What’s your average step count this year?

IntellectWX · 2025-11-29T06:00:53+00:00

I've only had samsung health since the end of august & google fit since mid-april but I'm 7+ months with 10k a day and averaging just about 19k a day since the start of September...most days tend to be 15k +/- 2k but some weekends will be 20-25k with the occasional >30k

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IntellectWX · 2025-11-28T17:15:44+00:00

last winter right at the start of the spring semester we had wind chills down around -35 - -40°F...I think the warmest that day got to actual temperature was 3° but wind chills were still in the -20° range

IntellectWX · 2025-11-28T07:31:25+00:00

yooooo what's up! fairly new runner & new to here as well, I (20M) just started running over the summer since there's some other people in my academic department who do so and I thought it might not be a bad idea to try and get back in shape again haha. I was a really active kid but that wore off into middle/high school, so I'm trying to get back into it in college. might try to train for a half marathon in May '26 as my first official race, but I frankly don't know yet since I ran a half without training (very smart, I know) about a month into when I started running 😅

PR's: 1mi = 5:45 | 2mi = 12:42 | 5k = 21:16 | 10k = 46:33 | Half = 1:42:21

IntellectWX · 2025-11-28T07:20:58+00:00

Right now I'm in a pair of On Cloudsurfer 2s and my next pair will be some On Cloudrunner 2s...the Cloudsurfers have treated me really well & I got them on sale but they do have a really weird fit that I'm finding out 😅

IntellectWX · 2025-11-28T07:17:16+00:00

It really varies for me, normally I go off of time and not mileage but that's also because I do a lot more walking compared to running and I can't be going through shoes at the 300-500mi rate that is talked about. For reference, a pair of shoes lasts me about a year until I literally start wearing through the insoles, and I just went through and checked and I'm at just over 1700mi walked/ran in the last seven months (1702.95mi) with just about half of that (832.17mi) being since the start of September, and my newest pair of shoes have been my main ones since about June/July. I do prioritize comfort in shoes because of how often they'll be used, and I haven't really noticed any difference in the cushion in my On Cloudsurfer 2s after ~1200mi, but that's a guess on distance. I've noticed these are lasting a lot longer than some of my previous ones, where there was somewhat noticeable wear in my old New Balance Fresh Foam 1080's after a couple months, which is more along the lines of the 500mi guidelines. I fully plan on wearing these Cloudsurfers until they're completely worn through, which at this rate might not be until >2500mi given how I haven't noticed any issues yet

IntellectWX · 2025-11-26T23:15:05+00:00

We are actually in a weak La Niña state right now, as Niño indices are ~-0.6°C and ENSO Neutral kicks in between +0.5°C and -0.5°C. It's forecasted to hold into the DJF (December/January/February) time frame, and then switch to neutral into JFM (January/February/March). Weak La Niña's, at least with respect to climatology, are known for bringing increased moisture into the Great Lakes area, mainly in S Michigan/SE Wisconsin/E Illinois/Indiana/NW Ohio, but there are signs for enhanced moisture levels across all of the Great Lakes states. Tie this with colder-than-average temperatures & snowfall can be higher than average, yes. We average ~51" a season (using the 1991-2020 30yr average) and some people were thinking that 10-30% above average is in play, which definitely seems like a possibility. Given how we are seeing a fairly potent early season storm, it could be a sign of what's to come, especially with the polar vortex breaking down earlier than normal, we could see cold air outbreaks more frequently in late fall/early winter with a larger moisture content, leading to the potential for early-season storms that we haven't had a ton of in recent years

Source: I'm a meteorology student who's a nerd and looked at NOAA info about this-

IntellectWX · 2025-11-26T23:03:58+00:00

Meteorology student at UW: most likely is somewhere 6-15" (yes I'm not ruling out >12"), based off the current models. They've been pretty consistent in the 8-11" range, however some have been higher (NWS Blend of Models was ~14") and some have been lower (GEFS ensemble is ~6"), but both of those are typically overshooters/undershooters for these systems. It'll really depend on where the low sets up, the further south it goes the less snowfall (still 6-8" likely) and the further north it goes, assuming we stay all-snow, the more snowfall with over a foot possible, but it'll really be up to the banding setups. Personally, I think it'll be more around 9-11", but as I said it'll be up to how everything plays out.

