The SPC is part of the National Weather Service and is one of nine Centers for Environmental Prediction across the country. The SPC, especially in the spring and summer, is busy producing products that help give timely and accurate outlooks and watches for severe weather.
Joey Picca is now an outlook/mesoscale forecaster at the SPC which is in Norman, Oklahoma. As a forecaster at the SPC, his primary duties include: issuing outlook and near-term forecasts for severe, fire, and winter weather across the contiguous United States. Picca first worked was a meteorologist at NWS New York, NY, where he supported operations for numerous high-impact events such as Hurricane Sandy and the Northeast Blizzard of February 2013.
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Every day Picca has to tell the weather story of the entire country, first starting broad and zooming closer and closer until he is pin-pointing where severe weather could occur. The Convective Outlooks he produces are important in the Miami Valley and are just one tool the Storm Center 7 team uses when developing local forecasts each day.
Picca gives an in-depth and honest look at the interesting job he has in the field of meteorology as well as some of the stressors he must overcome.
“The atmosphere really knows how to slap you over the head and say, 'Oh, I've got many tricks up my sleeve,'" explained Picca.
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