S2 E6: Shannon O'Donnell and the UW Dawgcast

In this episode of FieldSound, KOMO 4 Chief Meteorologist Shannon O'Donnell and University of Washington students speak about the formation of the UW Dawgcast, born out of ATM S 493: Media & Meteorology in the UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

ATM S 493, which launched in 2020, is the first broadcast meteorology class offered on the West Coast. With it, the UW joins Pennsylvania State University and Mississippi State University as schools that offer broadcast meteorology instruction. The course equips students to learn how to create forecasts, communicate the science of weather, and gain real-world broadcast experience using industry-standard equipment.

While the class takes place each winter quarter, students from all majors can participate in the UW Dawgcast club year-round.


Steve Pool Memorial Fund for Students in Atmospheric Sciences
Steve Pool was one the leading television weathercasters in Seattle for nearly 40 years, providing meteorological insights and weather education to millions of viewers across western Washington. A profoundly impactful UW alumnus, he was committed to the University of Washington and the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, establishing an internship program that provided dozens of UW students with experience in broadcast meteorology — with several going on to successful careers in TV weather (such as O’Donnell at KOMO 4).  

The Department of Atmospheric Sciences is honored to be undertaking an effort to create an endowed scholarship to support undergraduates in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences in honor of Steve Pool. Your support will provide financial assistance to promising atmospheric sciences students and foster training opportunities for the next generation of meteorologists and atmospheric scientists. Learn more about the campaign here.

https://environment.uw.edu/podcast

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;56;00
Sarah Smith
From the University of Washington College of the environment. This is Field Sound

00;00;56;03 - 00;01;21;16
Sarah Smith
Early in 2024, I visited a cozy space outfitted with green screen lights and basic recording equipment. 

Shannon O'Donnell
Yeah, we don't even need that. We can fade the fronts on, but bring them down, like, sort of where they be. Oh, yeah. 

Sarah Smith
Students were busy at work learning how to visualize weather models and build up to date meteorological forecast graphics. So let's do Pineapple Express.

00;01;21;19 - 00;01;47;23
Sarah Smith
Pineapple express is atmospheric rivers that are reaching out to at least 20 degrees North Hawaiian Islands. It's getting pretty close. I watched as a Department of Atmospheric Sciences adjunct professor Shannon O'Donnell guided her class through the process on a large projector screen. 

Shannon O'Donnell
I'm Shannon O'Donnell. I am a U-dub grad, 95, in atmospheric sciences, lived all over the country, but really settled into western Washington by about seventh grade.

00;01;47;23 - 00;02;21;17
Shannon O'Donnell
And I was one of those kids who always knew I wanted to be a broadcast meteorologist, so always had the YouTube on my mind is it's a great local school to go to, and I am the chief meteorologist now at KOMO, but also still now teach at the U-dub. 

Sarah Smith
O'Donnell leads Atmos for nine three Media and Meteorology, which provides students across disciplines an introduction to meteorology, weather communication and broadcast television production to address a missing piece of the atmospheric sciences student experience.

00;02;21;17 - 00;02;42;01
Shannon O'Donnell
Here on campus at KOMO, we have interns that come through great young weather aficionados, and they were almost always from the University of Washington. but in the summer when students come back home to Western Washington or, you know, have a little bit more free time, sometimes we would take students as our interns that were from out of state.

00;02;42;03 - 00;03;12;24
Shannon O'Donnell
And in 2017, I believe, we had this bright young man named Patrick come through as our summer intern at KOMO. And he had come home from Penn State for the summer. And he was fantastic and super intelligent, hardworking. And I just it bothered me that we had lost this great local kid to Penn State, you know, being such a U-dub fan and, you know, having so much development at the U-dub as far as atmospheric sciences and what our program has to offer, I couldn't understand why we lost this bright young man.

00;03;12;27 - 00;03;35;07
Shannon O'Donnell
So he ended up telling me about Campus Weather, which is their student run organization at Penn State, which is about 100 students strong, very well known. There, been going for decades, and it was a student run forecasting organization where they put together the forecast. They had a green screen, they put out the blog. They were really getting hands on work day in and day out in forecasting.

00;03;35;07 - 00;03;53;26
Shannon O'Donnell
And my mentors at U-dub are Bob House. I worked beneath Bob for years and years. He's now retired. And then my good friend Cliff Mass grumbled with them about losing this bright young student. And so we thought, What Penn State is doing, we can do here on the West Coast and in the Pacific Northwest, and we can offer that to them.

