Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

I figure that a lot of people might have questions about what we do/how we do it. I work as a morning meteorologist for the NBC station in Lima, OH, and happen to have a lot of down - time at work. So I'll field any questions.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

talk about the sex offers from fans

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

[ QUOTE ]
I work as a morning meteorologist for the NBC station in Lima, OH, and happen to have a lot of down - time at work. So I'll field any questions.


[/ QUOTE ] I finished college in May in Lima. I went to UNOH.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

What schooling did you do?

Are you afraid that you will be replaced by a hot spanish woman soon?

its basically the easiest job ever right?

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Does being a weatherman pay well?

And what kinda hours do you work? is it standard 8 hours?

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What was the truth about the Greenwich Village explosion?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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What schooling did you do?

Are you afraid that you will be replaced by a hot spanish woman soon?

its basically the easiest job ever right?

[/ QUOTE ]

4 year Atmospheric/Oceanic Sciences degree at University of Wisconsin.

Yes

Kinda, once you get over the jitters of being in front of the camera (which takes about 6 months or so). Forecasts can be tough and time consuming, though, sometimes... depending on the situation. Around here, the weather is really nuts sometimes...we had a high of 88 on Monday, and a high of 52 on Wednesday.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

[ QUOTE ]
Does being a weatherman pay well?

And what kinda hours do you work? is it standard 8 hours?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to start. Any broadcasting anchor working in a small market makes anywhere from 18K-25K/yr. Everyone is always really shocked to hear this, but this business is weird. The sky is the limit as to how much you can make in bigger markets... (top 5 markets I've heard of anchors/meteorologists making upwards of a million.)

The hours suck, plain and simple. Our shows are at 6A, 12P, 6P, and 11p. My hours are 3a-12p. The chief meteorologist works 4p-1a. Tonight, though, I'm filling in for him, and that's why I'm not currently asleep.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

Do you hate Weatherman like this?

http://www.wsvn.com/images/newsteam/..._S12_large.jpg

Jackie Johnson
Weatherman
KCAL L.A.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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What was the truth about the Greenwich Village explosion?

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Never heard of it.... my guess is... Leprechauns?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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Do you hate Weatherman like this?

http://www.wsvn.com/images/newsteam/..._S12_large.jpg

Jackie Johnson
Weatherman
KCAL L.A.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily, but I do hate that a lot of weather anchors are just people with broadcasting degrees and pretty faces who point to a screen and say what they see. Weather requires analysis by a meteorologist. That said, there seem to be a lot of people like ^^^^^^^ in jobs just cuz of pretty faces.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

how often do you come in tired and hungover and just plug your zip code into weather.com?

do you feel that weather.com has made your job near obsolete?


do they make you go stand in hurricanes, etc.?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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how often do you come in tired and hungover and just plug your zip code into weather.com?

do you feel that weather.com has made your job near obsolete?


do they make you go stand in hurricanes, etc.?

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Once in a loooooooooong while... but 99% of the time, no. And btw, www.noaa.gov is way better

I do think about this sometimes, but the fact is that computers don't quite have it down yet. As a forecaster, you have to juggle different model outputs/many other factors while making a forecast. Even if computers could perfectly forecast, you'd still need someone to go on tv and tell it, right?

Not yet, but if a hurricane ever makes it to OH, I'll be the first to get my nose in it.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

Did you spend any time as a surface weather observer, regional forcaster, or providing aviation pre-flight wether briefings? If so, where?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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Did you spend any time as a surface weather observer, regional forcaster, or providing aviation pre-flight wether briefings? If so, where?

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Nope, but I did do a lot of forecasting competitions in college.

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Do you have a moustache?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

[ QUOTE ]
Do you have a moustache?

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lol no

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Have you ever come up with a scheme involving giving false forecasts so that the golf course will be open for you?

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Is there a secret club where you meet with other weathermen and laugh hysterically about ruining our weekends?

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Why do you guys never get the weather right [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

[ QUOTE ]
Have you ever come up with a scheme involving giving false forecasts so that the golf course will be open for you?

[/ QUOTE ]

No but I never thought of it... sounds like a great idea.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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Why do you guys never get the weather right [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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Because most weather anchors are yahoo broadcasters who don't know the first thing about weather.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

Pretty good ask me thread so far.

How does a forecasting competition work?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

[ QUOTE ]
Pretty good ask me thread so far.

How does a forecasting competition work?

