weather Hooligan Facebook page early last year, after a friend suggested that he turn his passion for weather and his love for people into something shareable. Followers of the page are growing quickly and organically with thousands scrolling-in three times a week for his fun-forecasts.

When Vorster presents the weather, he puts on a show of note. Cowboy outfits and bunny suits, and a whole lot of roll-off-the-tongue South African humour comes at viewers in large portions. The Weather Hooligan marries his love for meteorology and a deep desire to entertain.

Watch: Meet South Africa’s Weather Hooligan Juandre Vorster

He said: “I choose a different character for every show just to make it interesting. You know, I’ve got the cowboy character that is “the hooligan”; a crazy nutshell who chases the weather, and then the bunny outfit is there for the younger audience, and sometimes I am just myself. I think my Boksburg accent must be part of the appeal,” he laughed.

Vorster says it’s always been his mission to put a smile on people’s faces. “My aim is to make people happy. I just want to make everyone happy, and I’ll keep myself happy that way as well. So, I love what I do and everyone else enjoys it.” 

Last week, comedian Barry Hilton, who follows The Weather Hooligan, called Vorster hilarious and joined a string of comments in expressing the most common feedback received, laughter, appreciation and rofl emojis.

Vorster talked about his passion for weather:  “I’ve had this love for weather since I was ten years old. During rainy season, when the water would run off  in the streets, I’d be opening up the drains, making sure there’s water flow, looking up at the clouds. Whenever there’s a storm, I get this feeling inside. I just need to know what is producing the storm, what is driving this storm.”

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He said that when his dad passed away at a young age, depression hit him very hard and as his own internal therapy, seeing others smile has been part of his own healing process; to lighten up the sadness within.

Until now it has been a chilly early winter. Vorster suggested that many parts of South Africa will be feeling one of the coldest winters in recent history this year.

He said that we had a very wet summer, cool too, because of the El-Nina weather system (a climate pattern that describes the cooling of surface ocean waters).

“We didn’t really have much of a summer, and there’s a whole lot of moisture in the ground, therefore, helping to cool us down. If there is a greater pick-up in moisture during winter, in some parts of Gauteng, we may even see one or two snowflakes in Jozi and surrounds this year,”

Vorster is also one of a handful of South African storm-chasers, and he plans to add his adventures to his social media stream this year as soon as the rainy season starts.

“There’s a lot of storms in South Africa that we don’t monitor and we need to go and find them. We must go out and find them and show people that yes, tornadoes happen in South Africa, but they’re not publicized. This year, we’re going to go find them and share our adventures doing so at the same time.”

He chases storms with two other committed weather-lovers.

He nearly died last season after almost being struck by lighting on one of his storm sorties. “You really have to respect the weather, so these day’s my point of departure is eighty percent hooligan, but twenty percent sanity, and rather tackling some potentially dangerous situations with a measure of moderation.”

When he’s not the Weather Hooligan, Vorster is a quality control analyst at a biofuel plant on the East Rand. While he is not a qualified meteorologist, he is self-taught and has accumulated masses of knowledge over the years and continually consumes as much literature as possible.

While qualifying as a pilot, his favourite subject was meteorology. Presently he is scouring the net looking for more courses to further enrich his knowledge base.

He plans to take his first love to the next level, and next week he is taking the first step. The Weather Hooligan will join Mix FM’s Travel Show for a weekly slot while Vorster has set his sights on eventually becoming a household name on global weather circles. “This is only the beginning,” he said.