XR_7
Enthusiast
Huh looks like this topic hasn't been posted in for 3 months now so let me be the one to break the silence.
My name is Austin Grubb. I am 19 years old and plan to become a weather forecaster (not a TV personality, mind you), perhaps with the National Weather Service or even smaller organizations. My current plan is to get an Associate's Degree in Physical Science from Parkland Community College in Champaign, IL followed by a Bachelor's in Meteorology from a university. My eye is currently on Western Illinois University in Quad Cities, IL for that. Previously accepted an Saint Louis University last semester, I had to turn it down due to incredibly difficult tuition costs even though I got a $16,000 scholarship.
I've had an interest in weather since I was about six years old, but that interest began as an irrational fear that I simply wanted to know more about. I was specifically terrified of tornadoes. . . the devices that connected the clouds to the earth and rampaged the landscape in destruction with little to no warning. I was particularly scared of nighttime thunderstorms. I was young but I was not stupid and knew that tornadoes and darkness were two things that did not go well together when you regard the fragility of human life and property.
By the time I was seven, I was that kid in my 2nd grade classroom who read from a meteorology textbook that my dad used in college for my independent reading time. Even more surprising was that I was actually reading it and picking up information. Due to my asocial behavior, a possible mental hindrance, and overall terrible teachers, I was removed from that school as well as the public school system altogether, where I received nearly the entirety of my education as a homeschooled student (except for some high school classes, extracurricular activities from other homeschool sources, dual enrollment at community college, etc). Of course, being a homeschooled student gave me more freedom to choose what I wanted to invest my time in learning and use my free time pursuing dreams instead of doing busy-time homework. I remember one of the first times that my weather knowledge spilled out of my brain cavity was when I was nine or ten years old. I was attending a Vacation Bible School session at a church nearby when a Tornado Warning was issued for our area. A few hundred kids and volunteers had to take refuge in the bathrooms (I had to go in a girls' bathroom smh) until an all-clear was announced. There was a brief touchdown nearby in Urbana, IL but damage was limited if any at all. Afterwards, too much time had been spent hiding in bathrooms that activities were outright cancelled until our parents came to pick us up. The entire hour wait was spent with me taking the role of professor and actually lecturing what was happening in the atmosphere to the volunteers, who were all high school and college students who had never even heard of anything that I was talking about.
My interest in storm chasing was not apparent until I was a teenager. I was always a cautious child and anything that had a possibility of danger or thrill were always discarded as something that I would not want to do (I still hate amusement parks, particularly roller coasters). Watching documentaries, studying chasing strategies, and even listening to firsthand accounts from chasers and relatives who had seen tornadoes got me thinking, "I wanna see what these people have seen." Then 2011 happened. Tornadoes rampaged across the country slaughtering people like a fox in a henhouse. Joplin. Alabama. Even St. Louis where I live now. Very few Midwest areas were spared from Mother Nature's wrath. From there, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be those people on the field who follows the storm and communicates back to the NWS, law enforcement, and the local news on what I find. What could be better than helping people while pumping the veins with adrenaline at the same time? Of course, there are other reasons besides that, but now all I really want to do is chase my career in weather while hobbying as a storm chaser, which is generally a seasonal job.
Just over the past month or so, I've been actively searching for some of my first equipment. My agenda of some of the first things to get are a good smartphone for Wi-Fi and quick searches, a dash camera both for the road as well as storm chasing recordings (1080p, 32GB card compatible), a decent camcorder for recording footage, a removable anemometer (or even portable weather equipment that is good for use on the road, but def an anemometer since wind is kinda important...) for my roof, and a weather radio that will stay in the car at all times (handy for broadcasts on the go). Although bent on storm chasing, I don't have any friends who are even remotely interested in weather (much less storm chasing). I'd like to find some people who do where I don't have to drive 100 miles just to go visit somebody. If I don't find anyone by spring and the opportunity arises to go after something, I'm going to be winging it as driver, commander, and spotter and I'd rather not do that.
