Meteorologist Joe Moore Senior Internship Spring 2007

Roles and Responsibilities of the Profession Interrupt surface (ground) weather charts to analyze the current situation Do the same with upper-air charts (taken from weather balloons) Make forecasts for different ranges (nowcasting, a week, month, 3 months, a year, and 18 months) Analyze sales of a certain product to determine if/how it is affected by the weather

Activities and Projects I saw my mentor involved in Writing a report and doing a webinar on La Niña and the upcoming hurricane season Sending out weather alerts to clients (eg. Possible power outages, etc.) Writing scripts to accomplish tasks like manipulating data from the web in Excel Running updates on internal databases used for programs

Activities and Projects my mentor allowed me to participate in as a high school intern Drawing isobars (lines of equal pressure), isotherms (lines of equal temperature) and isodrosotherms (lines of equal dew point) and analyzing the current situation Making a May 2007 forecast by comparing Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr 2007 and matching them to past yearsMay 2007 forecast Working with GrADS, a program that draws gridded (4 dimensional) data (and doing a presentation on it to learn how it worked) presentation

Activities and Projects (continued) my mentor allowed me to participate in as a high school intern Analyze sales of certain items and comparing it to the weather to model how the two correlate using their proprietary weather solutions Analyzing Sea Surface charts (ocean temp) Interrupting some of their proprietary maps

This profession matched my expectations in the following ways… Communication was essential (sharing forecast results to get the best possible solution) Mainly use government weather data (eg. All their data is free) Many products correlated with the weather

This profession was not what I expected in the following ways… Use Excel macros in ways unimaginable Despite having all of the technology, hand- analyzing data is still key to looking at the weather, especially when looking at weather plots Using a program in Excel written by the company to analyze sales data and the weather

The Environment in which I worked… Very relaxed atmosphere to work in Worked with 3-5 people each day In the first half, I would sit down and spend an hour with Jim, with whom I worked on weather charts, and then I would go around and sit down with people from all over the company to learn what they do (from Marketing, to Account Managers to long-range weather forecasting); in the second half I worked on projects with Heather and Steve

The Environment in which I worked… (continued) Company was on a chunk of a building where they had the second and third floors which included a small deck for outdoor seating While I was their, they restructured the cubicles to create a new ‘weather center’ where all the weather people met every morning for their daily discussion

The People I worked with… Heather – my official mentor – scheduled my day worked with me on small projects Jim – Severe weather/Tropical expert – worked with most days learning by reading info from the web then putting it to use by analyzing maps Steve – GrADS guy – worked with on major projects Other people: –Account Managers –Marketing people –Long-Range weather forecaster –Salespeople

My advice for students interested in this field/profession… Planalytics was a great place to intern because I was truly taught, not just given jobs to do Other places to work could include the air base, other local airports, The NWS office in Mt. Holly, Dorney (yes, they have a weather station), and look here: AMSThe NWS office in Mt. HollyAMS

I chose to intern in this professional area because… I have had a love of weather since pre- school I wanted to get real experience in this profession before pursuing a degree in it

During Senior Internship I learned… There is a lot more behind business weather than is on the surface Correlations between weather and product sales aren’t always obvious Macros are your friend

My Internship Planalytics 1325 Morris Drive Suite 201 Wayne, PA Heather B. P. DiBella Meteorologist