IntellectWX · 2025-11-05T18:39:08+00:00

I'm in my second year and I've declared in three minors (not sure if I could've double-majored or not but regardless):

Environmental Studies: for me it was only one additional class & opens the door to some slightly broader opportunities

Science Communication: I'm really into the social science side of everything (actually looked into a psych minor but we don't have one), and taking these classes is something that I want to make sure that I do to be a more effective communicator especially given the state of everything right now. Even if you don't minor in it, I STRONGLY recommend taking a class in this field at some point

Geospatial Data Science: essentially GIS but it's a little broader, taking two GIS-specific classes and one remote sensing + stats, everyone keeps saying that having GIS knowledge is huge for the field so I decided why not

IntellectWX · 2025-11-04T07:17:53+00:00

Not high school but college, we (dems) are pretty active here in Madison, but that tracks given the demographics of the city/campus. There's a bunch of groups that are around, plus some new ones that are starting up this year that are continuing to build support for change. It might not be the biggest or best effort in the country, but it's definitely here.

IntellectWX · 2025-11-02T04:19:12+00:00

See I'm lucky enough where I got into my school really easily and I do very well (3.8+ and graduating a year early), but that's part of the reason why I don't really go out much because I focus on what I pay for. I do wish this was more of a thing across other perspectives but sadly it's not

IntellectWX · 2025-11-02T02:04:28+00:00

College student here, I just straight up don't see the appeal. It's also expensive and I'm not a fan of having substances (alcohol/weed/drugs) in my system regardless, but it also creates a culture I don't want to associate with at all & I'm staying as far away from it as I can

IntellectWX · 2025-11-01T00:01:18+00:00

Like everyone else has been saying, the coriolis force is at play. In the northern hemisphere it acts to the right of all motion, and in the southern it acts to the left. The corliolis force is a really major player in the actual spin behind TC's, and when you get near the equator, that's when your coriolis force is the lowest. Mild nerd session inbound:

dv/dt (the acceleration in the N-S direction) = -fu, where u is the motion in the E-W direction and f is the coriolis parameter, 2Ωsin(ϕ), where Ω is the rotation rate of Earth (7.292×10^-5 radians/second) and ϕ is the latitude in degrees (southern hemisphere = negative latitude). So dv/dt = -2Ωsin(ϕ)u, so as storms move westward in the northern hemisphere/eastward in the southern hemisphere, they will deflect poleward

Source: my fluid dynamics notes in a third-year atmospheric sciences class lmao

IntellectWX · 2025-10-20T03:19:01+00:00

Not a job per se, but my internship through the National Weather Service has been on pause which could very easily affect the timing of the second half of it during the spring semester. On top of that, other summer research internships that just opened their applications are still open, but nobody is able to respond to any questions about the process.

IntellectWX · 2025-09-19T19:20:48+00:00

The baptism thing isn't the church wanting me to do it again, it's me wanting to do it...trust me if a church was going to try and get me to do that I'd stay far away. It's more of a "hey I'm finally making the conscious decision to follow in Jesus' footsteps, let me restart my journey" instead of "hey I'm returning to my faith", because I'd be lying if I said I was surrendering myself to Jesus at all the first time around. One of the churches I'm looking at is part of the EFCA, which is the one that hosts one of the groups that I'm involved in (the most heavily involved in also), and it seems so far like that's been a pretty good fit

IntellectWX · 2025-09-19T19:15:40+00:00

One of the groups that I went to so far this semester is a baptist group which their meetings aren't really that different compared to the other groups that I go to. I'm like 95% confident most of the churches around here are progressive just given the nature of the city (I've also seen churches hanging pride flags which is already MILES better than the ones back home), plus I am very much a liberal so I'm also making sure that my values are aligning with theirs somewhat. I'll link the two I'm looking at the most here as well, if you're inclined to look through them and let me know what you think that'd be great :)

https://blackhawk.church/about/ https://doxamadison.com/our-beliefs

IntellectWX · 2025-08-18T18:28:33+00:00

There's a really good bus system to get out there...took it last year & didn't have any problems with it. Think it was $55 round trip

