ICT Reflections

As my time comes to a close here at NWS Wichita (ICT), I wanted to take a few moments to reflect back on the past several years. Maya Angelou said “I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going.” I couldn’t agree more. In the craziness and excitement that comes with moving, there’s something about taking the time to stop and think about what has happened, where you’ve improved, what still needs work, and how all of that may factor into your future. 

When I heard that I was going to get an opportunity to work at a Plains office, I was amazed. I’ve always seen the Plains as a place where the best of the best work, and I didn’t see myself as being that caliber of a Meteorologist, especially with severe weather. Don’t get me wrong, severe weather is a passion of mine. I just didn’t feel like I had the right skill set yet for Plains’ convection. But, an MIC took a chance on me, and invited me into the wild weather that is the Plains.

As if on cue, I got a welcome to the Plains moment almost immediately. A week after I arrived, Eureka happened. It was one of my first forecast shifts here at ICT and I’m not even sure I had tornado anywhere in my AFD. In the office that day, we went from “Hey, is that a developing cumulus cloud?” to “How fast can we get more people into the office?!?!”. 

12 hours later, on my way home, I seem to recall thinking, ‘what did I get myself into?’. I’m sure each area of the country has a particularly humbling weather phenomenon, or two. On the Plains it’s convection. 

A couple of things the past three years has taught me is to 1) not worry what people think and 2) to be ok with misses and mistakes. Ok in the since that, trying your best and still coming up short doesn’t make you a bad forecaster. It might reveal a weakness or a need for additional training, but it doesn’t equal bad. One of the best things my MIC here told me is that all new positions have a growing in period. Hearing him say that was such a relief! Mistakes are a normal, and healthy, part of growing. What’s great is that growth leads to improvement. I’ve learned that I must be ok with mistakes, that I have to be humble enough to admit them and look for ways to improve, and to be intentional to fight against the fear of failure and what people may think about me when I fail. It basically took my entire time here at ICT to be comfortable with all of that, but I can’t tell you how freeing it is as I look ahead to whatever new, and humbling, challenges await.

Speaking of Plains weather, my goodness how fast things can change, both in the short-term and in the long-term. Eureka was a short-term example. With Plains events like that, you can literally go from 0 to 60 (cumulus cloud to tornado in about 60 minutes). The thing is, if you’re not prepared, operations can go sideways in a hurry. By nature, I’m a perfectionist. Those types of events have helped me to learn how to better prioritize duties (not everything can be given a #1 priority), and to be ok with some things, like the RWS, not getting as much attention. Oh, and it’s taught me to ASK FOR HELP! Man, sometimes in my struggle with perfectionism I have held onto a duty, or duties, too long without asking for help. When things are literally blowing up in the short-term, I’ve got to be ok with asking for help. It has also helped me to work on not letting the fear of what others think factor into decisions. When things are going sideways, you just can't waste time on unhealthy worries. Easier said than done, and I'm still working on that one...

In a longer-term example, it’s amazing to me how fast you can flip between flood and drought on the Plains. 

2019 saw a Kansas state record for annual rainfall. We couldn’t shut off the waterworks that year. At one point during the convective season, every single river forecast point in our CWA was in flood. We were staffing nearly round-the-clock coverage for rivers, alone. 2020 and 2021? Every time we tried to turn on the faucet, it broke. I have never gone that long without seeing measurable rain in my life. You almost stop forecasting rain even when model guidance gives you a 99% PoP. It became the ‘ole, I’ll believe it when I see it routine. The problem on the Plains is, drought or not, the wind never shuts off. Wind + dry = fire. I worked fire weather all the time in Montana, but it’s a different ballgame here. We don’t have huge forests full of timber that climb tall slopes. We just have fires that move horizontally fueled by 50-70 mph winds, making fire weather days feel more like severe weather days. And sometimes, we actually have fire weather and severe weather on the same day.

