SnowGoose69

Oh goodness, he recently retired I believe from somewhere in California I think...I can envision that one "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gonna see some HEAVEH SNOW tonight!" March 2001 and February 1989 are remembered alot more because they were busts for a much larger area where there is a significant population and they also produced snow over relatively populated areas too (Keene NH had 7 inches of snow in one hour during the March 01 storm)...the Dec 89 storm is not remembered by many people because it busted primarily over the NY Metro and the surprise snows dumped generally over places like BGM, MSV, ALB and other parts of E NY...many of those places heading into the evening were forecast to be cloudy with a chance of flurries and saw 8-12 inches of snow.

My experience largely shows that not wanting to relocate and S/O issues are the two most frequent barriers to people never getting jobs in the field more than it is the market itself. Recently I think with the increased number of grads the lack of jobs is becoming a bigger factor. One thing I would strongly tell anyone is that if you do become involved in a relationship with another student in the department that one of you will likely never work in the field...unless you live in either the BWI/DC or Norman/OKC metro areas...those are really the only two places in the nation that 2 meteorlogists can both find work in...generally whoever lands the job first will be the meteorologist of the family and the other will have to explore other options...I know of 3 couples who ultimately did this.

It comes down to what many people say here alot, especially Steve D...you have to be looking at the satellite/radar images with an unbiased eye 12-24 hours from the event, very often you will see things that tell you something is going differently...its less an issue now with the great models we have but 20+ years ago it was way more useful...The Dec 89 storm was a disaster because it was obvious by 2-3pm that afternoon if you looked at the satellite imagery that the low was going to develop way west....its remarkable to this day how badly that event was handled by the models and the forecasts....the warnings for 5-8 inches were not dropped til midnight.

We saw forecasts playing catchup on storms increasing accumulations late such as the 96 blizzard, the 12/09 storm, and most recently the 12/26/10 event...this was a case where the forecasts were desperately playing catchup the other direction...many meteorologists knew the morning the storm started when it was raining that it was going to be a bust but it was taking seemingly forever for that message to get through to the media.

Law is a horrid career to get into these days and most lawyers will tell you that themselves...its actually alot like meteorology in that there are simply too many lawyers out there...the issue though unlike meteorology is not that its hard to get a job its hard to get a good one and considering how long and how much work it takes to get a law degree it makes it that much more unacceptable to get payed poorly...20 years ago you could have gone to "Podunk University Law" and gotten a 6 figure paying job out of school, nowadays you had better have gone to a top tier school or graduated with a 3.8 or higher from one of the lower tier ones or you can forget about ever making 6 figures, I'm not talking about out of school, I mean for the duration of your career....there is no reason with 1,000 Columbia grads they are hiring a guy who went to U Albany with a 3.1 GPA. ...business is a broad scale major that covers you for many careers, but many of those are areas which tend to be highly economy reliant in that when the economy is in the gutter you are going to struggle mightily to land a job in any of them.

I wouldn't even focus on him being stereotypical of the Asian students per say...just that generally the rule is good in math and theory, terrible forecaster....good forecaster, terrible with the math and theory...not always true but true more than 50% of the time...whether its 50.01%, 88.9%, 63.5% etc. I don't know but I'd bet the house its over a 50% correlation for sure.....the smartest people unfortunately often have trouble grasping very basic concepts and social skills...I have such a hard time understanding how someone can be unable at the age of 30 or 40 to hold a 5 minute normal conversation but sadly many PhDs out there in ALL fields, not just meteorology do.

I'd imagine its not all that high but that may be a product more that over the course of my years in this field I have not come across many minorities for whatever reason...I honestly have only seen one African American meteorologist in 15 years and although I have seen numerous Asian professors in the field I don't believe I have ever come across an operational forecaster of Asian descent even though I do see plenty of Asian students at conferences etc.

30-40%??? Try maybe 15-20% sir and that might be a over estimated percentage as well.

Its gotten very hard the last 2 years from what I can tell....you are correct from about 93-04 it was it was tough and there was a brief window there from 04-08...if you didn't get in then you was screwed.....when I was in school mid 90s they basically told us AccWx or bust boys and girls!

I think he was more focusing on the people who fit that bill who do get through the program basically implying they are screwing everyone around them in the field and don't even really have much of an interest yet they are stealing alot of the jobs.

