Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Today and Al Roker
Jason Samenow @ 11:40 PM
Today will be like yesterday (this is called a persistence forecast), except a few degrees warmer. Yesterday's high at Reagan National was 86 -- today we should be around 89. And like yesterday, a few widely scattered storms may form in the afternoon/evening, and those that do form could produce some downpours, gusty winds and maybe some small hail. Best chance of storms is northwest of DC.
What does Al Roker have to do with this (other than the fact I was talking about Today)? Nothing. But I bring him up because a colleague of mine (Sean Potter) and I were having a debate over his credentials. I thought Al was a meteorologist, Sean said no way and provides the research to back it up:
What does Al Roker have to do with this (other than the fact I was talking about Today)? Nothing. But I bring him up because a colleague of mine (Sean Potter) and I were having a debate over his credentials. I thought Al was a meteorologist, Sean said no way and provides the research to back it up:
Al Roker may be many things, but a meteorologist he is not.On this site, about 2/3 down the page there's a quote from Roker saying, "I don't have a degree in meteorology."Now wasn't that enlightening?
In this Food Network article, again toward the bottom, Roker admits that he prefers to call himself a weatherman rather than a meteorologist, "because a meteorologist is someone with a degree in meteorology, and that I don't have." He does say that he took a couple of meteorology courses in college to fulfill his science requirements, but that he had no interest in becoming a weatherman until the opportunity presented itself.
Finally, on his own site Roker says, "I don't call myself a meteorologist. I didn't graduate with a degree in meteorology. I do the weather." He did, however, manage to earn the American Meteorological Society TV Seal of Approval back in the early 80s.
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