"Now for your AccuWeather forecast..."

Elliot Abrams' voice jingles cheerily over the radio at 6:15 a.m.

The 57-year-old meteorologist, who has been announcing weather forecasts to radio listeners around the country for 34 years, disdains the bland "partly sunny and mild" or "chilly and rainy." He does the weather in his own patented style.

"Across the Northeast, the weekend will feature weed-whipping, branch-bending bursts of sparrow-spinning, hawk-hampering, starling-stopping swirls, gusts, whirls, twirls and zipping, leaf-lifting zephyrs. In addition, it'll be windy."

Hours before dawn on a cold, drizzly morning, while most central Pennsylvanians are still snug and sleeping, Abrams is on the job. As he does every weekday, Abrams, a large man with thin-rimmed glasses and thinning dark hair, has arrived at AccuWeather's headquarters, 385 Science Park Road, around 3:30.

He must start this early, because most radio stations want forecasts by 5 or 5:30, before they begin their morning programming. His busiest time of the day is between 4 and 4:30.

Abrams, an AccuWeather senior vice president and the service's chief forecaster, collects and analyzes data from forecasting software and satellite images. His tiny broadcasting booth has eight computer monitors that allow Abrams to predict the weather in just about anywhere in the world. Accu-Weather supplies forecasts to about 250 radio clients, more than 150 television clients and more than 850 newspapers worldwide.

Abrams helped found AccuWeather's radio forecasting service along with CEO Joel Myers and Senior Vice President Joe Sobel in 1971, just four years after joining the company. At the time, there were only six to eight people on staff, and Abrams "was the very first meteorologist" at AccuWeather to deliver a forecast on the air, Sobel says.

Years later, Abrams still has the early shift.

Between 4:15 and 9:45 a.m., from his little booth in State College, Abrams beams the weather to radio stations in Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; York; State College; New York; Boston; Chicago; Providence; Racine, Wisc.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; Morgantown, W.Va.; Portland, Maine; Portsmouth, N.H.; and High Point, N.C.

For some of the radio stations, Abrams simply records a few forecasts and sends the files electronically for the stations to broadcast throughout the day.

"It saves time and the sound quality is good, but I miss the personal interaction," he says.

The rest of the time, though, he is on the air live. Wearing a shabby pair of headphones and speaking into a microphone, Abrams calls a radio station and might have a minute or two to chat with the morning-show hosts or their assistants before he goes on the air. On this particular morning, he talks to the desk intern at the Chicago station, WBBM, about LL Cool J's latest single. He explains later, "I like hip-hop."

Sometimes he chats with the hosts on the air as well, so keeping up with current events is important.

On one late-October morning, in predicting a shift to cooler weather Abrams referred to a major political event that would be taking place the following week: "It's interesting that the election's Tuesday," he commented to the Racine station's morning-show hosts, "but the hot air will be ending just then."

Earlier that day, on the Providence station, WPRO, Abrams read the forecast not only for the Providence area but also for St. Louis -- where New Englanders' beloved Boston Red Sox would be playing Game 3 of the World Series that night.

"The only thunder in St. Louis is going to be the Red Sox coming in and scoring some runs," he said, even though he himself is a Philadelphia Phillies fan.

But the man who forecasts the weather for people around the country can't see if the sun is out in State College. His jail-cell-sized booth has only one small window, and it gives Abrams a view of the main forecasting room, not the weather outside.

And that's one of the biggest downsides of his job, he says. "I like to see the weather."

"Physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays on this date [Nov. 8] in 1895... During the weekend, it warmed up and felt like sprain-time. But make no bones about it; it's a fracture going to feel chilly today and tomorrow... This afternoon will be in the 40s, and no storm will cause trouble at dislocation."

When Abrams was born in Philadelphia on May 31, 1947, there was a thunderstorm outside the hospital.

He became interested in meteorology when he was 5 -- "a birth defect," he quips. When he was young, he would sit in front of a window for hours on end watching snowstorms.

He was cast as a weatherman in his second-grade class play. At his sixth-grade graduation, when the students passed around yearbooks for their classmates to sign, "everyone predicted I'd be a weatherman."

