About Us
Mission of the Rutgers WeatherWatcher Club
The mission of the Rutgers WeatherWatcher Club is to provide a unique opportunity for students to gain exposure to a broadcast setting and learn how to communicate the weather and science. The Rutgers WeatherWatcher Club also allows students to work with fellow students within Rutgers University to produce daily weather forecasts and longer science journalism videos and articles for the university, its weather forecasting organization, and national distribution. The WeatherWatcher Club has a lot to offer, including the ability to:
- Produce weather/climate-related content for Rutgers University and the state of New Jersey
- Gain invaluable experience in front of a green screen and in a television grade studio, as well as creating weather forecasts in different formats for different mediums.
- Learn how to write, produce, and edit video packages
- Learn how to use a state-of-the-art broadcast meteorology visualization and graphics package
- Practice and hone public speaking skills, as well as refine communications skills
- Study social media’s impact on weather forecasting and communicating science to a public audience
- Prepare meteorology students for a career in meteorology after graduation, especially in broadcast meteorology
- Develop a better understanding of meteorology on an international scale
Our History
The WeatherWatcher program, the predecessor to the Rutgers WeatherWatcher Club, was started by Meteorologist Jim Nichols in 2002 and was originally run in Waller Hall on the Cook/Douglass campus. Students involved with the program created weather forecasts for the Rutgers campus television network. With the invention of social media, the WeatherWatcher program expanded its reach to social media to reach thousands of people within and outside of the Rutgers University community. Over the years, what had started as a small basement studio became a much larger, state-of-the-art studio located within Perry Hall. The program acquired new broadcast equipment, including a WSI Max graphics system, the same graphics system used by many broadcast meteorologists in the industry. The WeatherWatcher program even expanded to include a Living-Learning Community, an opportunity for students to live, study, and work together within the Perry Residence Hall. The Living-Learning Community was a joint effort between the Rutgers Meteorology Department, Rutgers Residence Life, and the Rutgers Television Network (RU-tv).
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the country and put a halt to all in-person activities on campus, including the WeatherWatcher program. For more than 18 months, the WeatherWatcher program took an unplanned hiatus. In addition, the campus television network, which had provided executive structure to the WeatherWatcher program and Living-Learning Community, dissolved due to financial struggles and a rework of university assets. This had left the future of the WeatherWatcher program and the Living-Learning Community uncertain.
When a return to campus was certain for the Fall 2021 semester, the WeatherWatcher program was reorganized from a faculty/staff run program to a student-led organization to keep the spirit of the WeatherWatcher program around. In April 2022, the student-led organization, now known as the Rutgers WeatherWatcher Club. became officially recognized by Rutgers University. The Rutgers WeatherWatcher Club continues the tradition of on-camera forecasts within the Perry Hall studio, but has also expanded the focus of the WeatherWatcher program to include new formats of weather content, including production pieces, written forecasts, and Campus Weather Discussions.