Here comes the rain again (get on the porch!) - with Dr. Cody Kirkpatrick
Welcome to Earth on the Rocks. I'm your host, Shelby Rader. And joining me today is Dr. Cody Kirkpatrick. Cody, thanks for joining.
Cody:Hey, Shelby. Thanks. Glad to be here.
Shelby:So since we're gonna get to know you over drinks today, what would be your drink of choice?
Cody:Oh, wow. Drink of choice. Probably dark rum is the is the starter for me. If I had to stop at the store today, probably Sailor Jerry is the is the brand, if we can do a brand advertisement there for a sec. Give me some dark rum and some ginger ale, splash of lime, and, yeah, good to go.
Shelby:That sounds delicious. For sure. Yeah. And and absolutely throw those brands in. Maybe we'll get some sponsorships at some point.
Cody:There we go. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Shelby:So so, Cody, you're also in the department, but you're on the atmospheric sciences side. And so if someone were to ask you sort of what type of scientist are you, how would you classify yourself?
Cody:Yeah. In atmospheric science, you would probably get a lot of different answers, I think, under the big umbrella of atmospheric science. I'm a meteorologist. That's what I think of. Bachelor's degree was in meteorology at University of Oklahoma.
Cody:Graduate degrees in atmospheric science, though a a little bit broader of a of a description at Alabama Huntsville. And so I've always thought of myself as somebody who likes the day to day weather patterns and day to day forecasting, and that really fits better under the idea of meteorology. So that's what I think of for me.
Shelby:And how what sort of drew you into this field of meteorology? I mean, it's something that I feel like at some level, all of us engage with on a day to day basis whether we acknowledge that or not. And so what made you think, I think this is something I wanna pursue?
Cody:Yeah. For a lot of for a lot of folks in meteorology, I think you find the passion really early on. Like, at a at a young age, there will be, when you're a when you're an elementary schooler, a big blizzard or a big hurricane or a tornado in the next town or something like that. And so you find a lot of people really get that bug, early on. For me, it was not a big weather event, but it was a Christmas gift, oddly enough.
Cody:My great grandmother's sister, I was 5 or 6 years old. I forget exactly how old it was, but, I adored this woman, loved hearing her tell stories about the family and from years years gone by. She gave me one of those little golden guides for weather. And, you know, you you see these for, like, trees and for fish and different types of birds and things, like the Audubon Society field guides Yeah. Yeah.
Cody:That are all out there. There was one for weather. And, I adored this woman and at the young age that I was at, and I realized, if she's giving me something like this, this must be important. And it's one of those little books that says, here's what the seasons are, and here's what a cold front is, and here's how a hurricane develops. And I realized, okay, this is important.
Cody:I need to do more of this. And that set me on the path to being, interested in and a lifelong love of weather. So, you know, I I think the lesson there is you never know when you have a chance to influence the life of a young person. You know?
Shelby:Yeah.
Cody:Godson, god daughter, a special niece or nephew, you never know when you can direct the life of someone, and aunt Kate, she did that years years years ago.
Shelby:That is incredible. Do you still have that book?
Cody:I do. I still have it. I keep it in a little plastic bag. I keep it a little bit a little bit protected. But, yeah, it's in my office.
Cody:Absolutely.
Shelby:So so did this aunt Kate, did she have some interest in weather? Or was it sort of a one off, oh, this is an interesting book. I'll pass it on to Cody.
Cody:I think it was a one off thing. Yeah. Yeah. Had no interest. She was a she was a stay at home wife as many people were back in the middle 1900s.
Cody:You know? I'm not that old, but that was that was her young that that was her married era, was, forties, fifties, and such. And, that was yeah. I I don't know how she found it. I never got to ask her why it was that one and not trees or amphibians or who knows what else I could have ended up doing.
Cody:Yeah. It turned out to be weather, and that was the one.
Shelby:Well, I'm glad that that's the one that it was and that you ended up here.
Cody:Yeah. For sure. Yeah.
Shelby:And so from that point, were there other things, were there weather phenomenon that you experienced when you were growing up that you felt, oh, yeah. This definitely sort of reemphasizes my interest in this?