At Central High School in Philadelphia, the young member of the Future Meteorologists of America posted forecasts on the cafeteria bulletin board. "Only later I realized what a geek I must have been," he says with a laugh.

Abrams came to Penn State in 1965, attracted by its meteorology program. During his four years here, in addition to earning bachelor's and master's degrees in meteorology, he served as rush chairman of Pi Lambda Phi fraternity, provided forecasts for The Daily Collegian, and was an avid Penn State football fan.

In 1967, Abrams began working part-time at the company that would later become AccuWeather, and he went full-time when he graduated in 1969.

"Turkeys will finish thawing Thanksgiving morning, then warm in the oven to a high near 190 in the afternoon... During the late afternoon and early evening hours, the cold front of a knife will slice through the turkey and cause it to accumulate 1 to 2 inches on plates... A weight watch has been issued for the entire area and we expect intervals of indigestion, with increasing stuffiness around the beltway."

Abrams rarely misses an opportunity to give his broadcasts a theme.

"His nickname is the Bard of the Barometer," says Dean DeVore, manager of radio operations and a meteorologist at AccuWeather.

"He's the poet laureate of AccuWeather," says Sobel, who has worked with Abrams for 34 years.

Abrams, who says he comes up with his jokes and puns "on the spur of the moment," does not forget the lesser-known holidays, either. His forecasts have commemorated American Education Week ("The day makes the grade for working outdoors, and we expect high marks in the 50s") and Homemade Bread Day ("Last night, we were battered by strong north winds. The storm responsible is now moving off to the yeast").

He has tailored his reports around the anniversaries of important dates in history, such as the birthdays of Louis Pasteur and polio vaccine inventor Jonas Salk. These forecasts, sprinkled with references to infection, featured lines like "Theraflu snowflakes in New England" and "It hadn't rained in that area for mumps, and then suddenly they get an overdose."

Known today as one of the most recognizable radio weather personalities in the country, Abrams started using humor in his forecasts just a couple of years into his broadcasting career. His co-workers say he is exactly the same off the air. "He always has a story and it's usually laced with puns," Sobel says.

Sobel marvels at Abrams' ability to be informative and amusing at the same time. "He has a unique ability to make it entertaining but also to get the weather message across," Sobel says. "It's astounding that he comes up with that kind of thing every single day."

But Abrams isn't always a jokester. He has two jobs and he takes them both seriously.

In his other job, as Patton Township Board of Supervisors chair, Abrams currently is keeping tabs on the removal of harmful pyrite deposits at the Interstate 99 construction site at Skytop, about five miles west of State College.

He also sticks up for consumers. "Landlords get away with murder sometimes. I don't like what towing companies do. I'm interested in doing a better job with food inspections at restaurants. These are areas where local government could be more effective. They're not the type of thing people can do on their own."

Now in his fourth consecutive six-year term as an elected township supervisor, Abrams attends meetings every other Wednesday at 7 p.m. Sometimes they finish in just an hour or two, but often they go until 10 or later. "On those nights I don't get to sleep until after 10, and then I get up at 3."

But he still enjoys the township job because it provides some variety from meteorology, Abrams says.

"I'm dealing with a whole different group of people," he says.

Abrams' co-workers say they enjoy being around him.

DeVore, who has been at AccuWeather for eight years, says he grew up listening to Abrams on the radio, and Abrams inspired him to go into broadcasting. "I had a lot of respect for what he did before I even got here," he says.

Sobel says he enjoys working with one of the nation's most renowned meteorologists. Abrams is one of two people worldwide who have earned the status of certified consulting meteorologist, which Sobel says involves a difficult written and oral exam.

Abrams also holds the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Seal of Approval for radio and television broadcasting, and in 1993 he earned the AMS's award for Outstanding Service by a Broadcast Meteorologist.

"I believe he's probably the only meteorologist in the United States that has such a portfolio," Sobel says.

During his first year at AccuWeather, DeVore recalls, he jokingly told a supervisor that he wanted "to be the next Elliot Abrams."

DeVore ended up getting his meteorologist certification, with the help of Abrams and other colleagues. Abrams, he says, cares about his fellow workers. "He cares about people as people."

"I hope you're having the best day you've ever had. For AccuWeather, I'm meteorologist Elliot Abrams."