Dr. James Surrell, Journal columnist

Meteorology is the scientific study of our weather and of the earth’s atmosphere.

It takes its name from the Greek word “meteoron” and this Greek word is defined as something that happens high in the sky. The ancient Greeks observed clouds, winds, and rain and tried to understand how they are connected to one another. The weather was important in their relatively simple society because it affected the farmers who raised their food and their seamen who sailed the oceans.

Today, our complex society and our environment are often dramatically affected even more seriously by various weather patterns. Of course, it is essential to know of severe weather patterns that may be coming and could even be potentially property damaging and even life-threatening.

These potentially dangerous weather patterns may include severe high winds, severe rain and thunder storms, severe snow storms, hurricanes, tornados and more.

The American Meteorological Society defines a meteorologist as a person with specialized education in the study of weather.

They further define a meteorologist as one who uses scientific principles to explain, understand, observe, and forecast the earth’s weather and how it affects life on our planet earth. A meteorologist’s education usually includes a bachelor’s or higher degree from a college or university.

Many meteorologists have degrees in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and other fields. The broader term “atmospheric science” often is used to describe the combination of meteorology and other branches of physical science that are involved in studying the atmosphere. Therefore, it takes a significant amount of formal education and personal study for a person to become a meteorologist.

Forecasting our weather has always been at the heart of meteorology, and many young people have been drawn to the profession by the challenge of forecasting a natural event and seeing that weather patterns may affect the lives of thousands of people.

Weather forecasting often involves many people in many countries to evaluate these systems that bring us our weather. These weather patterns are often very large and may be more than 100 miles long and wide. As they move across huge regions of the earth’s surface, they often continue to grow and change. The weather forecast that we see on our television screen is often the end product of a worldwide effort by thousands of meteorologists in the national weather services of many nations.  

Several times each day, weather observers record atmospheric measurements at nearly 10,000 surface weather stations around the world and several thousand ships at sea. They release weather balloons at more than 500 stations to make upper-air measurements. Radar, aircraft and satellites also are used to collect information on what is happening in the atmosphere.

This information is transmitted to world weather centers in the United States and to many countries around the world, where computers produce analyses of global weather. Then, our National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists in Washington, D.C. use this data as a starting point to produce guidance forecasts for the United States with sophisticated computer models.

These guidance forecasts go to local offices where NWS meteorologists apply their skill and experience to fine-tune the predictions for their regions and specific towns and cities. We are indeed fortunate to also have a National Weather Service Forecast Office located here in Marquette County.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Jim Surrell is the author of “The ABC’s For Success In All We Do” and the “SOS (Stop Only Sugar) Diet” books.Contact Dr. Surrell by email at sosdietdoc@gmail.com.