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A bunch of schools are in it. We forecast one pre-determined city for two weeks, then the city changes. You forecast high, low temps, and precip amount each day. This goes on for a few months, and at the end, team(school) and individual scores are tallied.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

When did you decide that this is what you wanted to do as a career? I remember meteorology being one of the first things I wanted to be when I grew up.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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When did you decide that this is what you wanted to do as a career? I remember meteorology being one of the first things I wanted to be when I grew up.

[/ QUOTE ]


^^^^^

That about sums it up. I pretty much always had a big interest in weather, and I grew up paying close attention to forecasts, thinking "I could do a better job than that!" Anyways, I started off in college as a biomedical engineering major. After I realized I had to get a 3.8 to even apply to the school, I was just like [censored] it and decided to just go for it with the weather gig.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

Do you find the term meteorologist overused and misused?

How is someone in the US designated as a "Meteorologist."?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

Do vacation area weather forecaster people intentionally lie about the weather so as to not hurt the local economy?

Example: Years ago we went to Cape Cod and it rained every day. After about three days we ran out of things to do and were fed up with the weather and were going to leave but the gd weatherman every night said the system would be moving out and there would be sun sometime during the day. Never [censored] happened and we stayed there all week bored out of our skulls.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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Do you find the term meteorologist overused and misused?

How is someone in the US designated as a "Meteorologist."?

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Well, I'm not sure how many of the "broadcast major" people who just do weather actually call themselves meteorologists, but if they do, then it's blasphemy.

I would think that in order to be called a meteorologist, you would need to have a degree in atmospheric/oceanic sciences.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

[ QUOTE ]
Do vacation area weather forecaster people intentionally lie about the weather so as to not hurt the local economy?

Example: Years ago we went to Cape Cod and it rained every day. After about three days we ran out of things to do and were fed up with the weather and were going to leave but the gd weatherman every night said the system would be moving out and there would be sun sometime during the day. Never [censored] happened and we stayed there all week bored out of our skulls.

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I really don't know, to be honest. I know of weather anchors who fudge the forecasts to look more attractive, so that the anchor would be more liked by the people. I really hate to see this... it's our job to give you an accurate forecast no matter how [censored] it is.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

Gotta go on air in a few.... I'll pick this up later, but keep em coming.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

ferret,

you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.

confirm/deny?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

What advice would you give to someone who's looking at finishing school to become a meteorologist?

Why does the NWS give a tornado warning at the very slightest sound of any rotation? This is like crying wolf imo as nobody here takes it serious anymore.

How many chem classes did you have to take for the degree, because dear god do I hate chem.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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ferret,

you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.

confirm/deny?

[/ QUOTE ]

Confirmed, but you do need a weatherman to tell which way the wind will blow

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

Are humans causing global warming?

Where's the streaming link to your broadcast?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

[ QUOTE ]
What advice would you give to someone who's looking at finishing school to become a meteorologist?

Why does the NWS give a tornado warning at the very slightest sound of any rotation? This is like crying wolf imo as nobody here takes it serious anymore.

How many chem classes did you have to take for the degree, because dear god do I hate chem.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope you don't mind calculus, and if you're planning on going into broadcasting, you have to learn how to not be nervous in front of people. You will always have an audience.

Tornados form from mesoscale circulations, so when there is one, even though a tornado might only form like 30% of the time from it, would you rather we wait till it hits the ground on your house?

Not many.... mostly physics/math.

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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Are humans causing global warming?

Where's the streaming link to your broadcast?

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe. We don't know. The fact is that we have too little data archived to make any kind of long scale analysis on temperature changes. Just because you see a spike in temperatures over the last 20 years, doesn't mean global warming. There have been similar temperature spikes even in the small amount of time that we have data for.

www.wlio.com.... click "news rebroadcast" on the left, then click "Your News Now at 6" (that's just for today and tomorrow.... otherwise, click "Your News Now Morning Edition")

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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Have you ever come up with a scheme involving giving false forecasts so that the golf course will be open for you?

[/ QUOTE ]

I lol'd

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

What kind of job security do you have? Is there a lot of industry turnover? Also, what are the politics of moving to another market? How much do you get paid?

Re: Ask Me About Being a Weatherman
 

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even though a tornado might only form like 30% of the time from it

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Is this the actual stat? I don't expect you to actually know, but it feels like it's way lower to me. Could be a small sample size though.