HAPPY NATIONAL WEATHERPERSONS' DAY

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Officially designated by Congress, I want to congratulate all of my colleagues in meteorology. 

Meteorologists endure a grueling four years of college (advanced calculus, chemistry, physics) so they can then learn how the atmosphere behaves. Below is the vorticity equation. 

I've had people thumb through my atmospheric dynamics textbook and be shocked at the page after page of equations. It is quite difficult to become a meteorologist.

Once you graduate from college, you not only sweat out forecasts and storm warnings, many of us have to go out into the rain, sleet and snow to launch weather balloons, measure snow depth and read rain gages. 

Meteorologists are amazingly public-spirited. We strive to save lives and property and work very hard to do it. Our efforts have been extremely successful, for example the death rate from tornadoes has been cut by 95%! Overall, we save thousands of lives each year. We are part of the reason that disaster losses are decreasing (posting below). 

So,  Happy National Weatherpersons' Day to meteorologists and everyone associated with the weather enterprise in the United States. 

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