CNN announced today that Elisa Raffa joins CNN as a weather anchor and correspondent, based in Atlanta and appearing across all of CNN’s networks and platforms.
She has earned the distinction of Certified Broadcast Meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society, a designation which recognizes excellence and expertise in her field. With a passion for communicating climate change, she’s earned national and international recognition for using everything from beer, chocolate, snow shovels, and vultures to help the audience relate to the climate crisis.
While Raffa has spent nearly a decade covering sunny, snowy, and stormy skies across the country, she got her start as an intern with CNN’s domestic and international weather teams.
Prior to returning to CNN, Raffa was the meteorologist and climate specialist for Queen City News in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her reporting took her shark tagging in the open Atlantic, tracking hurricanes and sea-level rise on the Carolina coast, and to innovative climate resilient farms. She previously covered tornado outbreaks as a meteorologist for the CBS/FOX affiliate in Springfield, Missouri, and blizzards for the ABC affiliate in Sioux City, Iowa.
Raffa is a Station Scientist Committee Member with the American Meteorologist Society and a Climate Matters Meteorologist for Climate Central. In 2023, she presented peer-reviewed, published research to the AMS Broadcast Conference, highlighting how survey participants understood and cared about the climate crisis when framed as a local story featuring local people. She also writes lessons and tests hands-on activities in weather and climate science for children at local science museums.
Raffa earned her Bachelor of Science in Atmospheric Science with Minors in Spanish and Communications from Cornell University.