Cody:Yeah. There were there were a couple. I think that was really the starting the starting point. That was the event that probably made me more keen to really being attentive to weather events and things that were going on. I I do remember, it was maybe a year or 2 after that, so, like, 1st grade, 2nd grade, something like that.
Cody:I had a huge thunderstorm. I grew up in Northern Alabama. So in the southeast, you know, we got we get the frequent thunderstorms a little bit more frequent than we do here in Indiana. And lightning struck one of the trees, out in the yard, and it blew out the light bulb on the lamp that was on top of the television. So there was, like, a flicker, and you could hear glass breaking because the light bulb actually shattered.
Cody:So that was a bit traumatic, you know, at at 7 or 8 years old Yeah. Hearing a light bulb shatter just across the room. And there was, again, sometime around that time, a tornado just a few miles away. And I do remember my parents were in typical southern late 1900 fashion, you know, before 2000, standing out on the front porch watching the clouds. Yeah.
Cody:Exactly. You know what I'm talking about.
Cody:And, of course, they would not let me do that. So I was I was under the stairs, in the little shoe closet under the stairs, hearing out into the living room and yelling out the front door, can you see anything? Can you see anything? And, so, yeah, that that was I I think that helped cement the passion for sure.
Shelby:Yeah. And so then you, from there, decided, you know, after high school, I wanna pursue this as an undergraduate degree, or did you sort of go into to college maybe not being certain of that until you got there?
Cody:No. I knew, yeah, I knew probably from then on that it was gonna be something weather related. Didn't know where in weather meteorology that I would end up. Didn't really know for sure if it would be academia or working for the government or working for a a private company that we have lots of companies in in weather that do forecasting for for separate companies. So didn't know where I would be, but absolutely knew that it would be something meteorology related.
Cody:Sure.
Shelby:Yeah. What are some of those opportunities that folks in the field could go into? I think people always think, oh, well, they could be a weather person on TV. Outside of that, what are some of the things that people could sort of pursue?
Cody:Yeah. Sort of as a maybe as a brag for our department, since I'm here, our students have we have sent people into broadcast. Absolutely right. I do not fit on television well at all. What's what's the old saying?
Cody:I've got a face for radio and a voice for print, I think.
Shelby:I don't know. I'd argue with these headphones, at least, you have a voice for radio.
Cody:It might sound a bit smoother. Yeah. Maybe maybe radio in a rural, Alabama town, something like that. So we have sent people into into broadcast. Absolutely.
Cody:We've sent people to work for the federal government. The National Weather Service hires meteorologists, but so do, so do the Forest Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs. And lots of different agencies in the government need meteorology and they need science, EPA, etcetera. And, we have sent people into what we call the private sector, which just means working for a company. There are big conglomerate companies that that do forecasting.
Cody:Like AccuWeather is one that everybody has the AccuWeather app on their phone. Well, there have to be meteorologists and computer programmers and people who understand how that data gets put in. And there are smaller companies, that do that as well, or you could work directly for companies that hire their own meteorologists like Delta or FedEx or UPS or somebody like that. So there are people all over, and we have had success placing folks in, again, what we would call the private sector, which is what a lot of people would just say is a job or federal government or broadcast anywhere.
Shelby:Yeah. So you go to Oklahoma, and you're, at this point, sort of knowing you wanna go in that field, but not sure where it's gonna lead you. And so Oklahoma, I feel like as someone who has not lived in Oklahoma feels like sort of a hotspot for some extreme weather. Yeah. So were there any of those events while you were there that sort of shaped your time?
Cody:You absolutely spend time storm chasing while you are in school in Oklahoma. That is just part of the thing. You have to do that.
Shelby:Do they have, like, when I think of storm chasing, and again, this is gonna be a highly inaccurate view, I think of the movie Twister Sure. Or the more recent Twisters.
Cody:Yep.
Shelby:Yep. Do they have is that first of all, I guess it's that accurate. And second of all, do they have that sort of equipment so you as students hop onto a truck and and drive around?
