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Penn State meteorologists do all but control the weather

The Monday before this year's Blue-White game at Penn State, football coach James Franklin was worried about the weather. It wasn't so much how his team would handle a slippery ball - Blue-White's only a scrimmage. But the annual event held in April draws 70,000 fans to campus, as well as potential recruits, and Happy Valley, he says, is happiest on a bright, sunny day.

Sophomore Casey Lehecka gives a weather report in front of a green screen in the department’s TV studio. She mistakenly wore a green scarf her first time out. (KELSIE NETZER / For The Inquirer)
Sophomore Casey Lehecka gives a weather report in front of a green screen in the department’s TV studio. She mistakenly wore a green scarf her first time out. (KELSIE NETZER / For The Inquirer)Read more

The Monday before this year's Blue-White game at Penn State, football coach James Franklin was worried about the weather.

It wasn't so much how his team would handle a slippery ball - Blue-White's only a scrimmage. But the annual event held in April draws 70,000 fans to campus, as well as potential recruits, and Happy Valley, he says, is happiest on a bright, sunny day.

So, as game day approached, Franklin took to Twitter to get news from the most reliable source he knows for meteorological matters: Penn State's student-run Campus Weather Service.

@coachjfranklin: "Could you please send me updates each AM . ... Only if it's good news though lol."

@PSUweather: "Will do - doesn't look bad right now, mix of clouds & sun, chance of a shower, temps in the 60s."

@coachjfranklin: "Can you find a way to get rid of the rain please?"

By Friday, the skies had cleared.

@coachjfranklin: "Wow, awesome, most weather people just try to predict the weather, u guys control it."

Penn State boasts one of the largest completely student-run weather services in the nation. About 100 students - nearly half the meteorology majors - prepare forecasts for television, radio, and the Web, all volunteers. They advise campus sports teams on weather they may face when on the road. And they help produce the university's Weather World, a TV program broadcast on PCN and WPSU and featuring faculty and students.

They work out of Penn State's meteorology department, one of the best known and oldest in the country, which at one time claimed turning out a quarter of the nation's meteorologists each year.

Its graduates have figured prominently: Philadelphia native and Central High grad Joel N. Myers, the founder and president of AccuWeather. Lansdale native Ross Dickman, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service's New York City office, serving 20 million people. NBC10's chief meteorologist, Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz, also a Philadelphia native and Central grad.

At the Weather Channel in Atlanta, "we joke this is like Penn State South," said Jen Carfagno, 38, a Collegeville native who is an on-air meteorologist. She cited half a dozen colleagues who are alumni, including her husband.

The Weather Channel also turns to Penn State students to provide analysis when storms hit Happy Valley.

"As you know, we love talking to you guys up at Penn State," meteorologist Sam Champion said during an on-air interview with Ryan Breton, a junior who heads Campus Weather Service, about a heavy rain and flash flood this spring. "Thanks for being the geniuses that you are."

Penn State is the winner four years running of the "Weather Challenge," a North American forecasting competition. Runners-up this year included MIT and the University of Toronto.

Once, noted Breton, students beat AccuWeather on a home football game forecast.

Each day during the school year, students begin their shifts checking current conditions and models by computer.

"One of the best ways of understanding what is going to happen in the future is understanding what's happening right now," said Breton, 21, of Atkinson, N.H.

From there, they move to the Joel N. Myers Weather Center, funded with a $2 million donation from the AccuWeather founder. They scan the map wall, with its 36 high-resolution flat-screen monitors featuring global temperatures, satellite images, maps, radars, and webcams.

"When big storms come, all the professors and students come here," Casey Lehecka, 19, a sophomore from Pittsburgh, said, referring to the center's large glass-enclosed observatory.

They also go on the roof, which offers a 25-mile view on clear days, a wind vane, and rain gauge.

They record their forecasts in a soundproof radio booth and a TV studio with a green screen. For Lehecka's first forecast, she wore a green scarf, not anticipating that anything green becomes invisible.

"There was a map where my neck was," she said. Those real-life lessons stick.

As a freshman, Dickman, now 46 and a NWS meteorologist in New York City, got the job of preparing the weather forecast for the student newspaper. He wrote a forecast for the weekend of a regatta, an event that used to draw lots of business to the university and borough. Seeing potential for snow, he quipped: "Sunday's not a regatta day."

"At that time, the temperatures were still in the 70s. It was beautiful and sunny," he said. "People wanted me fired. I didn't sleep for three days."

His forecast proved true. But he learned that's not enough.

"You have to be very careful how you present information," he said.

Carfagno, who has been at the Weather Channel since her graduation in 1998, took the Campus Weather Station's 3 a.m. shift her freshman year.

"If you're at Penn State to become a meteorologist, you want to jump right in," she said.

At the Weather Channel, she started doing graphics, went into forecasting, and helped develop the system to allow tornado warnings on mobile phones. She's known as the "Dewpoint Diva," a reference to her favorite weather measurement.

As many as 15 percent of department grads go into television, said Jon Nese, the department's associate head for undergraduate programs. About a third enroll in graduate school, and about 40 percent enter private industry - in jobs that one may hardly expect.

One works for an energy trading company. Another is a software programmer. Another was hired by JP Morgan as a data analyst.

"They hired her for her data analysis skills," said Nese, a former Franklin Institute meteorologist who cowrote the Philadelphia Area Weather Book with Schwartz.

One of the department's most successful grads is Myers, 75, who over 50-plus years built the largest source of weather forecasts in the world, reaching 1.4 billion daily. Myers began keeping a daily diary of weather conditions at age 7, decided he wanted to sell forecasts for a living at 11, and began calling in forecasts to a local TV station as a teen. He enrolled at Penn State because it was the only school his parents could afford, he said.

He got his bachelor's, master's, and doctorate there, while building his product, which would become AccuWeather. He taught at Penn State for 17 years and upon retirement in 1981, he said, he had taught forecasting to about 17 percent of the country's meteorologists.

"I hired my best students to work here," said Myers, surrounded by his collection of 300 antique barometers, the oldest from 1682.

He estimates 40 percent of current AccuWeather employees hail from Penn State.

When it comes to game-day forecasts, however, Coach Franklin prefers student meteorologists to pros. They're closer to home.

Blue-White day, on April 18, turned out to be a beauty.

"They've been pretty much right on," he said. Even if they don't actually control the weather.

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