Analog96

I wasn't sure which thread to put this in, but Yahoo news came out with a list of 10 college majors with the lowest unemployment rates. Ironically, atmospheric sciences and meteorology was 9 on the list with a 1.6% unemployment rate. Where or how they came up with this information, I have absolutely no idea. This practically seems blasphemous to me given the number of unemployed mets out there. I'd be more than willing to bet that the actual figure is much higher than 1.6% and that this is simply an example of shoddy journalism. This piece is about as bad as the article US News came out with a while ago stating that mets had an average (or was it median?) salary of 85K, something we all now isn't true. Link to the article:

http://news.yahoo.co...-163049193.html

Yes, BUT does that specifically mean that all of these "employed' mets are currently working as meteorologists, or just working, in any job, period?

Damn, that doctor account is so bone chilling. Amazing he found flashlights, it had to be pitch black.

Maybe not pitch black. The tornado pulled out quickly. The sun probably came out, and the buidling was mostly gone, so sun was probably coming in through the roof.

seconded. Although I have a masters degree, I would still be making plenty as Met at GS-13 without it.

It all depends on the jobs available and a bit of luck finding them

Luck and willingness to work in strange places some times.

In the NWS, it's not too uncommon...GS13s and high stepped GS12s make 100K+.

Right, but of all mets, how many get into the NWS?

Not true. I "only" have a BS in Meteorology/Mathematics (toilet paper degree) and make 100K+ as a Met. Congrats on your windfall but your statement is patently false.

Congrats, but how common is that?

CareerCast (and I've seen this repeated on multiple other outlets) ranked being a meteorologist as the 6th best job to have in 2011.

http://www.careercas...jobs-best-worst

Average salary: $85,210 (methodology explains this isn't exactly an 'average')

Explanation of their methodology: http://www.careercas...ted-methodology

That average is skewed by the few who work on large-market TV stations.

I'm glad I didn't start following weather until December 2001, I would have been devastated.

That was a hell of a first winter.

I think at one point, central NC was expected to get hit hard. Afterwards, it was supposed to be a HECS with 20-30"+ from DC to Boston, then it kept trending north over time, and until the very end NYC was expected to get a big hit.

Instead all the heavy snow was in the interior northeast, I believe.

Eastern New England got hit hard, too.

He started every class saying "Okayyyyyyyyyy", and one of my favorite lines he had was "Jews" of water "wapor".

All kidding aside, he was an awesome professor and the best teacher I've ever had-he helped me get the funds to get to the AMS meeting in New Orleans for my poster presentation.

LOL always OOOOKAYYYYYY. The year before you had him for thermo, I was in his class, and Aaron Burton blurted out OOOOKKKKKAAAYYYY right after Dr Yoh. Then later he said he didn't remember doing it! That was a moment I'll never forget!

That makes no sense since he ran his own WRF every day and did research papers on mesoscale modeling with some met majors-mostly it was computer based though, but still.....

That's because he IS a computer!

I don't remember Dr. Yoh admitting that he wouldn't know how to forecast, but I rarely ever saw him make one. His undergrad was in Meteorology(somewhere out the US I believe), but his PhD is actually in Physics.

He told me that one time when I was pouring over the models doing Keancast. Basically said he would have no idea what to look at to make a good forecast.

You certainly add value with many of your posts.

I really don't know how he gets away with it. We see numerous times posts from the moderators on these boards telling everyone that they can only make posts that have any substance to them. Yet, time and time again, he makes posts with the facepalm, or simply "roflcopter" and he gets away with it. If I were 5-posted, I would make every one of my 5 posts a day in protest of that!

Well...that proves it. Asians cannot forecast weather worth a damn.

Yeah...going into research requires a sleepy mind.

Did you do well in your reading classes? I didn't say it proves anything. And to the second point, what I'm saying is research majors are going to be more awake in OTHER classes that the operational mets have less interest in.

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 think that most people who are interested in forecasting are more awake and ready to go in synoptic classes and classes that deal with day-to-day meteorology than those who want to do research. That could be part of the reasoning.

Very interesting comment. Almost all Asian professors/students I have known/met are of Chinese descent and are obtaining some kind of graduate degree here in the states. Almost all are from China (born), and almost all have research aspirations. At UND, we had/have quite a few Chinese students and they were all very talented researchers with amazing mathematics backgrounds. None of them could forecast worth a lick either, but they had far better research backgrounds as a whole compared to their American counterparts.

Actually, and Scotty can attest to this, the Chinese (hong kong) born professor of meteorology at Kean has admitted many times that he would not have a clue how to forecast, but he is an absolute genius in mathematics and physics!

So in that case, does Kean's meteorology program meet the federal meteorological requirements, as well as the AMS defined requirements?

Yes. I forgot to mention that we all had to take 2 CPS classes too!

Yep-the first few weeks were learning some Calc and Skew-Ts. We had a great professor.

I was lucky enough to be one of the few "pioneers" of the Keancast-we started off as a weekly weather show, but we were able to score some old WSI computers from News 12 to actually help us make professional graphics and look really legit. There were also daily radio forecasts played across campus and it did gain popularity rather quickly.

It really was Greg, but I don't think many people know that we had a very "old school" professor-he hated computers and we had two labs a week so the one lab we'd analyze maps from March 3, 1963 and then the other lab was taught by another met professor where we broke off into teams and rotated throughout the semester to give a daily weather briefing(Forky loved those days )

LOL He still thinks the NGM is running somewhere, and refers to it as the workhorse model.

Yeah there were the forecasting contests, but there was never no class that taught pure weather forecasting. Synoptics came close and gave you the basics of what you need to forecast without the models.

Forecasting is more of an art than a science anyway...and folks will have their own subjective way of perceiving data. Much of forecasting is learned through experience. I think the university programs realize this and that's why they concentrate on the science end of meteorology.

This. Synoptic was the closest to a forecasting class.

In my senior year Kean participated in the WxChallenge, and we also had a broadcast met class that was created by Dr. Paul Croft(the Mt. Holly guys know him well).

Dr Croft has really advanced the broadcast leg of that program.

Of course. Who else? Luckily he took pity on me for being the only meteorology major in his night class(I think I took GIS, which conflicted with the daytime Diffy Q class).

He ALWAYS took pity on the met majors, it wasn't just in your class! In my class, it was the "Three Musketeers". We had 2 semesters less calculus than most in there. We deserved the pity!

Like Isohume said... wow. I'm starting to really question Kean at a B.S. in Atmos. program, as its major requirements seem lax compared to the other colleges I went to and looked at.

If you want some time, I can dig up the full req's list, but included are hydrology, climatology, GIS, Remote Sensing, Thermo, two semesters of Dynamics, 2 semesters of Physics, Methods in Geoscience, Physical Met, two semesters of Synoptic Met- one with computer applications.

I was the opposite-Calc II was much easier than Calc I. I almost failed Calc I, took a six-week summer class of Calc II and got a B.

I think it also depends on what type of professor you have as well-some teach the material better than others. Unfortunately for Greg and me there is only one professor who taught Diffy Q.

I agree with this. A lot of times it depends on the professor, whether they can clearly explain the material or not. You took Krantz for Diffy Q also I imagine?

What school did you go to?

Kean.

Wow.

I don't see why it was needed anyway. The Chem that you really need for Meteo you learn in Thermodynamics. Everybody takes basic chemistry in HS anwyay.

Thats not true your math grades are extremely important, I only pult B+s - Cs in all my math classes but my math minor helped get me a job... not to mention if you ever want to get into grad school you better start caring about your math grades

Snowgoose is right. Ds in the math courses will get you a degree, but you better get at least a C in your met classes.