Music
I am from the Midwest, I am from south
of St. Louis, Missouri, so I have seen my fair share of tornadoes, and when I was probably
eight years old, I experienced my first tornado, and
my family, my home, everything was fine. We survived
it, but it was enough that it scared me so bad, I figured if I
learned more about it, it wouldn't scare me anymore. So I was
an elementary student with weather books lining my shelves, so it kind of
started really young that I would be less scared if I just learned more.
My name is Janel Thomas and I am a forecaster for the HS3
mission for hurricane science and research. I have
my bachelors of meteorology from St. Louis University in Missouri,
and I am currently pursuing my masters degree at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
My current advisor has been working with the NASA hurricane
mission for many, many years, and so coming on as his
graduate student I was able to work with the Genesis and Rapid Intensification
Processes in 2010 and then take more of a leadership role in the
forecasting here for HS3. Taking a look here you can see where the
invest is marked on the wind shear-- I can say the very most amazing
experience I've had was working with GRIP. Being able to be in
the plane, looking out the window and seeing the hurricane surrounding,
seeing the eye wall, breaking through, seeing the water below, seeing
the sun shining above and just the stadium feel of the clouds
was probably the best experience of my entire life.
And just right behind that, the people that I get to interact with,
the research the I do, the papers I read, the scientists I see on TV, on the Weather Channel,
I actually get to work with them face to face. They know my name,
they know my first name, I get to talk to them on a first-name basis, and
it's really neat to make those connections because hopefully in the future when I'm
wanting to continue my profession that I have a great background
of scientists that know how I work and have seen
me working and they're great references for me in the future.