Every Thursday morning from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., Allison Bivens, Evan Malone and Maggie Huebner gather in the WAV lab to predict the weather on Mizzou’s campus for the next 72 hours. Bivens, Malone and Huebner are just one of the 10 shifts of environmental sciences students who use their meteorology skills to produce the Campus Weather Forecast (CWF) twice a day, every weekday, as part of the Synoptic Meteorology I course (ATM_SC 4710).
Supervised by atmospheric science graduate student Noah Simmons and assistant teaching professor in atmospheric science Eric Aldrich, the students use professional software to pull information from different levels of the atmosphere to create a forecast, which is then posted on the Mizzou Atmospheric Science Research website. They work together to create forecast graphics for social media and an area forecast discussion (AFD), which is more specific in what is happening with the weather and how it applies to the reader.
“Usually since we’re here pretty early in the morning and have the forecast posted by 9 a.m., I get home after the shift at about the time my roommate wakes up,” said Huebner. “Every morning, she asks Alexa what the weather is going to do, and on Thursday mornings I say ‘Alexa, stop,’ and I tell her the weather myself because I’ve been here forecasting all morning, so I know exactly what is going down weather wise.”
The forecasters then pass their information on to students in the Broadcast Meteorology course (ATM_SC 4110), who create a weather forecast video that is added to the website and shown on campus in the Student Center, the Agriculture Building and dorm rooms.
“The things the students are working on, either on the forecasting side or the video broadcasting side, are things that they’ll do in their careers every day for the rest of their lives,” said Aldrich. “A lot of employers ask for previous job experience and this certainly counts. These computers are all running the same software that you would find at the National Weather Service or the Storm Prediction Center, so when students leave Mizzou with a degree in environmental sciences with an emphasis on atmospheric science, they already know how all that works and employers get excited about that.”
The students work individually to research atmospheric conditions for about an hour of their scheduled time, and then come together to ensure each piece of the CWF works together before dissemination of the forecast.
“I enjoy the group aspect, because I feel like if I was doing this on my own for the first time I’d be lost, but having Allison and Maggie here makes the learning part of forecasting easier,” said Malone.
“The hands on aspect of it is really helpful, because you can do things in class, but when you do them in the lab yourself, that’s when the concepts start to really click,” said Bivens.
Follow the Campus Weather Forecast on Twitter, and Instagram.