Meteorological Match

Weather forecasters find love under blue skies. 

[Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the January/February 2017 edition of mvm. Minor edits have made been to avoid confusion. In Oct. 2019, Niles announced that she was leaving WBZ-TV and the industry to focus on raising her family. She regularly tweets about the weather. Follow her on Twitter at @danielle_noyes. Noyes is chief meteorologist at NBC10 and NECN and may be followed at @MattNBCBoston.  Niles was also featured in our March 2014 edition of Style File. Noyes goes all the way back to our Winter 2007 issue]

For Matt Noyes and Danielle Niles, the forecast these days is sunny, with long periods of love and laughter. Noyes, the chief meteorologist for NBC Boston, and Niles, a former meteorologist at CBS Boston/WBZ-TV, were married on July 18, 2015 — two years after the former colleagues and now started dating.

“A lot of times, people think we just come home and sit and talk in excess about the weather the whole time,” Noyes says, with a laugh.

Well, maybe the topic comes up sometimes, but not as much as their viewers might think, the Haverhill couple insists. “Hardly ever,” Noyes says. After all, Noyes says, he and his wife spend their days living, studying and reporting on the weather. When they arrive home, there are other things to discuss.

The couple first met in 2008, when Niles joined the staff at NECN, where Noyes was chief meteorologist. They became fast friends. On August 2014, Noyes proposed on a weekend getaway to Ogunquit, Maine, during a walk by the water.

“I was very surprised,” Niles says. “It was a beautiful, wonderful moment.”

Noyes and Niles were married at Willowbend Country Club in Mashpee on the Cape. The sun broke through the clouds just in time for Niles to walk down the aisle. Could it get any more perfect for two meteorologists?

Noyes’ young son, who was his father’s best man, turned 5 years old just a few days after the nuptials. In a surprise for the boy, the couple turned their wedding cake into his birthday cake, and all the guests serenaded him. “That was kind of a fun twist,” Noyes says.

For Noyes and Niles, who both developed a passion for weather when they were young children, their jobs gave them two loves — each other and their careers.

A native of Weymouth, Niles first saw the power of weather when Hurricane Bob hit Massachusetts in 1991. The young girl was amazed by the strong winds and the huge waves in the ocean.

After graduating from UMass Lowell in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in atmospheric science, Niles got her master’s in meteorology at Florida State University. She spent five years as WBZ’s morning and midday meteorologist before leaving the station to be a stay-at-home mom in Oct. 2019. Noyes, who grew up in Haverhill, was similarly amazed by Hurricane Gloria’s strength in 1985. But weather continued to be merely a hobby for the youngster who always dreamed of becoming a state trooper like his father. Then, when he was in high school, Noyes realized he wanted to turn that hobby into a profession that he’d be excited to work at each day.

“Suddenly it hit me: I want to make my passion my job,” he recalls.

“Matt is the most passionate person I know,” Niles says.

A graduate of Cornell University and Phillips Academy Andover, Noyes has a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology. He began working for NECN in 2002.

Now, going back for a second to whether the topic of weather ever slips into the conversation at the dinner table? OK, sometimes it does, they say, but just in jokes. Such as when a sudden, surprise storm hits, and they ask each other, “Did you call for this?”