Oh, and the convection here. The summer is so funny because you wouldn’t believe how many days you come into work with 5000 CAPE, and you wouldn’t believe how low the percentage of those days actually see storms. I mean, how do you look at that much CAPE and not start “seeing” TCU develop on satellite. It’s like looking down a hot road thinking you’re seeing water when, in reality, it’s just a mirage. You know you’re a seasoned forecaster on the Plains when you don’t bat an eye at 5 grand of CAPE. But here’s the thing, every now and then, convection manages to develop in that kind of environment. You will never see an updraft go severe so quick. Those are the days you issue a SVR before rain even hits the ground. The 5000 CAPE days, and convection in general here, have taught me to be ok not knowing, with certainty, the answer to the question, "Will convection form or not?". It’s also taught me the value of telling people what you know when you know it. When I started here at ICT, I tended to lean away from telling people there may be tornadoes, for example, unless I had moderate to high confidence in them occurring. Since then, and with the help of the Watch-Warning Gap Testbed, I’ve learned to be ok not having all the answers, but still being able to give the public and our partners valuable information, even when confidence is low. For me, it’s also been an additional exercise in leaning away from perfectionism in this job.

I have been so fortunate to work with such a solid group of Meteorologists, not just at ICT, but all around this area. I have always been passionate about the science, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know until I came here. I have learned SO MUCH on the science side, and it has made my passion for the science all the more important to me. I have watched how the solid science foundation of our office has served our partners well, and it has been so encouraging.

At the same time, my time here has taught me to better balance people and passions. It’s great to be passionate about things like science and operations, but unregulated passion can be a problem. Albert Einstein once said, “Concern for man…must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.” 

I’ve come to see that improvement as a Meteorologist isn’t independent from improvement as a person. One of the biggest regrets from my time at my first office (TFX), was too many times putting passion before people. It made me overly critical, grumpy, and not the best co-worker. I know I can’t camp in disappointment about past mistakes, but my hope is to let it be a reminder of what not to do. ICT gave me my first opportunity to really work on better balancing the things I am passionate about and concern for others. It’s had a huge impact on how I act as a co-worker. I don’t run around trying to diminish my passion, but I've been learning how to tone it down in certain circumstances so that I don’t unhealthily burn bridges or hurt working relationships.

Remember the 2004 Red Sox? I believe part of the reason they won the World Series is because the team made the game fun. They had fun and they worked well together and they won. Just a bunch of friends playing backyard baseball. That's the culture I've been fortunate to be a part of here. ICT has helped me to love Meteorology again, and to have fun serving.

My time at ICT has also taught me that putting people first sometimes means choosing a hill to die on. A friend of mine challenged me recently to choose those hills wisely, while acknowledging that there are hills worth climbing. The key is knowing which ones. One of the most important things in my career that I’ve learned here is to be courageous to climb a hill or two when necessary, and be intentional about improving in the area of conflict resolution. Choosing not to die on any hill is just as bad as choosing to die on every hill. This is a tough one, and I think there will always be room for improvement, but I’m glad I was challenged in this here.

I am SO THANKFUL that my career brought me through ICT and the Plains. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am a better husband, friend, co-worker, and Meteorologist because of it. I’ve had the opportunity to work some remarkable and memorable weather events, some of which I may never experience again. I don’t fear Plains convection anymore. In fact, I will miss it. 

I will also miss the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with here. I've moved a lot over the years, but this will definitely be one of the tougher ones. As tough as it is to leave them behind, I can rest knowing the weather community is pretty “small”, and I know it won’t be the last time we get to interact with one another. Looking ahead, it will be neat to get to know another sector of the weather community that I haven’t yet interacted with as much. There will also be humbling challenges and new memories, hills to die on and hills to pass by. In the good days and the sideways days, I feel better prepared for this new season thanks to my coming-to-a-close season here at ICT. 

The Best Service Starts with Weakness

One of my favorite tasks in the NWS is working radar. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out what storms are, or will be, doing and how to best communicate those threats to people (through warning vs. not warning decisions, what tags to use, and so on). Ironically, though, working radar also happens to be the task that I most often deal with some anxiety about. Typing that last sentence is difficult for me and I keep thinking through ways to word it in a way that sounds the least negative. That wouldn't be very honest of me, so I'll just leave it as is. Oh, the joy of weaknesses and struggles. Can I get an 'amen!'?! No takers? Didn't think so.

