Our friend Kristin Raisanen, who was one of our forecasters last winter, landed a job in Canada recently.  Nicolle interviewed her via Skype for our new audio version of “What’s your weather job?”  Kristin is an operational meteorologist at AMEC Environmental and Infrastructure in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.  In addition to discussing her new job, Kristin also gives an overview of her time as an intern at the Mount Washington Observatory and talks a little about moving to a very different place to get that first real job.
What’s your weather job, Kristin Raisanen?

Technical Note: the interview was recorded in stereo with each person’s voice on a separate channel.

We are in the process of adding a new feature to whatever-weather.com: audio podcasts of our interviews with meteorologists about their weather jobs and weather research.  This feature will be helpful for those who don’t have the time to sit and watch full video interviews at their computers and would prefer to just download the conversation to a mobile device.

As a first try, I am taking my first “What’s Your Weather Job?” interview ever and making it available as an audio file.  Here is WRAL-TV meteorologist Nate Johnson describing his job as a weather producer at a busy TV station and answering questions about what he sees for the future of his chosen career path:

What’s your weather job, Nate Johnson?

If you haven’t had the chance yet, and you’d like to watch our video interviews with meteorologists about their jobs and research, check out our video page!

Some of our weather friends are a little camera shy, or they live too far away for a video taped interview.  This week’s “What’s your weather job?” interview is with Richard Barnhill.  You might recognize him from our Forecasts forum.  He forecasts for the Mid-Atlantic and eastern North Carolina.

1.  What is your name, where do you work, and what is your official title?

My name is Richard Barnhill. I work as a government contractor, for IM Systems Group, at the NOAA World Weather Building in Camp Springs, MD. My official title is Support Scientist II.

2. What is a “typical” day like for you?

A typical day for me is a little like being a grad student, without the classes. Basically, I am working on developing an algorithm to read and process satellite data, so most of my day is spent researching and writing code. It is a lot of trial and error because like all good research, there is no clear answer and so most of my time is spent brain storming methods and testing them to see if they improve the product that we are trying to produce.

3. What do you like about the job?

3: What I like about this job is that it IS like grad school, without the classes. I enjoy researching, developing code, and seeing the end result. There is a certain feeling of satisfaction you get when you finish writing your thesis, and this job to me is just like that, but without the rigors of writing a lot and doing presentations. I also like the work hours because it is a 9-5 job so not like the typical rotating shifts that you would have to deal with at a job like NWS. There is more structure and it gives you time to plan an actual life! Also, in research, if you are important enough, you will be asked to go to conferences all over the world to present your results, so the opportunity to travel to unique places is intriguing.

4. Is there anything you dislike about the job?

My only dislikes about the job are issues like “down” time, when I am waiting for programs to complete and there is not much to do. You kind of have to find something constructive to do when there is not much going on and that can be tough. Also, I have not had to deal with this “yet”, but when there are contracts with the government, there are deadlines and these can be stressful times. I have witnessed the stress of colleagues having to meet deadlines, and I hope to not have such stress when mine approaches.

5. What do you see in the future for your position or your field in general?

Positions like mine will always exist as long as the government is funding research in atmospheric science. There will always be the need for people who write code and develop the code that processes and analyzes data. While it is a pretty stable job, there is always the issue of a project ending and also the renewal of contracts, both of which can cause issues with the future of employment, but these are the issues you deal with as a contractor.

6. If a student were interested in doing what you do, what suggestions would you give him as far as classes or extra-curricular activities to help him on his way?

For students interested in a job such as mine, I would suggest above all else getting as much experience with computer programming and specifically doing a summer internship involving programming like I did. I had the amazing opportunity to do an undergraduate research project where I developed code to predict ice accumulation during winter storms. This project introduced me to programming and helped me realize that there is more to meteorology than just forecasting. So, make sure you take classes/learn FORTRAN, IDL, C++, or JAVA. Most legacy code is written in FORTRAN, but there is a move to go to a newer language. Also, make sure you go to grad school and get on a project that involves computer code based research using models or satellite data. I went to grad school and was funded on a project that did analysis of TRMM data using IDL. I had no experience with either, but through learning them both I was able to gain valuable experience and boost my resume. When you can list experience in 3-5 programming languages, you are boosted to the top of the list in this particular area. Then diverse experience is a plus as well.

7. Do you have any thing else you think we should know about your job?

My final advice to anyone wanting to start a career in meteorology is to take chances on new things. Don’t think that just because you are in meteorology that you are going to work at the NWS and be a forecaster, or work at a TV station. When I started I thought I wanted to work at NWS and did not even know about the research aspect of this field. When you get a chance to do an internship (regardless of where it is) take it! Figure out what you like now as opposed to later.  You can always change what you do, but when you start out doing what you find exciting (through copious experience), you have a better chance of NOT becoming bored with your job and spending your time desiring something else.

Thanks to Richard for taking the time to tell us about his job.  Don’t forget to check out our video interviews with meteorologists as well!