Is Storm Chasing a career? And if so what do you have to study to do so?

Question

Is Storm Chasing a career? And if so what do you have to study to do so?

Answer 1

I'm a storm chaser myself, and although its extremely difficult to make money at it, it's possible. There are basically 2 ways to make money as a storm chaser and make it a career... one is to get employed by a TV station to take video of storms for them. The other is to either get employed by a storm chase tour company, or start a storm chase tour company yourself.



There are only a couple companies that have made any money providing storm chase tours, but they do pretty well. Most customers come from overseas.



Regarding education, technically there are no requirements for any education for any of these jobs, but experience is going to be the first thing either a TV station or a tour company looks at for employment.



Start with taking a Skywarn class. It's free, and put on by the National Weather Service. It will teach you the basics. Next you need to start getting involved with other storm chasers. Look for yahoogroups that are for storm chasers and start talking to local storm chasers and learn the ropes through their experience.

Answer 2

It can be an interesting hobby, but I wouldn't recommend it as a career. There are companies that offer storm chase adventures already. Even so, imagine the level of liability insurance you would need, in case you or customers get injured (lightning, hail, not to mention by a tornado). Storm chasing by its very nature contains a great deal of risk (at least if you want to get close to a tornado).



While its helpful to have a meteorologist degree, it is by no means necessary. You just need to know how to access and interpret real-time weather data, and know what to look for in the sky (e.g. understand thunderstorm structure, radar signatures, etc).



I offer a public education course that teaches how to access and interpret real-time data online for anticipating and recognizing deadly weather. If interested, check out http://www.storm-prep.com. Hope this helps...

Answer 3

I'm not sure. But I wanna become a Storm Chaser.

Answer 4

I can't answer this any better than the SPC's "FAQ" answer to the question, so I won't try. Here's the url:



http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/#6.6