UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For fledgling forecasters and budding broadcasters, the Campus Weather Service at Penn State has a reputation for real-world readiness. It is the largest student-run forecasting organization in the country, providing free weather forecasts to Pennsylvania clients. And they’ve been doing it for 50 years.
Founded in 1972, the Campus Weather Service (CWS) provides daily weather forecasts for 11 regions in Pennsylvania. Using the latest technologies, the more than 100 active CWS members provide critical weather information on the web and through numerous television and radio broadcasts to their clients. Many alumni of the Penn State Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science attribute some degree of their success from the transformative, real-world forecasting and broadcasting experiences they had in CWS.
“It is a unique experiential learning opportunity where the students are learning from each other, preparing them for careers in the weather and climate enterprise as forecasters, broadcasters and leaders,” said Bill Syrett, who has been the CWS faculty adviser for 27 years. “Students majoring in meteorology and atmospheric science are passionate about their major and many come from a background where they haven’t had any friends interested in weather. So right away, they realize that there are others just like them and they form bonds that last a lifetime.”
In October, the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science hosted a three-day weekend celebration to commemorate the milestone.
“We had about 150 people from all over the country come back to campus for the celebration,” said Rob Lydick, executive producer for “Weather World” at Penn State. “People who were involved with CWS from its earliest beginnings in the early to mid-70s came back. For a lot of people, this was the first time they had been back in the Walker Building since they graduated and they were impressed with all of the renovations like the Joel N. Myers Weather Center, which opened in January 2009 after a seven-month renovation.”
Lydick, who served as president of CWS in 2010 when he was an undergraduate student, said CWS will always hold a special place in his heart. The same is true for other CWS alumni who value the hands-on-learning and teamwork they experienced through the student-run organization.
“Understand how to work together, how to be collaborative and how to listen to other people’s ideas is something that you can apply to a lot of things, and it is something that I do in my job at AccuWeather,” said Dan DePodwin, director of forecast operations at AccuWeather.
“The peer-to-peer learning in Campus Weather Service is invaluable because it’s exactly what happens every single day in the real world,” said Heather Waldman, meteorologist and climate reporter at KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California. “I’m on a team with five other meteorologists. We learn from each other; we bounce forecast ideas off of each other; and at times we reach out to others for critiques about our on-air performance as well. So, learning to interact with your peers, with your co-workers, is a really important skill."
Skills learned as part of CWS helped many alumni be prepared for their career.
“There’s no doubt that the Campus Weather Service prepared me for my career,” said Waldman. “Getting that radio work in with a group of peers that were not only there to help me, but were also there to critique me, helped to teach me and to get a feel of what it would be like to work in media from a weather perspective.”
CWS’ embrace and adoption of new technologies has helped them navigate challenges of providing forecast during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The fact that we were able to adapt and employ the tools needed to broadcast remotely is huge and I think it’s especially popular for our generation,” said Kevin Appleby, current president of CWS. “I feel like more people are working from home, and so knowing how to utilize new technologies and the fact that we’ve already done it is massive.”
CWS alumni also encourage students to participate.
“It’s the camaraderie and the team effort of being able to share ideas to build a forecast consensus,” said DePodwin. A consensus generally provides a better, more accurate forecast a compared to an individual forecast, so I think the consensus-based approach and learning that early on is a really good reason to join.”
“When you’re comparing yourself and other Campus Weather Service members to graduates of other schools, they simply don’t have the same level of opportunities that the Campus Weather Service provides, “said Appleby. “So, you’re essentially ahead of the game before you even get onto the job market.”