Cody:So the is the movie accurate? All Hollywood movies, there there's a little bit of embellishment there, but, you know, there are also going to be some nuggets of science and reality in there a little bit. I will say I got to Oklahoma, I think it was 2 years after the original Twister came out, and they had the largest freshman class they had ever had, you know, in the same way that Jurassic Park spurred that interest for a lot of folks in geology.
Shelby:Right.
Cody:That was absolutely a a reality. There were there were well over a 100 students there in the freshman class. Freshman class that at the time, I think, was normally like 60 or 70, doubled the freshman class for a couple of years.
Shelby:That is wild.
Cody:Huge influx of students. Now a lot of them just saw the movie and said, okay, I wanna be a storm chaser, not realizing that there is a whole heck of a lot of math and science and and really a much more challenging curriculum than, oh, hey. Let's go get in the pickup truck. Like like Twister. Right?
Cody:Let's get in the pickup truck and just have fun riding around the planes. Yeah. Not quite. So that was a big that was a big deal, then. And I think that, I I hope that Twister's, the second one, I hope it has that sort of influence on getting people into science also.
Cody:Yeah. You know, you say Jurassic Park and Twister, to to mention them, also bring women into science because you saw Helen Hunt was very successful in the first movie and helped inspire young women and young girls to to come into the field. I feel that because of the, really, the roots of meteorology coming up through as a military background of learning how to forecast the weather for the purposes of winning wars and fighting battles, you know, World War 2 and d Day and all of those sorts of things, breaking that that stigma that we are an old white man's field.
Shelby:Right.
Cody:And so the movies really have helped to do that. So Oklahoma graduated, and then it was time for graduate school. And Alabama Huntsville, was just the right spot, not because it was close to home. It was still about 3 hours from home. So that was not really close.
Cody:It was not a the kind of thing that I could do and be a commuter student. It really was a a full full time commitment for grad school, but had always come from a family of teachers also. And once you get into graduate school, you know, you start to kinda pin down where your life is going to go if you end up in graduate school. That's really where you start to figure it out. And coming from a family of teachers, it sort of became apparent that, yeah, this is the this is the part of the job that I really enjoy, which is teaching other people about how fun this discipline is, you know, in the in the same way some people love teaching about history or teaching about math or geology or or whatever.
Cody:Yeah. So grad school is really when I figured out, okay, I'm gonna stay I'm gonna stay in school for the rest of my life Yeah. Basically. I'm just gonna change to the other side of the desk.
Shelby:Yeah. Yeah. Was there something while you were in grad school or an experience where you it sort of reinforces idea that, yeah, I love this aspect of teaching and getting to work with people and showing them how amazing this stuff is that we get to do?
Cody:I I wish I had a I wish I had a really snazzy answer for that one, like, maybe I did for the how did you get into the field question. No. It was just it feels like it was a natural evolution that this is what it was gonna be, that that I was I I just I enjoyed it. I felt comfortable at it. I will say one of the things that maybe pushed me away from working for the National Weather Service, working for the government is, I I absolutely adore those people, and I have many colleagues who work for the weather service.
Cody:The shift work is something that, frankly, personally, I was not keen on doing right, working for a week during the day. And then the next week, you work 8 hours from midnight to 8 AM. And then the next week, you work an afternoon or evening shift, and it's just constantly rotating shifts. And there are people who do that in manufacturing and and other other parts of the world and other jobs all the time. More power to everybody who does that.
Cody:It's not for me. I would not have enjoyed that.
Shelby:No.
Cody:I just it it was not I don't think it would have been good for me. I don't think I would have been a good fit for a job like that. But realizing that I loved school from kindergarten onward, I go, why should I leave? Yeah. If I love coming to school, why should I stop being here?
Cody:And, yeah, here I am. I'm still in school. I started in kindergarten, and I've not left.
Shelby:No. Yeah. So not that I've really thought about it, but I never realized that that sort of shift work would be part of some of these organizations. What is the benefit of that rather than having folks who were there just for day shifts or just for night shifts?
Cody:Sure. The the trite answer is weather never stops. Right? There are there is severe weather and there are high impact events that are happening daytime, nighttime, 24 hours a day, and so you have to have somebody there monitoring the weather. We get we even here in Indiana, right, we get thunderstorms overnight Yeah.
