UPPERWEATHER.COM _{-Meteorological Musings}

I still watch a couple of rss feeds on job announcements. I also still use Linux and have gotten logarithmically better at it. I know I said last time that

I am too proud to ask for help on the linux forums, so my learning curve is a bit slow.

But I have gotten over it and found the ubuntu forums to be the biggest help there is. They are a great community. Although, with that said you can ussually find anything you need already on there without asking. My experience with ubuntu and Linux has been awesome. I really feel that my resume has benefitted from the work (play) I do in my free time.

I saw a job anouncement today that wanted a very computer savvy meteorologist.

Meteorologist with FAA or NWS aviation systems

Job Description: Candidate will support the Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). The candidate will support the development, testing, routine application and maintenance of aviation product generation capabilities. This work will involve generation of aviation guidance products based on NCEP model predictions. Guidance products for all threats to aviation will eventually be needed but the short term concentration is to satisfy a new global requirement from ICAO for icing, turbulence and convective weather products. This work will involve adding new products to the existing WAFS output generated from NCEP's GFS model runs. Most product capabilities will be adapted from existing code / techniques already in use at NCEP, AWC or (down the road) within the FAA's Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP). The latter adaptations will involve porting C, C++, PYTHON code into Fortran-90 equivalents within NCEP's unified model post-processor.

Eduction: Position requires a Bachelor's Degree and 5+ years related experience in Meteorology, Physical Science, or Computer Sceince.

Required Skills: Candidate must have the ability to develop and write programs and scripts using C, C++, Phython, Fortran-90 and LINUX. Candidate must have exposure to or knowledge of requirements for aviation guidance referred to above.

Desired skills: Experience with FAA or NWS aviation systems is strongly desired.

I asked a few co-workers about their skills in these areas, and they all said that they had that stuff in college but would not apply for that job.

I kinda like being a jack of all trades, and master of none. I can tell you about fighting forest fires, working fast food, serving tables, being a mechanic, I can even build a house from the foundation up. It really frustrates me when I am not very good at something, and my learning curve in the computer science arena is massive.

I do think that the more programming you do the better you get at it. I think that. the more languages you learn the better you get at the ones you need. I read Jeff Atwood's Coding Horror which you should also get on a feed. He seems to know at least something about every programming language in the world. So, I can't see how trying my hand at Fortran would hurt, except that I really should not put anything else on my plate right now.

I know that with ubuntu sudo apt-get gfortran should work, and there is a fortran compiler from intel, but really how much do I need this? How often does fortran come up with most forecasting jobs?

Any opinions?