Career In Meteorology

How can I get more involved in Meteorology?

I am only 14 but lots of people think that I know more stuff about weather than most adults do. I do tons of research whenever I have time, but how could I get more seriously into it and what colleges are good ones for meteorology?

Public Comments

1. you sound exactly like me i am 14 too and my mom likes to joke around saying that i can tell you facts and stories of a hurricane or any other type of weather just like a baseball fan can name the stats of their favorite player. i actually contacted my local news station and asked if i may job shadow the meteorologist there and i did (it was amazing) and he gave me contacts to go to my local national weather service for my region. so i am now working on deciding a good day for that. good colleges are....... (the meteorologist at my local news station gave a list to me) FSU Penn state and many more.... people always wonder why i take pictures of the weather and for school i have a pic that i have of a super-cell that produced a tornado and has a huge nice wall cloud but the tornado was behind a house in the pic so you really cant see that. you may email me with any weather question or just about learning meteorology
2. You could contact your local National Weather Service and ask to be an intern. You could also become a certified storm spotter. Call or email your local National Weather Service for more information. A good college would be Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. In the mean time, you can read more about weather here: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/matrix.htm You can read more about the Skywarn program here: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tbw/TampaBaySkywarnPage.htm
3. You may become a storm/ snow spotter for the National Weather Service. Here is a link with more information: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/spotterpage/spotter.htm If you have a home weather station, you may become involved with CoCoRaHS, which will involve reporting your daily observations to the NWS. Here is a link with more information: http://www.cocorahs.org/ If you would like to learn more about weather, and model interpretations, here are some good websites. Weatherpredictions.com, operated by Meteorologist Jeff Haby: http://www.theweatherprediction.com/ E-Wall Weather Tutorial, operated and maintained by the Meteorology Department of the Pennsylvania State University: http://www.personal.psu.edu/adb241/eWallTutorial/Main.htm E-Wall, a weather model page maintained by the PSU Meteorology Department: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ewall.html UniSys Weather, a "one stop shop" meteorology site, with surface maps, satellite images, upper air sounding, meteograms, radar, and models, along with an explanation of each: http://weather.unisys.com/ Here are a couple of weather forums you may enjoy, and offer a moderated, monitored, friendly atmosphere: Absolute Vorticity: http://absolutevorticity.com/ Sky Eye Weather Forums, owned and maintained by Chief Meteorologist Rich Apuzzo: http://skyeyeweather.com/Weather_Forum/index.php? Penn State does have a fine meteorology program, as does the University of Oklahoma, and Ohio State University. University of Oklahoma: http://som.ou.edu/ Ohio State University: http://www.geography.osu.edu/atmospheric-and-climatic-studies Another option you may consider, provided you have excellent grades in high school, in the US Naval or US Air Force Academies. They have excellent meteorology programs, and their graduates have a head start as far as experience in the civilian world. Either way, go heavy on physics and advanced math (calc, trig) in high school. Hope this helps. Good luck.