Cody:All the time in the summer, and some of those can be dangerous and even deadly. And so there have to be meteorologists there monitoring and tracking and and alerting people, making sure that watches and warnings go out, and making sure that people get the information that they need to to basically to save lives. Yeah. Because that's the whole goal of having a federally funded weather service is you've got a centralized group of people that have the expertise and can get the information out to you and hopefully save your life if something serious is on the way. Yeah.
Shelby:Yeah. So when I was in grad school, a friend of mine that I just met while I lived in Tucson, he was an energy trader, and he worked one of those shift jobs like you mentioned. And so his job was to if he worked the day shift for a week, then he monitored real time energy use by people that were in his region. And he would have to determine, well, by the end of the day, are we gonna be out of energy that we had sort of allocated for the day? Or are we gonna have excess energy, which we don't want because it's lost money.
Cody:Right.
Shelby:So let me try to offload that to some other grid that needs this energy. Yeah. And then the next week, he might work night shift, and so his job was to look at the last week's usage and make predictions about what the next day's usage or demands may be and to find places to buy that energy. And then the next week, he may work 2 days 3 nights. And that schedule, again, like, more power to the people who do that.
Shelby:It is so impressive that people can manage that. I think for me, having, like, a regular daytime job, sometimes that alone is hard, but having to change your routine that frequently is is tough. So and especially in situations like this where where forecasters are, like you said, their job is their goal is to save lives. That is such a crucial job for people to have and and so more power to them.
Cody:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. The the energy, trading is another place that meteorologists and climatologists have a lot of success. And there is big business that is a big business, right?
Cody:That is a billion dollar business, probably multibillion dollar. And so having good forecasts of when are we gonna need to turn the heat on a little bit more or the AC on a little bit more, there's a lot of money that can be gained or lost by a good forecast or a bad forecast. Yeah. But, again, yeah, that's a 24 hour phenomenon. Yep.
Cody:So you've gotta be working and monitoring those trends, all day and night. And I I will say since, you know, Shelby, you and I are both in academia, there are a lot of people who think we've got really cushy daytime jobs where we can take off and and leave at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and not come in until 9 or 10 Yeah. You know, on most days and all summer vacation, right, and all these myths around academia. Yeah. Thankfully, we don't have to work overnight, but that doesn't mean that the job stops Yeah.
Cody:Right, when we go home. So let let's just acknowledge here
Shelby:that Yes. Then it's good to acknowledge.
Cody:Just for just for the sake of the listeners that that, yeah, this is not always a a cushy little, you know, 9 to 3 type thing.
Shelby:Oh, I wish there were some 9 to 3 days in there.
Cody:I do too. Yeah. You get what? Maybe one of those a month or so, and that's really because you've gotta go do something else in the evening.
Cody:Yeah. There's another commitment somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Shelby:Yeah. So so for folks who are thinking about this field, so you mentioned, I mean, a really broad range of job opportunities. So I'm imagining that there are lots of skills that you develop through school that end up being really applicable across the board? And so what are some things that that, like, you felt like you walked away from undergrad and graduate school having these skills that you developed, and have you used them in ways outside of meteorology?
Cody:Yeah. I think when I was going through school, the big things that we were we were taught or the the courses and the classes that we had to focus on were were a lot of just the math and science. It was really the pure more pure meteorology. It was learn your your math, your calculus, and your algebra, and all of that in your in your science classes, your true meteorology classes, where you're where you're putting a lot of the equations and the ideas and the maps together. And the field has, I think, started to evolve a little bit toward, emphasizing communication skills a lot more and making sure that when you have a weather forecast or you need to communicate an alert or a warning or or an emergency to someone, are you doing it in the right way that the people who need that information are getting it in a way that they can understand it and that they know to move, they know to take action?
Cody:And the the reason for that is a lot of our work, not all of it, but a lot of our forecasting is done by computers these days. And this is not AI and machine learning and all the buzzwords of of the day. We have been doing this for a decade, for 15 years. The forecasts are almost as good as they can get, frankly, in a lot of cases. And so now it's how do you make sure that people get that in information and do something with it?
