‘Weather is this beautiful thing.’ Tri-Cities grad follows dream to become a meteorologist

James Pierce has been hooked on weather ever since he could remember.

Some of his earliest childhood memories include him sitting on his grandfather’s couch and watching in awe as scientists explained arctic blooms, fire tornadoes and storms on the Weather Channel’s “Strangest Weather on Earth.”

“You’re looking at that as a kid — and it all formed naturally — and you’re just thinking, like, weather is crazy. And weather is this beautiful thing. There’s patterns, but there’s not patterns,” said the 17-year-old Richland student. “That’s just beautiful to me.”

Pierce is pursuing his passion for weather and hopes to be a meteorologist some day.

He even participated in a job shadow from January to May at the National Weather Service in Pendleton, Ore., where he learned the science behind forecasting.

On Friday, Pierce and 50 other seniors graduate from River’s Edge High School at a commencement ceremony at the Three Rivers Convention Center.

While his peers wade through the mixed emotions of graduation, Pierce says he feels “nothing but happiness” now that he gets to begin his life’s endeavor.

“I’ve definitely worked harder this year than normal. That’s just because you see the end in sight, the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Pierce, who earned a 4.0 this quarter. “I’ve been waiting 18 years to graduate high school to go to college and become a meteorologist. It just feels nice to be able to start what I actually want to do.”

NOAA experience

Trevor Macduff has been teaching science for the past 25 years, and just recently stepped into a new role as a community learning coordinator at River’s Edge.

His job is to get at least 50% of graduating seniors into a job shadow program or internship before they graduate.

He approached Pierce in the fall to ask him what career path he was interested in exploring.

Pierce had a quick reply.

“He didn’t even hesitate. It was instant,” Macduff said. “That’s not something you hear often, and this young man has overcome a lot. I just took that as a challenge. I said, ‘OK, we’re going to make that happen.’”

He reached out to staff at Hanford High School, who said to contact the weather service in Pendleton.

Macduff recalled that Pierce wanted to work behind the scenes and wasn’t interested in going into forecasting for broadcast news.

“This was just James being James, wanting to do things. It’s hard to say no to James. He’s just a kid that’s worth the time,” Macduff said. “He’s got something to say. His mind is just incredible and it keeps working. He just doesn’t want to be the guy in front of the camera.”

Pierce spent 40 hours over six visits at Pendleton shadowing science and operations officer Ed Townsend and other meteorologists.

“We don’t often see such a level of interest and passion in meteorology and the National Weather Service in our area, let alone at such an age,” Townsend wrote in an email. “The amount of ‘motivated learning’ shown by James, a high school student, was exciting and a delight.”

He put together social media graphics and posts for thousands who follow the center’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, compiled data for their seven-day weather outlook, helped conduct community outreach and learned about what tools they use.

“I said it had a ‘kid in a candy store’ type feeling to me,” Pierce said. “Just because it certified in my mind that, yeah, this is exactly what I want to do.”

Macduff said it was a career highlight to see Pierce play a role in sending out winter storm advisories to travelers last winter.

Weather is one of the few things that people navigate on a daily basis. And Pierce said he likes having an impact on people’s lives.

“It’s one of the only fields that you get to work in that you get instant gratification, because if you put out a short-term radar... I can go look outside to see if my work was correct,” Pierce said. “You’re constantly engulfed in weather.”

After graduation

Pierce plans to stay local and attend Columbia Basin College. After earning his two-year degree with an emphasis in the sciences, he plans to transfer to the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology.

He says he could work on the Hanford site, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which is the agency that oversees the National Weather Service), or at a number of other local federal programs.

Macduff said Pierce’s experiences and outward enthusiasm are an example of what can happen when teachers work to support their dreams and mentor students into real-world job sites. It gets them excited to learn, he said.

“Instead of saying, ‘Here’s a textbook and a cool lab,’ I get to say to students, ‘What do you want to solve and what do you want to do with your life,’” Macduff said. “I can’t wait to see what happens in the next five to 10 years, with James coming back and running the Weather Channel or something.”