You could say Jordan Tessler has a thing for models.

He’s been linked with some of the top names over the years, and he likes to study them, watching how they move and change. They’re dynamic and unpredictable and always lead to beautiful photographs.

What he likes most of all is what they give him in return: an intimate look into the next week’s storms and pressure systems. That’s right — Tessler studies weather models.

“It’s rare to see an interest in weather in people,” said Tessler, a junior geography major. “For me, I can’t even pinpoint when it started. I’ve just been born with it.”

Throughout his life, Tessler has seen Mother Nature at her worst, and it’s the hurricanes, tidal floods and tornadoes he has witnessed that inspired his College Park-centered creation, TerpWeather.

“It was an idea I had after the big tornado outbreak in 2011 that hit Alabama so hard,” Tessler said. “Weather in general catches people off guard. And then [Hurricane] Irene hit, and that’s what kicked it off.”

He launched the project’s Facebook page in 2011 and has since added a Twitter account. Tessler, who grew up in Maryland, said he wants TerpWeather to be an educational tool, so students can “fear the turtle, not the weather,” as the page reads.

Although the university is designated as “StormReady,” Tessler feels students aren’t informed enough about the state’s weather — booming sirens ordering the campus community to stay indoors during a severe weather event don’t let students know what is really going on, he said.

“It has so much impact. I’m a believer that the climate is shifting,” Tessler said. “I want to tell people that if that extreme weather happens, I will be with them to say, ‘Hey, this is coming, get out of its way.’”

Using software programs, Tessler can study models and make diagrams that he posts to the TerpWeather social media accounts. While some of the programs are free, others are expensiv; he uses his own money, along with a little help from his parents, to pay for them.

Studying weather models is a natural instinct for Tessler, who is largely self-taught. He’s taken a few meteorology courses and was a trained emergency responder in high school, but he believes the reason for the project’s success is his persistence and passion for weather.

“If it’s a severe weather event, I will go start to finish until the weather is over, just because of my innate sense of helping people,” Tessler said. “My updates on TerpWeather, some people may find it obsessive, but I find it necessary, especially during bigger weather, to keep people updated.”

Since the page’s inception in September 2011, TerpWeather has garnered more than 800 Facebook likes and upwards of 700 Twitter followers. Tessler likes giving his audience visuals: diagrams, radars and even photographs.

“It’s just amazing, the exposure I’ve gotten, just because I’ve started a little TerpWeather thing,” Tessler said.

Tessler’s Twitter account has received attention from The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang and meteorologists from local ABC affiliate WJLA and NBC affiliate WCR-TV, who help spread his College Park weather forecasts.

Others, such as communication professor Suzanne Gordon, herald TerpWeather’s accuracy. Despite having friends who are experts in earth science, Gordon said it’s Tessler she relies on for weather updates.

“I’m in awe of his climate science interests,” Gordon said. “He’s my first go-to guy when bad weather is coming. I learned the word ‘derecho’ from him.”

But while TerpWeather is receiving plenty of praise, its creator prefers to stay behind the scenes, remaining elusive to many of the page’s fans and self-conscious about the impact he’s made.

“Half the people I know that ‘like’ the page don’t know that I run it,” Tessler said. “It’s not something that I try to broadcast, because it is very geeky and I think it gets some people a little turned off.”

But the hundreds of Facebook users and Twitter followers who rely on the project for updates continue to motivate him. Tessler worries about becoming too engaged in his weather models but feels he has no choice but to continue.

“There’s trust involved now,” Tessler said. “If I do cut back on it and there is weather, and I don’t see it, oops. My fault. And I don’t want it to be one of those situations where it’s my fault and something happens.”

Tessler tries to stay involved in other aspects of campus life, like the Geography Club, and he enjoys working on political campaigns. But TerpWeather is growing, and its reach has moved beyond College Park. Almost half of the Facebook page’s supporters are from outside the city.

“People have asked me in the past, ‘Why aren’t you majoring in meteorology?’ and the answer is that’s just not what I want to do with my life,” Tessler said. “If I stay in Maryland, I will probably do something [with TerpWeather] because people put trust in me, and I don’t want to just leave and leave them hanging.”

He hopes to work in emergency management, keeping people informed and aiding communities after severe weather strikes, a step beyond basic forecasting.

“I love the passion that he has for the weather, and I share that passion,” WCR-TV chief meteorologist Doug Kammerer wrote in an email. “There are not many of us out there that live and breathe weather, and so just for that, he is in the club.”