Shelby:Yeah. So it's sort of interesting you say that because in some ways, I feel like whether you've wanted to carry this burden or not, you've become like an unofficial weather alert person for the region. And I think, you know, like, I personally sometimes will look up your weather alerts whenever there's bad weather. So I'm from Kentucky, and now I'm here in Indiana. And I feel like we've had some increases even in the years I've been here of severe storms and of, you know, high winds and tornadoes and things like that.
Shelby:And I always like to look at the things that you are mentioning to folks because I think you do a really, really good job of providing information in a way that identifies the people who should be notified without causing undue panic to folks that don't need to know some of this information. And so whenever you are sort of looking at developing storms, I guess, what do you look at to decide when is it appropriate for you to sort of warn people, hey, it might be time to to to put your kids in the basement under the stairs and for you to go out on the porch and watch the storm. Right. Right. And then then how do you decide to communicate that?
Shelby:Because I do think you do a really, really good job of that.
Cody:You know, I think of the maybe a little bit of a cult following that
Shelby:Yes.
Cody:has developed here. Part of that, I think, has happened because although, yes, we have a growing atmospheric science program here in Bloomington at IU, there are not a lot of meteorologists in this town, probably 3 or 4 of us in total, I think. I have met 2 or 3 others, and then we have 2 or 3 on faculty. So maybe there are half a dozen of us total. And so as someone who just enjoys talking about the weather, it makes sense for me to share that passion with with people.
Cody:And one of the ways to to do that is really during extreme events, during threatening events. Because when it's 80 and sunny outside, nobody's paying attention No. Really to the weather. Right? Nobody is really that interested in the weather, and that's easy in a lot of cases.
Cody:And so when you get these big thunderstorms, these flood events, the heavy snow events that we get in the wintertime, I like what you said about making sure that people get the information that they need. And I think one of the really important things, like I said, about the evolution of our of our field and really of our degrees, making sure you can communicate well is the old tried and true know your audience. Who are you speaking to and what are you really telling them about? You know, if you're talking about thunderstorm risk with fellow professionals, you're going to throw out jargon and all sorts of technical details that somebody on the street will have no idea what you're talking about. And in the same way that you would do that, right, you would do that for things in your lab, you would have to explain it knowing who your audience is.
Cody:And if you're doing that on social media, you also have to acknowledge that you are space limited to a certain number of words or characters or whatever it might be. And depending on the delivery method also. Right? Is it a TikTok or a YouTube or an Instagram or a Twitter or a or a blue sky or whatever? And so keeping all of that in mind for knowing your audience really causes you to to have to think carefully about what you say and how you say it.
Cody:And there I think there are a lot of folks who do that well. I don't know if I'm one of them consistently.
Shelby:I would argue you are.
Cody:You you can slip into the whole nerdy jargony side of it sometimes, and you have to be a little bit careful with with thinking about, okay, who are you who are you talking to here? You know, are you talking to people who know what's going on and are seasoned scientists or know their way around a thunderstorm, right, or know their way around a blizzard and know how to drive in that kind of weather. Or a lot of times I think about, okay, we're here in Bloomington. We got 40,000 students in Bloomington. And, yeah, I'm not reaching all of them, but a lot of those folks are from totally different places in the world.
Cody:Some people have never driven in even heavy rain before. Had a couple of our graduate students, last winter who had never seen snow before. Our own graduate students Yeah. Never seen snow because they come from a warm equatorial climate or had never heard the outdoor warning sirens go off.
Shelby:Which is a little traumatic if you aren't expecting it. Absolutely.
Cody:Or if you come from a if you come from a part of the world where you associate those with a tsunami risk. So if you come from Japan or coastal China or someplace, you have a totally different meaning in your locked into your brain for what those sounds or symbols mean. And so I think helping communicate to those folks that here's what these things are like here for us. Maybe you can make that little bit of time that you're here in Bloomington a little bit more enjoyable, but also a little bit less anxiety filled. Yeah.