00;03;54;00 - 00;04;19;19
Shannon O'Donnell
And that's how the dog cast was born. 

Sarah Smith 
The classes hosted in the Dog Cast Lounge, which serves as both a classroom and a space for belonging. It even has a comfortably worn sofa rescued from surplus. As chief meteorologist at coma four News in Seattle, O'Donnell draws upon a wealth of knowledge and experience gained in her 20 plus year career to inspire her students and to get them excited about a new world of possibility.

00;04;19;21 - 00;04;44;14
UW Student
Three. Two one. Hey there, Huskies here with native Dorcas. Pretty rainy today. I know there's been a lot of traffic getting into campus this morning. I really hope you all made it to campus. Okay. Mostly dry. It's dry, as you can really see today.

Shannon O'Donnell
we had gotten the funding through the College of the environment and through some grant work to let this class get launched and get off the ground, and it didn't really make sense to use the equipment.

00;04;44;14 - 00;05;00;27
Shannon O'Donnell
We had purchased only ten weeks a year. So, and the students had so much interest in it, they had just learned how to do it all and use it and write that daily forecast that we wanted to keep it going. So the other parts of the year other than winter quarter, we have it as a club and that's just one credit.

00;05;00;27 - 00;05;12;19
UW Student
And it keeps going that way and not looking very good on the slopes this weekend. Had a great rest. Your day has been great.

00;05;12;22 - 00;05;34;24
Shannon O'Donnell
The way I always approach a forecast in general is where we've been, where we are and where we're going. That's how I put together a forecast every single day. When I'm doing that to go on air, where we've been is climate data. Where we are is what's happening at the present time, and where we're going is looking at the computer models and learning to read those and figuring out what's coming.

00;05;34;24 - 00;05;51;00
Shannon O'Donnell
It's just like doing a workout and kind of working out those muscles. You have to do that every day to really get in the groove of how you're going to put together a forecast. So that's what we do every day at and in the class. We forecast we dog cast and we broadcast. The forecast is putting together that forecast.

00;05;51;03 - 00;06;11;28
Shannon O'Donnell
And then the dog cast is doing the graphics through our funding. We have the same exact graphics building system as almost every TV station in the country, if not the world. It's the IBM Mac system. We have the student version. It looks just like what you see at any of the TV stations, but we have designed it from scratch and all purple and gold and husky themes.

00;06;11;28 - 00;06;38;07
Shannon O'Donnell
It's very unique to the U-dub and so they they build that dog cast. And then the idea is to broadcast him. And as I tell my students the very first day, the definition of broadcast meteorology has really greatly changed in the last 15 years due to social media. It is no longer just the you know, what you what you and I grew up with seeing your TV meteorologist or your weatherman or your weather woman on TV, or hearing them on the radio.

00;06;38;13 - 00;07;04;00
Shannon O'Donnell
Broadcasting means to sow widely and to spread the information. And social media brought that into a whole new lane. 

Sam (UW Student)
I'm Sam, I'm a freshman, and I'm majoring in environmental studies and geography. I was, you know, on social media, and I would see all these weather communities. And that's where I first discovered the dog cast. And I was like, oh, cool, you know, and decided to follow them and watch all their posts.

00;07;04;02 - 00;07;21;07
Sam (UW student)

When I got accepted to UW, I was like, hey, you know, could I possibly join the dog house? I knew I wasn't an atmospheric sciences major. So once I got here, I saw a poster for it. On the poster it said open to all majors and I was like, oh, cool. And I popped into the first meeting and I've been here since.

00;07;21;07 - 00;07;45;16
Sam (UW Student)
I've really enjoyed it. I really like having an interest outside my major and just forecasting the weather. 

Amelia (UW Student)
I'm Amelia, I am a senior doing meteorology and the climate track. and I first heard about dog cast in the first atmospheric science class that I took here. it was in fall of 22, and I joined the class kind of on a whim, not really knowing too much about forecasting.

00;07;45;16 - 00;08;05;23
Amelia UW Student
The most I'd ever done was just kind of check my weather apps on my phone, and. But I'd always been interested in it. and Shannon has been fantastic in guiding me and guiding all of us, to learn as much as we can about the weather and forecasting and also sharing all of it with the public and even just other students at U-dub.