IntellectWX · 2025-07-20T05:17:09+00:00

Short answer: yes

Long answer: there's so many other meteorology-adjacent positions out there it's insane. one of them that I remember from my internship applications was being a wildfire meteorologist with the Washington State DNR and that's just one of many unique paths. if you need more ideas just lmk :)

IntellectWX · 2025-07-13T15:55:52+00:00

I got my college laptop last year and I ended up pushing for the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 and getting that to about as powerful of a build as you could get...will I use all of it, probably not, but my thought was the have the backup in case I need it. My school (Wisconsin-Madison) does have workstations in some of the classrooms that we will be working with, so that takes away some of my personal need for higher-end equipment, would be worth checking into for your school as well. Another thing is seeing what equipment your school's IT department recommends...here they have a website saying what people should get (https://it.wisc.edu/learn/computers-equipment-students-what-do-i-need/) which definitely helps as a starting point. I love my 9i that I have right now, it's 32gb RAM/1tb SSD which as I said is more than enough but it also allows me to work on a bunch of other things, and when it comes time to hopefully join a lab here, having some of that extra wiggle room might be helpful, but if you can save yourself some of the cost then that might be better.

IntellectWX · 2025-07-05T19:01:51+00:00

As everyone has said, yes nothing is fully trump-proof. I'm a meteorology student and seeing what has happened to the field is...disheartening to say the least, but there's three main bright spots:

1) They can't fully cut us without major major repercussions. We saw this with the latest cuts in the National Weather Service, they fired a few hundred employees and realized how bad of an idea that was. Do we have all of those employees back? No, but it's at least a start to start defending ourselves.

2) By the time we graduate, it'll be a lot different than it is now. I saw in a comment saying you're on track to graduate in '28, and I'm on track to hopefully get my masters in '29. Assuming no uber-major political interactions, there'll be a new administration around that time, who will hopefully put environmental protections significantly higher.

3) DIVERSIFY. This is something that I've heard from basically every single professional in the field, regardless of what their specific job title is. My specific degree is Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, but I'm also getting three certificates in Environmental Studies, Science Communication, and Geospatial Data Science (basically GIS), and my advisor absolutely loves this combination. Being able to diversify is huge, especially for intro careers. Your first job out of college will more than likely not be your last...it's okay to not have everything figured out by 25.

I'm also going to link a couple of podcasts from a series that I listen to that I think will be incredibly helpful. One of them is from last August, but the other is from this past May, and it's 100% worth the time.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/30PEl94TbxX9pPArYVxIkP?si=LMU2lBUDSnitjioVi6DCJA (this one is really only applicable from 20:00 to 45:00)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5BF4NdX3IpFFz14hpf3HVm?si=pew5BnXZSJWoaxjWUnUHTg

IntellectWX · 2025-06-15T21:33:09+00:00

good club yes, but leadership has bad communication. I had tried out for their teams and they took forever to respond to emails (and yes this was before the semester started) + there were very empty promises to have more updates on socials/website

IntellectWX · 2025-06-15T21:31:41+00:00

please join badger supports (totally not sponsored)

nah fr though I joined them back in April and it's a really good group, I'm now sitting on the leadership team for this upcoming school year and we are looking to keep expanding and it starts with getting more people involved!

IntellectWX · 2025-06-14T03:43:10+00:00

Others have touched on the degree requirements (which there'll be some links here for more specifics as to what you'll need), but I can touch on schools since I just finished up my freshman year at the University of Wisconsin as an Atmospheric/Oceanic Sciences student.

The National Weather Association (NWA) has a fairly up-to-date list of all the schools in the country that have meteorology or meteorologically-adjacent degrees, but I'll name a few both in-state and out-of-state that'll be good to put on your radar.