Cody:And that's one of the things I like about teaching the large 100 level classes that I do, the sort of the 1st year courses, is I like to tell them, yeah, we're gonna talk about the big stuff, the hurricanes, the tornadoes, the blizzards, the things that cause injuries and fatalities, frankly, but also talk about them in a way to hopefully, if you are scared of these things, if you are anxious about these things, you can leave the room with a little bit more knowledge. Because when you're more informed, I would like to think that you're gonna be less intimidated by this stuff because you know what to do when it happens.
Shelby:Yeah. I mean, even I feel that way. That's why I like to look at your updates whenever there are bad storms because I feel like you yeah. You provide the information and I can see that and feel feel reassured and less anxious. And, you know, it's much harder for me to communicate that with my cats who are anxious regardless, but I try.
Shelby:So you having this expertise, are there ever times where you get a little anxious with some of these storms, or are you sort of on the porch the whole time letting people know?
Cody:On the porch or glued to the computer screen. Right. Looking at data is really part of it. Everybody has their own risk tolerance. Right?
Cody:Yours might be if you hear of something coming in the general direction of Bloomington, it's time to go seek shelter and whatever that means for you or anyone else. Right? Whether that's put on a baseball helmet and get in the basement or go into an interior room. Whatever anybody's definition of get to safety is, that's fine. Everybody has to make their own choices about that.
Cody:So my risk tolerance is quite a bit. I'm willing to tolerate quite a bit because if I see that something is going to be a couple of miles away from me, I'm not probably gonna do that much because I feel like I have enough knowledge for myself to protect myself in a way that I'm willing to tolerate that. For other people, I would say there are people who would need to comfort themselves and probably at that point, yeah, you probably go sit in the hall closet for for 10 or 15 minutes Yeah. That sort of thing. Yeah.
Cody:So I think of it that way is yeah. It's all about our personal risk tolerance. Yeah. Yeah. And mine is mine is pretty high.
Shelby:It's up there.
Cody:I'm willing to
Shelby:yeah.
Cody:I'm willing to take I'm willing to take some risk. Now one thing I will say, not to make it sound like I'm almost an idiot when it comes to that sort of stuff, lightning is the thing that I don't fool around with because it's just so unpredictable. I feel like it is the most unpredictable of all the thunderstorm phenomena, really. You know, tornadoes and and heavy rain and and even large hail, you you can sorta handle those. But, oh, man, lightning, I we we don't fool around with lightning.
Shelby:Yeah. Yeah. So it feels like even in the few years I've lived in Bloomington, I mentioned this before, like, the storm severity has has increased or the persistence of those storms has increased. What has played into that? Is that sort of our new normal?
Shelby:Is that what we should expect over the coming decades?
Cody:I this is a good question. I honestly don't know if that's true or not from a data point of view. So not to contradict you. I'm
Cody:I'm actually not sure, but the the thing that I would say about that is it only takes one event in a season, for example, for that season to be so memorable. Right? Yeah. We get here in Southern Indiana, we get somewhere around a foot or a foot and a half of snow on average every year. But people don't think about that as what happens every year.
Cody:You think of the 8 inches of snow that we got on that Valentine's Day 1 year that shut down the buses and shut down the entire town at 3 in the afternoon. Someday that I had to walk home from campus, 2 miles, the old grandpa story. Right? 2 miles in the snow uphill to get home. Yes.
Cody:That's how I had to get home that day. And so those are the kinds of things that are the most memorable. Right? The McCormick's Creek tornado last year in March
Shelby:Yep.
Cody:That there were fatalities out at the state park, because people didn't get the warning. And those are the things that are memorable. So I don't know if we I don't know if we have had an increase here. There are parts of the country where we got enough data to say, yeah, there there probably are a few more high impact, as we might say, high impact events happening. I think part of that is going to be that we are paying more attention to the weather.
Cody:Right? Climate climate change is more in the news lately. Weather and high impact weather is all over every social media feed and the news and those beautiful pictures and videos of tornadoes out in Oklahoma and Kansas, those sell. Yeah. Right?
Cody:Those are popular and those are fun to look at. And you go, oh my gosh. Look at how look at how crazy these drivers are driving right up to this tornado. And those get clicks and those get views. And so we're more attuned to weather, I think, which is a good thing Yeah.