Change IS to WAS.....it seems the moves in that direction that started maybe 10-15 years ago has slowed quite significantly the last few years or so...I have noticed an increased number of non-mets on TV both TWC, CNN, FOXNEWS, and local stations since maybe 2005-2006....I think the TV personnel more or less realized that in this day of great forecast modeling and strong NWS forecasts overall they can afford to go more with the personality and pretty face.

They don't, as mentioned in many of the threads many don't ever work in the field or many that initially do eventually move onto something else...the shiftwork bug bites many before the age of 30, particularly women as they don't want to work shifts once they're married and having children...I noticed a marked decline in my ability to tolerate overnight shifts as I got into my late 20s vs. my early 20s...it was an amazing difference in just about a 5-7 year period.

Some of the HR reps are good, some are okay, some are quite bad...there was even some really odd activity going on last year during the USAjobs reformat period in which you had to re-send all of your documentation since they switched systems...some of the reps were calling applicants after the close dates asking them to send in their documentation while they were not calling others, this is a big no no since nothing can be sent once the announcement closes, if you missed out you missed out...and its in essence a double no no since if you're going to call some you need to call all.

You're better off doing something else if thats the case though, most people enter this field anticipating they'll eventually get an NWS job since outside of very small percentage of private sector people thats the only way to financially get by, unless of course you have a 2nd income...I'm fortunate enough to be one of those few to make it in the private sector but it took awhile to do so.

Logic does tell you that eventually it would have major trickle down effects as generally vets are only qualified to be interns and not forecasters so, true...how WOULD they be able to fill those forecaster roles as people advanced and retired?

Its likely something is going on differently because numerous people in the met job thread with extensive experience, ie eyewall, osumetstud who had been getting referred almost automatically have not been referred to anything or only once in recent weeks.

See my posting regarding the vet status deal over in the meteorologist only section for the NWS thread...its likely this will be a short lived change for the reason I state and keep in mind, that is just 2 offices, odds are its occurred elsewhere as well...

I wanted so badly to work for Environment Canada in Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver but the punks didn't hire anyone who was not a Canadian citizen, not even someone with a VISA...not sure if that policy has now changed....if it has they might stick you in like Winnipeg though.

Most schools don't and most other majors at my school did not allow it, its just that the departmental staff never got together and made it policy I assume, thank goodness...I still managed a 3.15 overall, I never could grasp how I was so amazingly strong in virtually every other subject of study but so terrible mathematically...even many friends I had who struggled to get 3.0s in their liberal arts majors could get As and Bs in calculus classes.

I can't remember what I got, it was either C-, C or D+...I know that much.

Ds get degrees, at least that was the case at my university, some of the bigger ones like PSU, OU, Wisconsin that is not the case, notice to all....if you are weak in math I'd strongly advise going to one of the smaller schools, they tend not to have the C or C- requirement for core courses and generally are more forcast based....nobody is going to ask for your transcript the majority of the time outside the NWS and even if they do they could give a rat's booty about your Ds in math if your Met class grades were good.

For all the complaining about just GETTING a job being a problem, my experience myself and among others is that often times the 2nd or 3rd job is the harder one to get...the reason being the field is so low paying, as a result even though you might have strong experience after 4, 6, or 10 years alot of the hiring companies are going to tend to go for the less experienced guy they can pay less money too.

The Met sector is not really impacted by the economy, at least that has been my experience, as I posted in one of the met job section threads, I've had more than one person who's said they felt the market is better during bad econmic times because private sector companies get more business because in a fickle economy companies feel the need to cover the weather influence on their business because it could cost them money or clients if they blow something because they try to interpret a generalized non-specific NWS forecast or don't use any forecast at all. Remember, most private weather services don't charge much for their service, so its not like its going to make a dent in said company's bottom line paying the money for it.

I was told by a TV news director about 15 years ago that women have to be good looking to get on TV...men on the other hand either have to be good looking or butt ugly...in between will get you nowhere, as a male you need to stand out in one form or the other...in other words, generally its hard to break in if you consider yourself an average looking guy without much of a TV personality

The NWS needs to open up airport offices again, thats my personal feeling...will it happen? highly highly unlikely but if it did and we could add even 5 spots at every major airport in the country with the warnings issued from there it would help alot.