The Future of Meteorology

[FreshAJ]

The Future of Meteorology still looks bright to me. Even though the weather job market is tough right now, I believe employers in meteorology will hire again. And I feel most of the jobs will come from a few specific sectors in meteorology.

Continue reading below if your'e interested! Would love to hear your thoughts on this too.

http://www.freshaj.com/the-future-of-meteorology

Thanks,

AJ

[baroclinic_instability]

I generally agree, but I don't think this is really much different than it has been the past 10 years, really. Government jobs in meteorology are pretty limited with the private weather sector and energy seeming to be the significant percentage of hiring. I am not convinced private weather will be seeing large, growth, however, as many of their contracts are also funded on the government and/or state level through various contracts. Skilled meteorologists can add significant benefit to forecasts, but budget issues may push private weather companies to push for more automation to deal with budget constraints. I think more than ever graduating meteorologists need to show they can add skill to the forecast. Unfortunately I see too many "load and go" meteorologists these days, and that tendency will hurt mets whether it is public/private/energy/wxrisk forecasting.

[superjames1992]

I generally agree, but I don't think this is really much different than it has been the past 10 years, really. Government jobs in meteorology are pretty limited with the private weather sector and energy seeming to be the significant percentage of hiring. I am not convinced private weather will be seeing large, growth, however, as many of their contracts are also funded on the government and/or state level through various contracts. Skilled meteorologists can add significant benefit to forecasts, but budget issues may push private weather companies to push for more automation to deal with budget constraints. I think more than ever graduating meteorologists need to show they can add skill to the forecast. Unfortunately I see too many "load and go" meteorologists these days, and that tendency will hurt mets whether it is public/private/energy/wxrisk forecasting.

When you say "load and go", do you mean mets whose forecasts are pretty much a copy of the MOS output?

[Jim Marusak]

When you say "load and go", do you mean mets whose forecasts are pretty much a copy of the MOS output?

either copy the mos output or copy the grid data verbatim, i would presume. either way, it's the old syndrome of " the model is god (deity of your choice if you're not christian)". and for efficiency, i see that problem sometimes as well. it's where people aren't as adaptable to either switching models depending on the situation, or even worse not willing to go "off the board" once in a while with instinct if something just is looking too funny for no models to verify fully. the other problem is that some people forget when they do a forecast to look at reality attm and figure that in as well for the immediate short-range term (local effects like heat islands, little bowls where radiational cooling can be worse than the models ever pick up, subtle downsloping/ upsloping, etc). and sometimes they're given extra-large areas to forecast a bunch of points for and less than adequate time to do the cast.

it's a bit like almost a lost art-form, imho, as after college i saw forecasting as mostly science with a bit of artistic thought needed given the fluid nature of the atmosphere.