AtticaFanatica

I know I said no I told you so.......I don't think I have to do that at this point do you???? I tried to make my point the last two days but I was deemed crazy, they wanted to moderators to suspend my account because I expressed an opinion that it would be a horrific outbreak...But no I was clueless...Didn't turn out that way did it..We ended up with one of the worst tornado outbreaks in United States history. I truely wish I had been wrong with all those lives lost...

Stop.

Another surprisingly difficult thing for me, and I'm sure the survey teams will run into this as well, is to go into the damage assessment without preconceived notions. You can't go in thinking EF5 otherwise you will naturally search for indicators that prove it correct, while ignoring those that suggest otherwise. I never ran into tornadoes anywhere close to this intense, but it was often an issue with tornado vs. straight line wind.

These survey teams will have to mentally prepare themselves to be completely objective, despite the devastation laid out before them. I don't envy their position at all, because as much as I would want to be on the team I don't know how I would handle it. The EF2 in Putnam Co., Illinois on 6/5/10 was enough to shake me (being my first significant tornado damage).

Yes, confirmation bias is a tough thing to overcome.

The horizontal vortices that were so prominent with this tornado may be an indicator of the low-level shear present in the environment or may have been forced at the interface of the tornado inflow layer (lowest 50 m or so) and the air above it. Fascinating stuff.

Easy EF5, right?

I typically cringe at those guessing these things prematurely, but I would be very surprised if it's not rated as EF5 based on all available information.

I think a poster said that this could be counted as a two day outbreak due to less than 6 hours between tornado touchdowns which means we could be seeing 179 reports of tornado touchdowns

It's subjective, it's whatever any individual wants it to be.

That 30 second period when the video came back after they lost it for the first time was ridiculous.

This is bad.

This thread is pretty much a disgrace.

Edit: Referring to Analog's now-deleted posts.

The idea that you need computers to teach the theory or background of several meteorological subjects is completely absurd and without merit.

Ok, anyone who hates computers should be banned from teaching meteorology. Teaching the old school way and ignoring the modern techniques and skills needed which involves computers will make for some very unemployable met grads. Simply put; you need to know computers! Its the modern tool of the trade. Not saying printout difax maps are bad, I still use them to analyze, but you gotta know the computer stuff too. That said, best to have a double major if you are doing meteorology with the job market the way it is in the field.

Not necessarily, depends on what you're teaching.

I'll always remember using "Matrab" and IDV during labs.

Similarly, it would probably be equally hilarious hearing you pronounce Matlab or the equivalent in Korean, Japanese, or Chinese.

It's pointless to talk about this stuff without hard numbers.

I'd much rather have that than the nonsense posted in the last page or so.

You certainly add value with many of your posts.

He's right though.

Thread's gone from bad to terrible.

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.

ugh

What % of the NWS workforce is currently classified as a minority?

top 'bin'? what does that mean? Basically just that to get the highest score for that question you have to have 18 published since that's what one of the applicants had?

I'm not sure, I've never applied for an NWS position, but that sounds right.

Yes, I've seen this question. In fact every one that I've applied for has had this question but what specifically about the Anchorage opening was going on with this question? Something about someone who had applied for this opening had 18 peer reviewed papers published?!

I didn't apply, but I think the top "bin" for authorships is now 18 publications, perhaps it was fewer in the past, I'm not sure.

What are you guys referring to?

Some of the NWS applications have asked about the number of peer-reviewed authorships or co-authorships applicants have in major journals.

I am not, and I don't think he is either. It was a little absurd though because the higher bin went up to 18 peer reviewed published publications in a major journal.

That's a lot, true, what are the other bins?

This is true although with Anchorage the questions seemed more geared for a professor with the paper crap.

It's probably not a useful prerequisite for most NWS positions, but I think you're short-changing peer-reviewed research just a tiny bit.

Grades have nothing to do with how qualified you are. You should make the distinction between how qualified someone may be and how well they happened to perform in college. Thankfully employers look at other aspects including internship experiences, student projects, and forecasting/communications ability as opposed to simply basing qualification on grades. That would be silly. I think every undergrad student can name various students who had 4.0's and made the cirriculum look easy but couldn't forecast a lick or communicate with non-meteorologists without mentioning QG Omega/Chi.

Thankfully employers don't look at grades only or I never would have had a chance based off my below average Calc grades. I guess that means I am unqualified?

Moral of the story here to potential meteorology majors, don't quit just because your calculus scores happen to be low or you have a less than stellar GPA. It doesn't matter if you show dedication and hard work.

I agree it doesn't matter much for those interested in forecasting, mostly because there's very few forecasting classes in most curriculums, but I think class performance does matter, at least to some extent, in research.

Yes, the "life is hard and you gotta work hard to succeed" principle applies in all walks of life but meteorology is among the most brutal since the supply / demand curve is so skewed. I"ll explain it for the final time...There are only jobs for about 40% of graduating mets. Of the remaining 60% its a safe bet that at least half of them are "doing all the right things" but they won't get jobs. Heck, lets just say for the sake of argument 90 or 100% of graduating mets listen to your advice and do the right things. The fact is still the same. There are too many mets and not enough jobs! There are probably other fields that have this problem too but meteorology is currently among one of the worst.

We get it.

I quit my idea of being a MET after my first year in college. The math I needed was RIDICULOUS.

Meteorology is a branch of applied physics. I'm not sure why it would be surprising that you need a lot of calculus and physics to study the subject appropriately.