The Wrap-up!

All good things must come to an end. Today is my last day as a 7News weather intern. This summer has reassured me that it is possible to reach my dream of becoming a meteorologist. I have learned so much and met so many great people here at the station. Never in my life have I felt so close to my dream.

I am getting ready to head back to school and continue plunging ahead with my classes. I know that the struggle and hard work of school will be worth it in the end. I hope to take these great experiences from the summer and use them to help me in the future.

Like Lisa said in a previous post, the people that work here are like a family and have welcomed and helped me without hesitation. I can't even dream of a better summer and would like to thank everyone that made it so great! The only way to make it big in this industry is to keep learning and keep a positive attitude because lets face it this job is awesome!

Out with a bang!

Today was my last day at the station, and boy did it go out with a bang! Right around the start of the 4 o'clock show, we started to see the radar screen light up. Storms began to develop just south of the Metro Area and though they were slow moving, they promised to head north into Denver. At last, after all the forecasts for heavy rain only to end in a weather no-show, our forecasts were right on and Denver was going to get hit by some much needed rain. Between updating the ticker and the website with the Flash Flood Warnings, I snuck outside the studio to get a first hand look at the rain. Though I love being in the weather center during severe weather, it's a bummer that they're aren't any windows. I was glad to sneak away for just a bit to see the lightning and rain from a window outside the studio.

I'm sad that my internship with 7News is over and as cliche as it sounds, I can't believe how fast it went. But I am glad to have ended on such an exciting note! It's days like these where I am reminded exactly why I am studying so hard at school. I cannot think of another field better suited for me than meteorology. With the tremendous amount of experience I have gained here at the station, and the many more things I will learn in my last two years of school, I am well on my way to a career as a meteorologist.

Thank you to everyone at the station who contributed to my wonderful experience and I wish the best of luck to the new fall interns. I'll keep in touch on the blog to let you know how the road through school is going.

And hooray for the original 24/7 Weather Intern bloggers, also known as "Mike's Angels"!

Things Coming to an End

As things are coming to an end, I am sad to go. This internship is the first job that I really have been sad to leave. I have learned so much about forecasting, TV, News, and like Hallie said, the geography of Colorado. I was able this summer to travel to a lot of the cities 7News forecasts for and have a much better idea of what the landscapes look like. This was a huge help in understanding the weather in those regions. I've decided that in the future I will make it a priority to travel through most of whatever state I forecast for to get a real life view of the region’s landforms. I've also developed some great friendships here as well. Life in the News station in the mornings is so much like being part of a family. Everyone is good friends and they are prone to joke quite a bit during commercial breaks or even on the news in-between stories. They all get a long so well, and I am going to miss the great chemistry that is here at Channel 7. I'm sure their close relationships are not like most, and the community here can't be the norm for all stations.
This internship has given me a goal to strive for as well as allowed me to see what it would be like to work at a News station. Overall I would say this is one of the best, if not the best, internship in the west. I strongly encourage students to apply here and possibly take the morning shift. I was lucky enough to be the first morning intern, and I have to say, the morning is the way to go. Being up before even Starbucks is open is a bonding experience that allows everyone to know each other really well. I am under the impression as well, that because Scott Mace has no weather producer, the morning intern is able to help out with quite a bit more than those later in the day.

I enjoyed my experience immensely, I strongly recommend it for any student. I am going to miss my mornings here at Channel Seven.

The Big Kahuna

Today, we had the priviledge of meeting the big fish of KMGH, Terry McGraw, the CEO of McGraw-Hill, which happens to be the company that owns our station. I never knew how we got the letters for our station ID "KMGH" but now it makes a lot more sense. Our storm chaser, Tony, explained to me that the "K" is used to represent any station west of the Mississipi and "W" is used for stations east of it. And apparently, the "MGH" stands for McGraw-Hill.

Everybody was both nervous and excited for his visit to the station. I've never seen the control room so tidy and even the engineers were dressed in suits and ties. We, interns, were able to sneak into the studio room for a bit, while Terry spoke about his visions for the company and the new technology soon to be introduced. He even came into the news studio for a bit to meet the weather staff personally.

It's not everyday that you get to shake the hand of the man who's in charge of your entire company, let alone the CEO of such a well known company as McGraw-Hill.

Onward to KU

As my summer comes to an end, I've started thinking about my classes for next semester. I'm a bit nervous, because "word on the street" is that the two meteorology classes I'm enrolled in for the fall, are the two hardest meteorology classes I'll take at KU. The classes are Dynamic Meteorology and Physical Meteorology, though I couldn't even tell you what they are about. I guess I'll find out soon enough. They're supposedly so difficult because of how many calculations and equations are involved. Hopefully my 6 previous calculus classes will be of some help.

Though these two classes will definitely be a challenge, I am excited to finally be focusing completely on my major. My other classes include Environmental Studies and Multimedia Reporting. I'm really looking forward to Environmental Studies because I love learning about the impacts humans have on the environment. My journalism reporting class will also improve my storywriting and speaking skills.

That's the best part of becomming an upperclassman in college. You finally get to focus on your major and take classes that you're interested in. Bye bye awful gen. eds. (general requirements) The classes will be tough next semester but atleast they will all be subjects I am interested in.

Almost Done!

As this internship comes to a close, Ava and I were discussing everything that we had learned this summer. Everything from forecasting to checking out the helicopter to climbing up on the roof, I have learned so much that I will be able to take away from this internship.

I never realized how important it is to know the geography of the state that you are forecasting in. It seems obvious that the mountains would be cooler than the plains, but what about wind directions and how fronts stall over the mountains for long periods of time. These are all things that I have learned are very important to forecasting in Colorado. Accurate forecasts are hard sometimes because the weather is so unpredictable especially in Colorado. It just makes me realize how important it is to understand the geographic aspects of the state that you are working in. One of the negative aspects of the broadcast industry is that most people have to start in a smaller market and work up to the size market that you want to work in. This means moving around and being very flexible. Moving is hard in itself but the fact that you have to learn the geography of the state to be a successful meteorologist makes it even more difficult.

I can't believe that the internship is almost over. Just a couple more days until this great experience comes to an end.

Where did the rain go?

Yesterday, we were all gearing up for an "active" weather day in the weather center. These are my favorite days at work because there is so much to do. Our futurecast model was showing very high chances for storms in the afternoon in the Denver Metro area. By noon, the National Weather Service even put out a Flash Flood Watch for most of central Colorado. No matter which model you looked at, the conditions looked as though they were setting up a soaker of a storm. The newsroom called us to ask if they should send a camera crew out later to catch some footage of the rain.

So we waited, and waited, and waited for it to rain in Denver, and it never did. After all those warnings about heavy rain and flooding - nothing. I personally felt bad because many people had called into the station wondering about the rain. Many were concerned about flooding in their area and asked how much it was going to rain. I told them exactly what we all thought was going to happen - "good chance for rain, with the possibility of heavy rain at times".

I felt bad for telling those people something that didn't end up actually happening. I'm not used to people asking me what the forecast will be and I felt like I let them down. But I think it's good for me to get used to being wrong once in awhile. Weather forecasting has improved tremendously over the years, but it will never be perfect. Rather than focus on the negative, I think it's good to focus on the fact that we get so many forecasts right. Every so often, you're going to get those forecasts that just bomb. To survive as a meteorologist, you have to learn how to brush it off and know that you will do better next time.