Cody:For me. I'm I'm all for it.
Shelby:You've been there.
Cody:If yeah. And if we all get a little bit more engaged with the natural world, whether it's atmosphere or rocks or oceans or something else, I'm all for it. Let's do that. Yeah.
Shelby:So you had had mentioned before when you went through graduate school, that's when it sort of cemented that you knew you wanted to sort of stay in the teaching realm. And so how has that led you to IU and what does that look like here? Because I think this idea of getting people engaged is one that, from my perspective, you're really, really good at, both through your alerts, but also through the interactions I I know that you have with students.
Cody:Yeah. The the graduate work at Alabama Huntsville, after that, most of us who stay in academia do some sort of postdoctoral work. And, mine after Huntsville, I went to Boulder, Colorado for a year and a half, which is a a very common place for someone in atmospheric science or meteorology to go, either as a career scientist or as a postdoc or even as a graduate student visitor for a week or a month or something. So I was there in Boulder for a while, and it was at a time when the one of the recessions or one of the downturns that we had back around 2008, 2009, and it was clear that I was not gonna be able to stay there. I was not gonna turn into something long term.
Cody:And so, basically, I needed a job. And as many of us find out, sometimes you apply for the jobs that are open when you need a job. And IU was in need of someone to be a visiting faculty member, so it was intended to be a temporary thing. I was only supposed to be here for 2 years, because someone was doing, some sort of administrative temporary position, something like that. And so only supposed to be here for 2 years.
Cody:That person ended up moving on to somewhere else. And the department chair at the time came to me and said, what do you think about about staying here and teaching some of these classes for a long time and not a short time? And I said to the chair at the time, I said, yes, ma'am. Let's do it. And so 12 years later, here I am.
Cody:And, one of the classes, I think, that got me hired for the visiting position was my 1st year course called extreme weather. And 1st year I taught it as a visiting temporary faculty member, we had 9 students in that course the first time, and it now has a 150 students in it.
Shelby:And and I'm assuming probably a wait list?
Cody:It does sometimes end up Yeah.
Cody:Wait list. Yeah. So it instead of 9, now it's a 150 every semester. And so we have really turned that into, a a behemoth of a class. You know, it's not as big as, like, the some of the big 400 person biology classes.
Cody:But as as far as a general elective sort of class that people from the media school and the music school and the business school and all over campus, it gets students from from all over, to take that. Yeah. It it really has grown into something that hopefully, again, influences, the the lives of a lot of people and develops some appreciation for the sky and for the atmosphere and for the for the natural world a little bit more. I hope so.
Shelby:Yeah. And I I would argue that it's it's not only grown into that. You have really helped shape it into that. So I feel like we are very lucky to to have you as part of the department because you give us such a good sort of front facing view with the students to to engage. You just do a really nice job.
Cody:Well, I yeah. I appreciate that. I'll I'll say from a teaching point of view, the the big classes like that, the the 50, a 100, 150 person classes, those are not the the typical kinda college classes that a lot of people that a lot of people think is what college is about. Right? Those are stage performances from the teacher's side of the desk.
Cody:Those really are, you have to be up there and you have to be a little bit theatrical and you have to perform because you have to keep everybody's attention for an hour, for an hour and a half, and that's really hard. And so, yeah, there there has to be a little bit. You have to throw a little bit of personality in it. So maybe, throw in a little bit of southern charm and a little bit of, you know, self deprecating humor and, right, you you throw all the stuff you have at them to try and keep people engaged because you have to do that in those really big classes, I think, to be successful. Yeah.
Shelby:Yeah. Yeah. And so so I I have to ask this sort of for my own personal interest. You have traveled around to several different states and institutions, and I know you're a big sports fan.
Cody:Yeah.
Shelby:And many of these states have very loyal fan bases. So, ultimately, where where does your viewership lie? Who who are you the fan of?
Cody:Yeah. So I tell my I tell all my students, especially in the fall semester, I tell them I do not answer email on Saturday. That's that's rule number 1. We do not we do not talk to each other on Saturday. Saturday is for college football.
