Personal Narrative: A Career As A Bilingual Meteorologist

The language is defined as “human communication through the use of spoken or written words,” but that definition must include that language is also a cultural identity – “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is”. In other words, the language provides information about your roots; it is one of the most valuable resources to communicate with your mother culture.

For millions of people living near the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States, a team of weather experts in Miami were helping make a difference between another hurricane disaster and safe evacuations in the wake of the oncoming storm. These experts are trained to interpret data from satellites, weather stations and specialized computer equipment to give the public advance warning of hurricanes barreling toward any shores (Treaster, 2007, p. 26).

Before I turned four years old, my mother and I moved to join my father in Berwyn, Illinois. My sister ended having to stay back a couple of months so that she could finish her school year. We arrived to a nice apartment in the suburbs, it was a complete scenery change than what I was use to. Everyone seemed to have giant yards, bright green grass, large fences, and freshly painted houses. Back in Fresnillo, we had our large home, but it was rare for houses to have such large yards, so close to the heart of the town. From the time of the move until my first year in kindergarten, I had a bit of time to adjust, watching cartoons in English, I am not quite sure how I picked it up but I did. At that time my mother only spoke Spanish, my father is bilingual, but he would speak to us in Spanish.

As suggested by the Department of Commerce in the Joplin, Missouri Service Assessment, the Joplin Tornado has provided them with invaluable information to continue to improve these forecasting, mitigation and preparedness efforts. Each and every storm systems or natural disaster event provides the opportunity for these fields to learn, grow and apply new life saving technology and

Graumann, Axel. Hurricane Katrina. [Electronic Resource] : A Climatological Perspective : Preliminary Report. Asheville, NC : U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service, National Climatic Data Center, [2006], 2006. Technical report: no. 2005-01. EBSCOhost,

At the turn of the century, technology was hitting a booming time. Electricity, railroads, and telegraphs were still somewhat new in world. With all of this new technology man has still yet to master any of it; weather forecast included. At the turn of the century, the weather forecast in the United States was operated by a branch of the government known as the Weather Bureau. It was their job to predict the weather, including hurricanes, so that the navy can bypass the storms. To maintain funding, they Bureau would refrain from making predictions of hurricanes unless granted permission from

It is vital for the survival of mankind that we respect and understand the severity and danger of natural forces and weather conditions. Although advances have been made in the predictions and warning systems of the National Weather Service, or NWS, we must be vigilant in our efforts to always respect what is coming. It is also imperative that we learn from the mistakes we have made in the past and grow from them. One such piece of literature which can help to do this is "Storm Warnings: The story of the a Killer Tornado", by Nancy Mathis, which depicts an amazingly horrific incident where mankind was not prepared for what was coming. The following is understanding of the events that took place on May 3rd, 1999, which showcased an amazing, and terrible, spectacle of tornadoes in Oklahoma. Furthermore we will delve into what has changed since this to better our understanding of upcoming weather related dangers as well as planning for said forces of nature.

It all started on one sunny day on the month of July, I was done with my service to protect my country the United States of America. Man it was nice to experience the smell of freedom once again. Due to my deployments in many countries I never had the opportunity to step forth in the land of the free, my home, it felt nostalgic to experience it all again. During my time in the military I was twenty-one and was first a designated marksman or Scout Sniper in the Marine Corp for a year or two, then I decided to join a special operations team and joined the 75th Ranger Regiment and continued my role as a sniper. Then finally through months of hard work and combat deployments my skills as a sniper was finally recognized. I was hand selected to

Current in the United States there is a huge impact form weather, starting with Hurricane Harvey and know Hurricane Irma. These two storms have tested and taxed the Emergency Response teams as well as the Emergency Management Teams on a Local, State and Federal Level. Hurricane Harvey came ashore in Texas, causing wide spread power outages, causing residents to evacuate their homes and overall disrupted the entire states and many parts of the country. With Hurricane Irma, we are seeing much of the same things on even a large scale. As Emergency Management we need to focus on the many different aspects of Preparation, Previous events and be able to employee the last technologies to help our residents, Family and

Wrongberight, Virginia is a rural farming community, and its residents depend on accurate weather reports. The locals believe, those profession meteorologists could not predict rain, even if raindrops were falling on their head. On Thursday the local weather guru of Wrongberight, Charlie Jones, age eleven forecast a ten-hour deluge would hit on Friday. It did. In fact it dumps eight addition inches of rain, to the already, saturated farmer’s fields and woodlands from the previous intermittent rainstorm that he also predicted. According to him, that storm on Friday was just a prelude to another storm that will strike Wrongberight, sometime early Saturday night. He also said, that this kind of storm would produce, at least one or two unique

Emergency calls are piling up and first responders are instructed to stay in and keep a watch on the storm from inside their police and fire stations. They are forced to watch the 911 reports stack up on the dispatch computers and do absolutely nothing about it. Responding

Thesis statement:We must take notice and learn about the hurricane process so that we are able to

A meteorologist typically becomes a weather forecaster for the local news. In order to accurately forecast the upcoming weather, they must gather and interpret data. They use tools to measure the temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, rainfall, and air pressure. They also warn people at home about severe weather conditions in the surrounding areas, as well as live forecasts of current weather conditions. A meteorologist needs to be confident and willing to try new

“Natural disasters have killed more than 600,000 people and left behind trillions of dollars in damages in the last two decades, the United Nations said Monday.” (Chan) Extreme weather has caused millions of casualties and extreme damages over the years, but lately there has been an increase in severe weather events. This is causing problems in the US, with the amount of tornadoes rising in tornado alley “Tennessee experienced a 67 percent increase in tornado activity in 1983-2013 compared to the 1954-1983 time period. Oklahoma experienced a nearly 35 percent decrease in tornadoes in 1983-2013 compared to 1954-1983.”

The problem of unfitting information can be mainly looked from the providers’ side. The native feature of the complexity and uncertainty of climate sciences imposes huge challenges for the providers. In most cases for climate science, it is very difficult for scientists to find a suitable way to convey the accuracy and reliability of their findings, particularly for the cutting-edge researches that are currently undergoing. Another problem is excessive uncertainty within the information. However, this problem can come from the users’ side as well. Based on a research by (Rayner et al., 2005), water managers expressed their demand of climate forecasts to be at least 90% confident, whereas they do not have a good comprehension on what does it mean. This problem is called as the unrealistic expectations of the users (Lemos et al., 2012). When the information provided is in a language that is very difficult for non-experts to understand, combined with the problems introduced