Wx education is broken

Last week I watched a video from StormCat5 that asked a hundred people some incredibly basic weather-related questions, the average person that he interacted with got at least half of the questions wrong, HALF of the basic questions that someone needs to at least understand the basics of. What is the difference between a watch and a warning? What is a tornado? Define wind.

Here’s the problem, Storm Chasing (and I love it, I do) is becoming over-saturated because the barriers to entry are low, anyone who has a cellphone with a camera and a vehicle can hop in and chase the wind, other chasers, or the storms and be a “storm chaser”. It’s gotten so saturated that those who chase for the reasons that we initially carved out (alerting the public, collecting scientific data, tracking storms to provide an extra few minutes of warning) are being drowned out. There’s even some talk of regulating storm chasing, wow. I believe what we’re seeing with pushback towards Reed’s Dominator also feeds into this need to leash chasers into something that can be managed, quantified.

But we have a bigger problem. A much bigger problem. Recent movies have fueled the fire for more people to desire to chase. Weather Spotter classes often see dozens if not hundreds of new people signing up to be a certified weather spotter. Entire families tune into Ryan Hall Ya’ll or Max Velocity’s YouTube channels when severe weather hits, the kids turning everyday scientists into heroes, icons to be followed an imitated. That’s awesome, truly, but we’re inviting in the same people who can’t tell us what the difference is between a watch and a warning, the same kids who see the action and feel the excitement and hop into a car with their buddies and drives into the tornado, and we need to do more.

So WXCAT is part of a dream and part of a new wave in blue-water experiences for those interested in meteorology at any age and at any level of comprehension in the sciences behind the glam and the spectacle. Before we set people free, we need to give them the tools - not just the formal education of a four-year meteorology degree - but the base building blocks for them to make a difference, to understand what weather is and how it impacts our daily lives, and to allow for a hands-on approach that so far is limited to a few very “come see and look at the history of weather” experiences instead of something that someone wants to buy into.

Step one is done, there’s a plan, there’s a name, there’s a ridiculously basic business plan that I need to flesh out, but it’s here. Step two is making all the connections and defining what base building blocks to use and what this thing is going to look like. Stay tuned.