As a general rule, I struggle with being open and honest with co-workers regarding my weak areas. I subscribe to the 'honesty is the best policy' idea, but really struggle to put that into practice sometimes. The past year here at the NWS Wichita office (hard to believe it has been a year already!) has challenged me a lot in this area of honesty. What I've come to realize is that my struggle with being honest with others actually starts with the struggle to be honest with myself.

At my first NWS office (Great Falls, MT), I had very little anxiety when working radar. A lot of people in the office didn't want to work radar, which gave me lots of opportunities to gain experience and confidence. You'd think that confidence would follow me here to Kansas, but it didn't quite work out that way. In Montana, I was warning for small towns and cows. But now I am warning for a much larger population. The city of Wichita, alone, has more people than the entire NWS Great Falls' CWA. The magnitude of severe weather is different here as well, especially regarding the higher frequency of tornadoes and the significant threat to life and property that that threat, alone, carries. There are simply more people in my current CWA to be "hit". Radar is radar, though. It's not like dBZ values have a different meaning here. CC still drops with debris, Dual-Pol data still reveals large hail, tornadoes, and heavy rain processes. The only thing that changed was my mindset (stressful vs not stressful) towards working radar.

I didn't want to admit this and for months I kept trying to hide it...from myself. Which, if you think about it, is kind of a silly goal, and yet it is a very real problem. The truth is, I got some great radar experience while in Montana, but still needed more. I didn't want to need more. I wanted to walk into ICT a confident radar operator, being the go-to guy in severe events. I wanted to be trusted at any point in any event. It simply did not work out that way.

A year in, I have gained additional experience and my confidence is coming back. But, it's still not to the level I want to be at in order to provide the best possible service I can. Part of what has helped me is finally coming to terms with my struggle. I admitted it to myself...I still need improvement on radar. It took me long enough to admit that, but now it is time to be honest with others - this blog post is a part of that and has been a year in the making! In a strange way, working on this post has actually helped me feel more confident. Not that I magically have things all figured out, but now when tasked with working radar, I have one less weight on my shoulder - the weight of acting like I have it all together. Whether anyone in my office ever sees this post, the simple act of typing it out, and making it public, is a huge step even in just being honest with myself.

On a side note, I somewhat comically think back to the first time I was tasked with radar here at ICT. Man, I was so nervous that I was struggling even with the less-visible SPS (a far cry from the confident radar guy I was back in Montana). At one point, the Lead Forecaster I was working with nicely remarked, "You know, it's ok to issue an SPS". I appreciate the grace is in his patience. I have come a long way since that day, but it sure was a low point for me.

So, what about you? Are there any weaknesses or struggles that deep down you know are there, but don't want to admit it? Maybe it isn't even a weakness, per-say...maybe you don't like forecasting or public briefings, but are afraid to admit it. Maybe you don't mind being open with others, but fear their response. I totally understand the concern. I'm not saying you go into work today and draft up an all-hands email about every struggle. Maybe for now you simply need to be honest with yourself.

The beauty here is that the admission of weakness is the beginning of wisdom.

Convincing ourselves that a weakness or struggle doesn't exist, or isn't that big of a deal, can cause us to miss important learning opportunities. Consider this as well...what you learn through your weakness now, could play a vital role in you helping someone else through a similar weakness down the road. Just the simple fact that you are not the only one with a certain struggle can be encouraging!

Now, I will say, being honest with others may open the door to less-than-receptive  responses and I don't want to ignore that possibility. Even in great working environments, there are often one or two that may give people a hard time for showing, or sharing, struggles. If one imperfect individual cannot accept someone else's imperfection...well, that is on them. I know this doesn't ease the fear of a negative response, but I do still believe in the importance of being open with others at times. Start with yourself, then consider opening up to at least a few others.

We ALL have weaknesses and struggles. There are no perfect Meteorologists. If we're honest about our weakness and patient with others', we can all work together to provide the best service possible. If you want to set yourself, and others, up for success, then start with honesty.