00;08;05;26 - 00;08;26;24
Amelia UW Student
It's been a great experience so far, and I'm currently interning over with the National Weather Service right now here in Seattle and Spokane. and Shannon has helped me find that internship through the dog cast from there, like having my background with not only the graphics system, but also just a little bit of forecasting experience has really helped me understand everything.

00;08;26;24 - 00;08;48;06
Amelia UW Student
So I'm starting not quite at square one, maybe square two 

Shannon O'Donnell
Our local National Weather Service office here in Seattle. They are the top social media national weather service in the country. when I was growing up, the National Weather Service was kind of this mysterious government body. You didn't know who they were or where they worked. You really didn't have access to their information publicly.

00;08;48;06 - 00;09;08;27
Shannon O'Donnell
So in the last 15 years, you know, the National Weather Service has come online and met the community in the middle, and they're becoming very well known for what they do. A lot of, the young people that have come in and taken these jobs are very social media savvy. And the idea is you're trying this is a public service.

00;09;08;27 - 00;09;30;01
Shannon O'Donnell
You're trying to bring potentially life saving information to the public. We don't necessarily get that, you know, the really dangerous weather often around here. We're not in hurricane country or tornado alley, but the information is important with snow and wind and flooding, and the idea is to get it to the public, whether you're on TV or you're with the weather service.

00;09;30;03 - 00;09;58;17
Amelia (UW Student)
I really like love forecasting the weather. I love extreme weather events and I really like how there's like, I'd really be helping people and my like, passion for communication from the forecast would be incredibly beneficial. When you're communicating these weather warnings to people because, you know, this could save people's lives. If they're able to understand what's going to be happening, 

Sam (UW Student)
you can check your weather out, but we can give you like a little bit of character along with the weather forecast.

00;09;58;17 - 00;10;16;27
Sam (UW Weather)
So you can talk about Red square being slippery or windy in some little corridor or hallway or something like that. Just adds a bit more person about source. Now to the forecast so you don't get with your weather app. 

UW Students
Hey Huskies, happy graduation day! This is Haley and Sarah with the dog cats here to give you your weather outlook for commencement.

00;10;16;29 - 00;10;34;22
Shannon O'Donnell
It's hard to get up in front of your classmates and, you know, be on the green screen and have everybody watching them. So the way we've gotten around that is kind of working in partners, where the rest of us will step aside and go into the atmospheric sciences library and let just it be groups of two. They also go out and they do the videos outside individually, and you'll see them on their phones.

00;10;34;22 - 00;10;50;09
Shannon O'Donnell
And again, that's how the social media push. So it's no longer gosh, I've got to give this three minute speech about the weather, you know, in front of a green screen pointing at things and being really awkward. It can be just 15 seconds outside, you know. 

UW Students
Hey, Huskies, I'm such and such. From the webcast. Stay tuned for our blog later today.

00;10;50;09 - 00;11;09;07
UW Students
I'll see you later today. We have an absolutely gorgeous afternoon for our big day. We're going to see warmer than average temperatures in the upper 70s approaching 80. 

Shannon O'Donnell
Some of them are much more comfortable riding, and that's what the blog is for getting into the nitty gritty at the forecast. They don't have the parameters that we do in TV where they have to really make it simple.

00;11;09;07 - 00;11;33;07
Shannon O'Donnell
They can get as complex, get as much into climate studies and the heavy duty models as they like. And so again, I want to hear their personality. And that's what this cozy environment in the Dog Castle lounge has become. ATMs four, nine, three is a three credit class, only offered one quarter per year, but the dog cast is a one credit inclusive club where students from all majors are welcome to join year round.

00;11;33;10 - 00;11;51;11
Jake (UW Student)
I'm Jake, I'm atmospheric sciences concentration in climate. Being a climate communicator is a vague thing. How do you like do that? We can still adapt to climate change and we can so mitigate the worst of its effects. So I was like, well, why don't I do the next best thing and do weather communication? And that's what the dog has to offer.

00;11;51;11 - 00;12;15;19
Jake (UW Student)
And so I figured May as well do that. And I really liked it so far. And I've gotten experience blogging and writing and speaking in front of the green screen. And I think that that's, you know, the next best thing. It's really been great for like making connections with people. And I just find it really fun learning about, like how to use the software, making these videos and just and also learning about like the weather.

