Read the atmosphere with math, radar and models, then tell people what is coming and how sure you are.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$99,070
Starting out
$53,060
Top tenth
$161,890
The national median is $99,070 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $53,060. The federal wage survey lumps this job in with the wider group it calls Atmospheric and Space Scientists, so research scientists and forecasters are counted together.
About $53,000 to $65,000
First forecasting or entry research job
The low end is usually a first television job in a small market or a junior role at a private weather company. Federal forecasting jobs start higher, and the top end of the range is mostly senior federal, airline and energy trading work.
General Schedule grades and steps
How most National Weather Service meteorologists are paid
Federal pay is not negotiated. Every job posted on the federal hiring site names a grade, and the grade plus your years in it decides the number. There is also a locality adjustment, so the same grade pays more in San Francisco than in rural Kansas.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Both ends are a four year bachelor's degree at a public university at in-state rates, at about $11,000 a year at the low end and $15,000 at the high end. A master's degree, which research and broadcast jobs often want, is frequently free here because departments fund students with teaching or research assistantships that also pay a stipend. Out-of-state or private tuition runs $35,000 to $60,000 a year, which would put four years near a quarter of a million dollars, but most students pay the in-state rate. Forecasting for the National Weather Service is federal employment, which counts toward the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Fill in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid every year. Pell Grants do not have to be repaid, and if you end up working for the National Weather Service, that is federal employment, which can count towards the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Federal benefits
Government forecasters get a pension plus a matched retirement savings plan, and health coverage that continues into retirement.
Shift premiums
Forecast offices run 24 hours a day, and night and holiday shifts pay extra.
Conference and training travel
Paid trips to research meetings are normal in both government and university work.
Work that obviously matters
A tornado warning with the right lead time is measured in lives.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
This is a physics and math degree that happens to be about the sky. You cannot skip the calculus.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Take the hardest math you can get to, plus physics. Calculus before you arrive at college is a real advantage.
Bachelor's degree in meteorology or atmospheric science
4 years
Roughly 100 universities offer one. Penn State, the University of Oklahoma, Texas A&M University and the University of Wisconsin are among the biggest.
Hit the federal course requirements
Inside the degree
The National Weather Service asks for at least 24 semester hours of meteorology or atmospheric science, at least 6 semester hours of physics and at least 3 semester hours of differential equations. Check this against your degree plan in year one, not year four.
Internships
Summers
A summer at a forecast office, a research lab or a television station. This is how most people get their first job.
First job, or a master's
0 to 2 more years
Operational forecasting and broadcast work start with a bachelor's. Research, modeling and most federal science roles want a master's or a doctorate.
Calculus
The single biggest filter. Atmospheric science is built on differential equations.
Physics
Thermodynamics and fluid motion are what weather actually is.
Computer science
Forecasting today is code. Python is the standard language in the field.
Public speaking or drama
Only if you want broadcast, but then it matters as much as the science.
No state licenses meteorologists, and anyone can use the word on television. What separates a meteorologist from a weather presenter is the degree and the coursework behind it. The American Meteorological Society runs voluntary certifications for broadcasters and for consulting meteorologists, and stations and courts treat them as the mark of a genuine forecaster. For federal jobs the real gatekeeper is the published course requirement: if your transcript is short of the required hours, you are not eligible, no matter how good your degree was.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Aviation meteorology
Airlines and dispatch centers need forecasters who understand turbulence, icing and airport minimums.
Energy and commodity forecasting
Power traders and utilities pay well for people who can forecast demand and wind output.
Broadcast
Fewer jobs than people think, and small market pay is poor, but the visible top of the field.
Forensic meteorology
Reconstructing what the weather was doing for insurance claims and court cases. Usually consulting work later in a career.
Python and data skills
Every serious forecasting job now involves handling model output in code.
Amateur radio and storm spotter training
Free, local, and a genuine way to get involved before you have a degree.
A weather station and a public forecast
Running your own local forecast on social media is a portfolio, especially for broadcast.
Second language
Spanish language forecasting is in real demand in much of the country.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Forecast offices never close, so you work rotating shifts including nights and holidays. Come in, get briefed by the person going home, then look at observations, radar, satellite and half a dozen computer models that disagree with each other. Decide what you believe and write the forecast. If there is severe weather, everything else stops and you are issuing warnings minute by minute while the phone rings. On a quiet winter day you spend the shift on long range products and outreach.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Around 90 National Weather Service sites release a weather balloon at the same two moments every day, all around the world. The instrument package radios back temperature, humidity and wind until the balloon bursts near 100,000 feet.
Broadcast is the visible slice of a mostly invisible profession. Far more meteorologists work in forecast offices, airlines, the military, energy companies and research than in front of a camera.
Air Force Reserve and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration crews fly through the eyewall of hurricanes to drop instruments. Those measurements are still better than anything a satellite can see from above.
The National Weather Center in Norman puts the Storm Prediction Center, a federal research lab and the University of Oklahoma's meteorology school in one building, right in the middle of tornado country.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.