Uh, oh yeah, I think that's it.
My name is Austin Grubb. I am 19 years old and plan to become a weather forecaster (not a TV personality, mind you), perhaps with the National Weather Service or even smaller organizations. My current plan is to get an Associate's Degree in Physical Science from Parkland Community College in Champaign, IL followed by a Bachelor's in Meteorology from a university. My eye is currently on Western Illinois University in Quad Cities, IL for that. Previously accepted an Saint Louis University last semester, I had to turn it down due to incredibly difficult tuition costs even though I got a $16,000 scholarship.
I've had an interest in weather since I was about six years old, but that interest began as an irrational fear that I simply wanted to know more about. I was specifically terrified of tornadoes. . . the devices that connected the clouds to the earth and rampaged the landscape in destruction with little to no warning. I was particularly scared of nighttime thunderstorms. I was young but I was not stupid and knew that tornadoes and darkness were two things that did not go well together when you regard the fragility of human life and property.
By the time I was seven, I was that kid in my 2nd grade classroom who read from a meteorology textbook that my dad used in college for my independent reading time. Even more surprising was that I was actually reading it and picking up information. Due to my asocial behavior, a possible mental hindrance, and overall terrible teachers, I was removed from that school as well as the public school system altogether, where I received nearly the entirety of my education as a homeschooled student (except for some high school classes, extracurricular activities from other homeschool sources, dual enrollment at community college, etc). Of course, being a homeschooled student gave me more freedom to choose what I wanted to invest my time in learning and use my free time pursuing dreams instead of doing busy-time homework. I remember one of the first times that my weather knowledge spilled out of my brain cavity was when I was nine or ten years old. I was attending a Vacation Bible School session at a church nearby when a Tornado Warning was issued for our area. A few hundred kids and volunteers had to take refuge in the bathrooms (I had to go in a girls' bathroom smh) until an all-clear was announced. There was a brief touchdown nearby in Urbana, IL but damage was limited if any at all. Afterwards, too much time had been spent hiding in bathrooms that activities were outright cancelled until our parents came to pick us up. The entire hour wait was spent with me taking the role of professor and actually lecturing what was happening in the atmosphere to the volunteers, who were all high school and college students who had never even heard of anything that I was talking about.
My interest in storm chasing was not apparent until I was a teenager. I was always a cautious child and anything that had a possibility of danger or thrill were always discarded as something that I would not want to do (I still hate amusement parks, particularly roller coasters). Watching documentaries, studying chasing strategies, and even listening to firsthand accounts from chasers and relatives who had seen tornadoes got me thinking, "I wanna see what these people have seen." Then 2011 happened. Tornadoes rampaged across the country slaughtering people like a fox in a henhouse. Joplin. Alabama. Even St. Louis where I live now. Very few Midwest areas were spared from Mother Nature's wrath. From there, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be those people on the field who follows the storm and communicates back to the NWS, law enforcement, and the local news on what I find. What could be better than helping people while pumping the veins with adrenaline at the same time? Of course, there are other reasons besides that, but now all I really want to do is chase my career in weather while hobbying as a storm chaser, which is generally a seasonal job.
Just over the past month or so, I've been actively searching for some of my first equipment. My agenda of some of the first things to get are a good smartphone for Wi-Fi and quick searches, a dash camera both for the road as well as storm chasing recordings (1080p, 32GB card compatible), a decent camcorder for recording footage, a removable anemometer (or even portable weather equipment that is good for use on the road, but def an anemometer since wind is kinda important...) for my roof, and a weather radio that will stay in the car at all times (handy for broadcasts on the go). Although bent on storm chasing, I don't have any friends who are even remotely interested in weather (much less storm chasing). I'd like to find some people who do where I don't have to drive 100 miles just to go visit somebody. If I don't find anyone by spring and the opportunity arises to go after something, I'm going to be winging it as driver, commander, and spotter and I'd rather not do that.
Uh, oh yeah, I think that's it.