00;12;15;21 - 00;12;33;15
Jake (UW Student)
It's just something that really interests me. But I've only been on the dog last year, but it's been just a great experience so far here, just most of the reasons that people have already said it's just a very nice place to not only learn more about what you're doing in the major, especially last year, since I wasn't technically doing like the major classes here, you get a bit of a taste of what more of that is.

00;12;33;17 - 00;12;56;01
Jake (UW Student)
It's just nice to have a place where it's like this interest that I've had for so long. It's like I can actually share it when I was a student. 

Shannon O'Donnell
You get into atmospheric sciences and it's kind of intimidating. It's a high end science discipline. And my year we had 18 undergrads. The year before had only been four. So the undergrad department was not what atmospheric sciences at the U-dub had been known for.

00;12;56;01 - 00;13;14;21
Shannon O'Donnell
It was really the graduate, and beyond the research side here. But when you're in atmospheric sciences, you're taking heavy duty math. You know, you're essentially getting a math minor. you're taking a lot of physics and dynamics and chemistry, and it's heavy duty. It's a it's a big lift here at the U-dub. And it can be intimidating.

00;13;14;21 - 00;13;31;01
Shannon O'Donnell
And I remember being an undergrad and with our 18 students in there, you know, you were a little nervous to raise your hand. People were quiet. They didn't want to stand out. I think everybody thought the person sitting next to me is smarter than me. So maybe I shouldn't say anything. It just was that sort of environment. Once you were.

00;13;31;04 - 00;13;48;22
Shannon O'Donnell
We were seniors. We had loosened up. We'd started to get to know each other. We realized everybody else was just as unsure as we were. And you were having study groups and, you know, making lifelong friends. But it took some time. It's intimidating. This is a big campus full, you know, it's a small city, and you can get lost in the shuffle and not feel connected.

00;13;48;27 - 00;14;05;04
Shannon O'Donnell
So this class I've noticed over the years, since we started it in 2019, has also been a way to really help the students make friends, hang out. I tell them they can use that lounge, you know, they all know how to eat. They have a key and can get in, hang out there, do homework together, meet up.

00;14;05;04 - 00;14;29;03
Shannon O'Donnell
And it's it's casual and they've all become good friends this way. So it's really heartwarming to see that element, intertwined in the class as well. 

Sarah Smith
O'Donnell recalled her time as an undergrad internet company, where she worked with meteorologist Steve Poole, U-dub alumnus and one of our region's most trusted weatherman, when she faced job loss during the recession.

00;14;29;05 - 00;14;52;02
Sarah Smith
Steve Poole was there to help O'Donnell once again find her footing. My husband at the time was in grad school, so all of a sudden we went from feeling really, you know, comfortable and secure to having the rug pulled out from under us with no jobs and not knowing how we were going to pay for things. And so at that point, Steve brought me back in over to Como and said, don't worry, we'll figure something out for you.

00;14;52;02 - 00;15;12;25
Unknown
And Como, thankfully, was, you know, still able to cobble together a job for me. And I've been there ever since, since 2009, through Como. we do, something every spring, the Mariners put on this big event every spring for students to come as a field trip. It's a day game to work with the schools to okay at and approve it.

00;15;12;25 - 00;15;32;02
Unknown
It has to have some education woven in. So for at least 15 years, maybe 20 now we have provided that as Weather Education Day, it's usually in May or June. It's the stands fill up. Their 10:00 in the morning is when we start. We usually get 5 to 8000 kids from all over Western. What's, maybe even Eastern Washington.

00;15;32;02 - 00;15;47;18
Unknown
And we put on this big weather presentation for an hour. Then the students break, they go get this hot dog lunch, and then they stay for the day game. So it's this it's such a fun event. The dog cast has become a big part of that. My usually my seniors that will go. So they look forward to doing it every year.

00;15;47;18 - 00;16;01;23
Unknown
And they they're the seniors and they get to go. So I think last year we had six seniors and they came and made this fantastic presentation on the field. Again, they're down there. This is the public speaking, the and the weather education and the broadcasting I talked about. And they decide what they're going to talk about that year.