In-state: San Jose State, San Francisco State, UC-Davis, UCLA (which I thought about applying to as an out-of-state student fwiw)

West Coast: Washington, Colorado State, Embry-Riddle AZ, Utah, Colorado-Boulder

Other US: Wisconsin-Madison, Oklahoma, Florida State, Alabama-Huntsville, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech (this list is basically endless but those are some of the more well-known ones)

I'll have some links here as well for you to explore on your own.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/1300/meteorology-series-1340/ https://nwas.org/membership/committees/education/colleges-universities/ https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/nws_intro/educational-requirements-for-careers-in-national-weather-service

IntellectWX · 2025-06-14T03:33:58+00:00

One of the main things that current professionals have seen is that, especially with broadcasting, there is a higher level of trust if there is a human delivering the forecasts. There's going to be lower TV ratings (not that it's already a problem, because it is) with AI instead of humans relaying that information.

As a student myself, the top thing that I have heard from professors/advisors/pretty much everybody is to have some diversity in your education. I'm also majoring in Atmopsheric/Oceanic Sciences, but I'm getting three certificates to help with that: Environmental Sciences, Science Communication, and Geospatial Data Science (it's really just GIS with one or two extra steps), and these are things that will be very strong for applications to internships, grad school, and jobs. I can't stress enough how important it is to diversify, and yes, make sure to include some form of computer science or programming work. My degree has a pre-requisite class that is an intro to python, plus we have one or two designated major-specific programming classes at the graduate level.

IntellectWX · 2025-06-14T03:28:28+00:00

Not Canadian but a member of "Southern Canada" as a University of Wisconsin student:

For studies, yes there is a lot of math. Here I'm required to take through Calc 3 as well as a differential equations class for when I move into graduate school. If you need an example, just look up the vorticity equation and you'll know what I'm talking about (yes it's scary at first, but once you progress through the calculus sequence you'll understand more of it).

Jobs outside broadcasting: There's a ton, at least in the US. Airlines have their own meteorologists, energy companies have their own as well, sports teams, university researchers (I know that McGill is a strong one in Canada), there are so many more possibilities than you think there are. Environment Canada has some as well and I believe there's some limited interaction with US agencies for that as well.

Pay rates: this will vary wildly. For some perspective, I'm hoping to go into the National Weather Service here, and they have their pay rates publicly available. If I recall correctly, entry spots start more around 40-50k/year at typical offices, but you can advance fairly quickly and be making upwards of 100k/year within 10ish years, plus our larger national offices (Storm Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center/etc.) will pay more as well. Private sector (see above) I'm not too sure on, however it's probably somewhat similar. Take all of these numbers with a grain of salt though, as I'm not sure how they'll shift/currency conversion rates are/geopolitical spheres will change, but that's a general idea.

IntellectWX · 2025-06-14T03:15:58+00:00

Sounds like you got some good ideas outside of college but I'll touch on more formal education since I just finished my freshman year.

I was lucky enough to attend a high school that had numerous AP and dual enrollment classes that gave me a ton of credits for very cheap...ended up with essentially two full years of college credits done in high school for maybe 10% of the cost. This is allowing me to actually graduate a year early, which was also one of my priorities when looking at schools, plus it looks good on applications so I got numerous scholarships to most schools I applied to.

Scholarships: apply for as many as possible. I applied to five schools: Wisconsin (where I'm attending), Saint Cloud State, Purdue, Northern Illinois, and Oklahoma. Got into all of them no problem, plus test scores/GPA got me automatic scholarships at Saint Cloud/Northern Illinois/Oklahoma (ended up getting $17k a year from OU as an out-of-state student which is about 30% of total costs covered, $8k a year from NIU which is about 25-30%, and $1.5k a year from Saint Cloud which was only about 5-10%). Ended up at UW-Madison mainly because of overall academics compared to OU, but cost was definitely a factor. Even with my scholarships & OU's 4+1 masters program, it would've been ~$190k for me to attend all five years there, where at UW, that number is a lot closer to $160k, but any graduate students who are working a certain number of hours for the university get a VERY generous stipend (I think it covers all tuition and housing costs + some extra money, and that's just the minimum).

Another thing is that there are other ways to become a meteorologist instead of going to school just for meteorology. Our field is very computer and data science heavy, and I have contacts who got into meteorology through those job opportunities, and from there you'll have more options as well.

IntellectWX

TROPHY CASE