Meteorology teacher uses Facebook to post St. Louis weather updates
Meteorology professor Joe Schneider sits at his office in Science South revieweing a powerpoint on tornados. Schneider uses Facebook to update his students on St. Louis weather. | KELLY DAVIS
Tim Doty – Copy Editor –
Approximately 500 million other people in the world, such as Joe Schneider, meteorology professor at STLCC-Meramec, have a Facebook account. Along with being the only meteorology professor at Meramec, he may also be the only user to post updates on weather conditions along with what’s on his mind.
“When I first started with Facebook, I never intended to do that. Being a teacher, no one really cares if I’m grading an astronomy or meteorology test or if I’m headed to class or something. So I thought ‘How can I make this something unique and maybe make it worth to have friends?’ So I started just posting the forecast on there. It’s just grown over time,” Schneider said.
Schneider teaches meteorology along with astronomy and physical science. He said His love for the physical sciences began in elementary school.
“It started in fourth grade. I had a teacher, Mrs. Boehne, and she spent about a month on meteorology and astronomy. From then on, I just loved meteorology and astronomy and I thought that I wanted to go into one of those. It’s been a dream of mine really since I’ve been in grade school,” Schneider said.
In the mid-’90s, Schneider interned at KTVI in St. Louis. While there, he met and interned for meteorologists Dave Murray, Chris Higgins and Glenn Zimmerman. His duties while there consisted of taking DIFAXes, which are black and white maps, analyzing them, and showing the meteorologists at the station what could happen depending on what season it was.
“[Interning at KTVI] was a great experience. I got a chance to meet all of the meteorologists that are still there. I was just investigating my options of what I wanted to do,” Schneider said. “It was overall a very pleasant experience and a great learning experience.”
Schneider graduated from St. Louis University in 2000 with a master’s degree in meteorology with a minor in mathematics. He had received a scholarship in graduate school to teach classes, and his experiences led him to choose teaching over research.
“My first intention was to go to do research when I was an undergrad. I received a scholarship to teach. It was through that process of teaching those classes then over the 3-year period that got me to fall in love with teaching basically. I enjoyed it, fell in love with it, and that’s what I wanted to do instead of doing some kind of research position,” Schneider said.
The concept for Schneider to put forecast updates on his Facebook profile blossomed this past winter, and he started getting e-mails from people who were wondering where the updates were after Schneider started posting when he saw potentials for winter storms.
“As I got back to school and I started maybe not updating it like every day with the weather forecast, I started getting e-mails of ‘Why aren’t you updating this?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ They said, ‘Because we look at your Facebook account every single day to get the weather.’ So I realized then that I was doing a service for all these people and I enjoy doing it,” Schneider said.
Schneider said that putting together a weather forecast is similar to assembling a puzzle. He said he uses raw data from sites such as http://NOAA.gov and sometimes makes his own forecast.
“A weather forecast is like putting together a puzzle. You have many pieces to use and they have to be put together in the certain way. If a few of the pieces are not correct, the puzzle will not be completed and the outcome will not be reached. I try very carefully to put those pieces together and come up with the best possible forecast,” Schneider said.
Putting together a forecast and interpreting data from models is a skill, Schneider said.
“When I say models, it’s all numbers. It’s not like it’s all pretty little pictures that we show you guys in class. You’ve got to interpret all of that; that’s what you have to do to put together a forecast. Sometimes I want to look at the raw data, and then look at it on a weather map, and then make my own forecast,” Schneider said. “I enjoy it. I realize a lot of people depend on it now.”
Meramec student Steven Davis took Schneider’s Introduction to Astronomy course in spring 2010. He said that Schneider made the class more interesting and easier to understand.
“I needed another science class and I had heard that he [Schneider] was a pretty good teacher so I decided to take that class. I really had no interest in the topic so I figured it would be a boring class. Fortunately, I was wrong,” Davis said. “The way Joe taught the class made it really interesting and easy to remember. He would turn a difficult topic into something that was easier to understand as well.”
A serious study of meteorology involves math and physics. Schneider said that these two subjects are the basis of meteorology.
“To study meteorology, you’ve got to be very, very good in math and physics. You’ve got to go through the whole calculus sequence. You’ve got to take your college physics, your engineering physics, then there’s atmospheric chemistry then cloud physics,” Schneider said. “You’re trying to forecast something that is basically chaos theory.”
Schneider said he has had “anything and everything” when it comes to reactions from what he posts as weather updates on Facebook.
“Sometimes the comments are really complimentary. Other times it’s teasing. I know they are not ripping on me in a mean way,” Schneider said. “Somebody said, ‘You’re the Facebook meteorologist.’ Most of the reactions are positive. I enjoy doing it and will continue to do it.”
Schneider said it makes him feel good when students tell him through Facebook what they’ve seen.
“It really makes you feel good because they’re thinking about the course they took. It’s kind of great because those students give me a friend request through Facebook and then we can stay in touch. I know how much the people are using the meteorology,” Schneider said. “I’m using Facebook as a way of teaching, really.”