00;16;01;24 - 00;16;28;09
Unknown
And last year they talked about chaos theory. And so one of my bright young students that is now a pilot pursuing being a pilot, he came up with making a Plinko board to show, you know, how, you know, one small change in what's happening in the atmosphere can change the outcome of the weather. And so the students would, you know, we'd pick a couple from their audience of thousands and they came down and worked with the u-dub, my, my dog casters and we're playing Weather Plinko just to learn about chaos theory.

00;16;28;09 - 00;16;41;03
Unknown
So that was just a great example. It's just so fun for them. It's it's a big final part of being in the dog cast at the end of their senior year.

00;16;41;05 - 00;17;01;08
Unknown
I have a couple of really great success stories that are some of my favorites that have come on through. one was this young woman named Brisa Mendez, I believe, the first in her family to go to college. She was from West Seattle, raised in West Seattle, and she had just graduated from the U-dub with a double major in communications and Spanish studies.

00;17;01;08 - 00;17;17;29
Unknown
I mean double major. I don't know how long it took her, but, you know, it tends to take a little longer. All done. And, was working at our Spanish speaking station at Como called Univision and just through the grapevine within our building heard that I think she was starting to get interested in whether the weather that they do on Univision.

00;17;18;01 - 00;17;36;07
Unknown
And somebody said, oh, you should go talk to Shannon. She teaches weather at the U-dub. And poor breeze had just graduated from the u-dub. She came and took my class after graduation and took the dog cast again and just hit the ground running and loved it. And then started pursuing her online meteorology degree and got a job on air right away.

00;17;36;14 - 00;18;02;15
Unknown
One of the other great stories, is that we have the ability at the U-dub and people that are on staff at the U-dub. If a class isn't full, they can take the class for free as part of working at the University of Washington. So this, man named Chris Thomas, he worked at the U-dub with our international students, the exchange students, and making sure people were integrated and knew their way around and all settled in here in Seattle.

00;18;02;18 - 00;18;25;14
Unknown
but he'd had this lifelong dream, as a lot of people do, that he'd always been interested in weather and hadn't pursued it. So, again, just through word of mouth, and because we're on social media a lot, he got wind of this class called the dog cast, and he was able to come and audit the class and take it, and loved it so much that he decided to pursue that lifelong dream of studying meteorology and atmospheric sciences.

00;18;25;19 - 00;18;44;24
Unknown
And he got into grad school, and I believe now he lives in Hawaii and does on air work as well. In Hawaii we have, you know, our regular undergrads taking the course, but we have different people from the community as well. And it's been really exciting to see. I'm Nick, I'm a junior ish studying meteorology from high school.

00;18;44;24 - 00;19;14;05
Unknown
I went to the University of Montana. When I was there, I had a minor in climate change studies, and I took one like basic weather, like weather and climate 101. My very last semester there. So Florida, graduating with a degree in political science, too late to totally change course. But after a couple years working, I decided I wanted to go back and like, really study whether or spending a lot of time like playing around with models and, going through all the different NOAA and National Weather Service products.

00;19;14;08 - 00;19;35;16
Unknown
And I came here, I didn't know about the dog cast until I started this past fall. I feel like it's really helped, kind of give a hands on into using the models. And Shannon's expertise in using the models, I think has really helped solidify a way, ways to communicate in ways to better understand how weather systems evolve and how to tell people about them.

00;19;35;19 - 00;19;55;15
Unknown
I went to U-dub graduation last year. for Atmospheric Sciences. We hold a special departmental graduation. They, you know, go through each student and what their favorite part about being at the UW. And every single one of my dog casters said being in the dog cast was their tip top favorite thing that they were involved in. And it just it was so wonderful to hear.

00;19;55;15 - 00;20;31;26
Unknown
And you know, what was originally just me being competitive with Ben's day, frankly. Well, it turned into such a positive experience for students here at the U. It's been really fun to see. To learn more about the dog cast or find out about today's weather, visit the Department of Atmospheric Sciences website at Moss Dogs. Forget You. You can also consider giving to the Steve Poole Memorial Fund for Students in Atmospheric Sciences, which provides direct financial support for undergrad students and honors the memory of Steve Poole.

00;20;31;28 - 00;20;58;07
Unknown
Visit our website at environment.uw.edu to learn more. A special thanks to our guest, Shannon O'Donnell and the featured forecast students from all of us at Field Sound. Thanks for listening. See you next time.