Chuck Doswell:

We can argue about how good our meteorology education is, but I know for a fact that at the end of a four year undergraduate program, new graduates still don’t know very much about the atmosphere and how it really works. For myself, it was well into my doctoral The human component of the NWS is the single largest budget item. The science and technology behind automated, “objective” weather forecasting has been underwritten by hundreds of millions for decades and is ongoing today. Yet, to this day, we have no idea what it takes to be a good weather forecaster, because that involves learning about people, not about differential equations and computer code. We meteorologists learn math and physics in school – that’s education. We can argue about how good our meteorology education is, but I know for a fact that at the end of a four year undergraduate program, new graduates still don’t know very much about the atmosphere and how it really works. For myself, it was well into my doctoral studies before I began to obtain a dim understanding of processes in the atmosphere. Nearly forty years later, I’m still learning, of course!

As someone who just graduated with a degree in meteorology, I completely agree with this statement. My main takeaway from getting my degree is how little i actually understand about the atmosphere. I think Chuck’s idea for a certification process for forecasters in the NWS is a great idea.