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Debunking 5 Myths About Meteorologists

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If you love weather like I do, you are probably monitoring the odd cyclone about to make landfall in Yemen or recent floods in Texas. I host a show on The Weather Channel called Weather (Wx) Geeks. It emerged, in part, because of the tremendous popularity of weather. The show airs every Sunday at Noon ET. We call it WxGeeks using the short-hand for weather ("wx"), which has origins in Morse code. I reflected on the show topic for November 1st because we take a fascinating look at Incident Meteorologist or IMETs. Most people probably don't know what an IMET is, and this prompted me to write debunking 5 myths about my profession.

An Incident Meteorologist monitoring weather conditions near a wildfire. Courtesy: NOAA

First let's define meteorologist. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) defines it as:

person with specialized education "who uses scientific principles to explain, understand, observe, or forecast the earth's atmospheric phenomena and/or how the atmosphere affects the earth and life on the planet." This education usually includes a bachelor's or higher degree from a college or university. Many meteorologists have degrees in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and other fields. 

With that working definition let's debunk some myths.

1. Most meteorologists are NOT on TV: Like engineering or teaching, there are different types of meteorologists. Of the 14,000 or so members of AMS, less than 10% of them are in the television world, according to Executive Director, Dr. Keith Seitter.  TV colleagues are the most accessible and obvious window to the public but only a fraction of the meteorology and atmospheric sciences community.  For career options in meteorology, this website is a good start.

2. Meteorology is based on lots of physics and advanced mathematics: As the director of an Atmospheric Sciences Program at a major University, I get my share of calls from interested students and parents about studying meteorology. The atmosphere is a fluid that must be understood from the perspective of the physical system, and weather models also solve complex equations describing the changes in this fluid. Weather forecasting is far more than pattern recognition or 4th grade lessons about fronts and cloud types. If you want to know what courses are required by the National Weather Service or to attain the AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorology (CBM) designation, this link will give you good information. There are a range of programs and expertise and many outstanding weather forecasters may not have formal course training from college.  Some have debated the "ethics" of how the term meteorologist is used and AMS has a set of professional guidelines for the use of the term "Meteorologist".

One of my favorite weather journalists, Dennis Mersereau (of Gawker's The Vane and author of an extreme weather guide), wrote an outstanding piece outlining the "real" story on becoming a meteorologist. I think Dennis' story also illustrates that even if you don't do Calculus or the sight of the equations in IweatherNet's outstanding article on weather forecasting induces nausea, there are many other ways to convert your passion for weather into a career. Further, there are many outstanding weather forecasters that may not have a degree in meteorology but know their stuff.

3.  A meteorologist may not know the weather tomorrow or if your daughter's wedding in 4 months will have rain. If you look across the membership of the National Weather Association (NWA) or AMS, you will find meteorologists from the research community, academia, corporations, K-12 institutions, and so on. Many of them do not focus on day-to-day weather. I was interested in weather since 6th grade but was more compelled by the "how and why" of weather not what was going on tomorrow or next week. And as for a deterministic forecast for the "wedding" 4 months away, it would be possible to provide some type of climatological assessment of that particular date,  but a specific forecast of atmospheric state 4 months out is speculative.

4. Meteorologists are fairly accurate: It is quite annoying when someone says that meteorologists are wrong all of the time, but I know that it is human nature for people to forget the numerous correct forecasts and focus on the few bad ones. A field goal kicker could make every kick all year long, but if he misses one in the Super Bowl, he will be called a bad kicker by some. Also, I find that many people say this because they lack understanding of what "% chance of rain actually means" or what the "cone of uncertainty" with a hurricane forecast implies. Dr. Chuck Doswell and I provide robust narrative here debunking this notion that meteorologists are always wrong.

5. Meteorology expertise is not necessarily climate expertise and vice versa: Yes, they are related, but the coursework and training in meteorology and climatology are not the same. In fact, I have argued that meteorology curricula needs more climate. Many major programs have only 1 "survey" course in climatology that BS-degree level students are required to take. There is very little exposure to physical climatology, paleoclimatology, time series analysis, objective analysis, applied climatology, and climate modeling. It is critical that programs reverse this trend because much of the public receives its "weather" and "climate" information from the local television meteorologist as he or she is often the Station Scientist.

I am sure my meteorologist colleagues have their own list of myths too...

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