Continuing education resources in support of certification

The Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and Training (COMET) is an established leader in providing atmospheric science continuing education materials. The rapid evolution of delivery technology for distance learning materials has enabled the COMET Program, under a multi-agency cooperative agreement, to develop cutting edge training in such a way that it not only serves our core sponsors, but also is freely available to the private and academic sectors. Recently, there has been enhanced interest in these materials from the weather broadcast community in preparation for upcoming AMS certification programs.

We currently produce distance-learning training that includes Web-based modules, Webcasts (captured expert audio lectures from our classroom), teletraining offerings, and courses that employ a “blended” distance-learning approach. Web-based training materials are readily available on numerous topics covering new satellite applications, hydrometeorology, numerical weather prediction, climate, and a whole variety of mesoscale phenomenon including a continually expanding mesoscale meteorology primer. Through our partnership with the Meteorological Service of Canada as one of our newer sponsors, we are now able to continually add training materials related to forecasting winter weather phenomenon. The variety of other web-based modules includes many other specialized training topics on subjects like dispersion models, the physics of the aurora, and an AMS award winning highly interactive hurricane preparedness module for middle school students. All of these training materials are available to the entire atmospheric science community via the MetEd Website (http://www.meted.ucar.edu/).

Additionally, the COMET Residence Program offers a variety of courses and workshops in our classroom facility in Boulder. Currently, we deliver courses in mesoscale analysis and prediction, hydrometeorology, basin customization, winter weather, and climate variability. These courses are available to our sponsors and others in the meteorology and forecasting communities on a proportional basis, and the lecture materials are available over the Web. We also maintain an extensive on-line case study archive that is available via the MetEd Website in the Cases section.

Many television stations desire that their staff maintain state-of-the-art knowledge on a whole cadre of atmospheric forecast challenges, but often do not have the resources to make the necessary training resources available. Thus, access to this continuously expanding suite of continuing education materials at no cost should be of great potential interest and benefit to broadcast meteorologists. These resources are especially timely now as broadcast meteorologists seek to prepare themselves for new AMS certification programs.