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tigerman11
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(Registered User)
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Fri Jun 02 2006 03:57 AM
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How does one become a strom tracker/chaser for a career?
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I have always been interested in hurricanes and their awesome power. My wife and I moved to central Florida three weeks before Katrina from the New Orleans area. Last year changed my life forever because my parents, sister, grandparents, and many friends were caught in the storm and I did not speak to them for 2 plus weeks. When I finally did reach my family, I learned that the home I spent many years in was badly damaged and my sister's apartment near the lakefront was flooded. I could not believe the stories that were coming out of the city I grew up in and loved very deeply. I am interested in learning what careers are available in the field of meteorology that deal specifically with hurricanes and being there during the unfolding of the story. I have always been intrigued by the storm tracker/hunter teams who go out during the storm to report what is happening live. How do you break into this field? Thanks for any reponses.
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Clark
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(Meteorologist)
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Fri Jun 02 2006 04:58 AM
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Re: How does one become a strom tracker/chaser for a career?
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It's not really so much of a career, to tell the truth. Most people in the midst of hurricanes are either media who don't know what they are doing or enthusiasts who only have a slight idea of what they are doing. There are some people who do this for a living who have a good grasp of what they are doing -- Mark Sudduth over at hurricanetrack.com is one example -- and they'd be good people to talk to on that sort of thing. Otherwise, the other career path would be to go through school at one of the major hurricane research universities and see if there are any field programs available. I just can't advocate chasing for a living, and being in the media and reporting on TV carries a lot more responsibilities than just getting out in a storm once out of 300 works days per year.
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madmumbler
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(Storm Tracker)
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Sat Jun 03 2006 02:00 AM
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Re: How does one become a strom tracker/chaser for a career?
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Ironically, Jorma Duran, who I'm now seeing on the Weather Channel, used to be at our local Ft. Myers NBC affiliate.
Remember last year for Wilma(? maybe it was Katrina when she came through here, there were so many it's hard to say! *LOL*) when they stuck Al Roker out on the balcony down here in Ft. Myers (or was it Naples?) and got knocked on his keister? *LOL*
I agree the first step is you need to go to school and get the training. It's a long way from when David Letterman used to move around shapes on a board in front of a camera. (Yes, he used to do weather.) Once you get the training, then you can decide what direction to take. There are so many different possibilities, not just being a media wonk. You can go to work for a research body (school, government, etc.), you can go to work for an emergency management agency (state, county, city, etc.), news outlet -- by the time you get through school there's a lot you can do. But now it's definitely a case of those with the most training get the better picks of what they want to do.
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