Cody:Yeah. But I was raised in Northern Alabama. And so I am I am from a family of Alabama fans, and so I have been a fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide since I was 3 or 4 years old. That's all I've known is
Shelby:Even even before meteorology, it was Alabama football.
Cody:Had nothing yeah. Had nothing to do with meteorology. Had everything to do with I was I was raised properly by my family to be an Alabama fan and not an Auburn fan. I hesitated just then even to say the word.
Shelby:We can bleep that out in post production. Yeah.
Cody:Yes. Please bleep out that that awful six letter word. Yes. And so that was it. And then even when I went to Oklahoma, loved going to Oklahoma football games while I was there as an undergrad.
Cody:It was it was tons of fun. Still, yes, Alabama is home. It's capital h home
Shelby:Yeah.
Cody:For me. And then after Oklahoma moving to Alabama Huntsville, they're a division 2 school, which in the NCAA means their athletics are a bit smaller and the scholarships are allocated differently, that sort of thing. They had a really good ice hockey team. And so I made a commitment. Some buddies and I, We went to every ice hockey home game.
Cody:I went to every home basketball game because those are the good sports Yeah. There. That was a lot of fun, to get to go to. But even through that, Saturday is college football, and we're watching Alabama or whoever whoever they're playing. Yeah.
Cody:That that's been it. And and and even here. Yeah. Even here now. That's that's the routine.
Shelby:And there's there there might be no correlation to this whatsoever, but I also know you do a lot of maybe predicting. You like, during March Madness, you you come up with your own brackets. Yeah. And I know there's a lot of thought that goes into that. Are any of the skills that you're using to come up with those things related at all or tangential to some of the things that you use for weather predicting?
Cody:Yeah. Absolutely. It's the prediction and sort of, prognostication, right, is really it's all math in a lot of ways. Even the things that the Las Vegas, the bookies, and the the the betting markets, It is largely, at the start, a mathematical problem. It's it's a math problem and then tweaks by humans, human human influence to figure out what is the right prediction, what's the right what's the right thing to maximize profit if you're there for for that purpose.
Cody:And that is pretty much what it comes down to. So in graduate school, when you are learning the intricacies of some of these forecast models and forecast techniques, it's a highly mathematical field. It's it's all rooted in math and physics and and principles of equations and programming. You can use those same sort of tools, for a different challenge. And in the same way that we try to predict the weather and specific temperatures, it's going to be 81 today 83 tomorrow or whatever the right answer is.
Cody:You can do the same thing, with sports and say, okay. I think they're going to score 71 points, but maybe tomorrow it'll be 74 points of the next game or whatever. So, yeah, it it really is a lot of the same. It really is a lot of the same skills. Yeah.
Cody:And there are multiple people in that sort of, I guess, the modern word now is analytics. Right? It's sports analytics. There are multiple people who are quite popular in the analytics world who are actually former meteorologists. Yeah.
Cody:There there are people who got their who got their start, in meteorology and realized that there's there's money to be made somewhere else Yeah. Also. Yay.
Shelby:Is that is that an aspiration of yours, like, post retirement to to go into sports analytics?
Cody:No interest Yeah. At all. No. No. No.
Cody:Very happy very happy to stay here and keep that as a hobby. Yeah. That that's a that's a hobby of mine. Yeah. Yeah.
Shelby:You just use it to to run the board whenever we have department bracket challenges. It's for fun. Yeah.
Cody:That that's totally for fun. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Shelby:Well, Cody, this has been great having you on. Thank you for joining. And so we'll wrap up today with our Yes, Please segment where we each get one minute to sort of stand on a soapbox and talk passionately about something that we're excited by. Do you wanna go first? Do you want me to go first?
Cody:I can go first. That's okay. Yeah.
Shelby:So I will keep a timer.
Cody:Okay.
Shelby:And I will let you know audibly whenever you have 30 seconds, 15, and 5.
Cody:Okay.
Shelby:And so if you are ready, this is Cody Kirkpatrick. Yes, please.
Cody:Thanks, Shelby. Just as we were talking about, using, sort of math and programming to do bracket prediction and and things like that. You you started me into this sec into this segment. It's a really perfect segue. I have been part of the, really sports analytics world or the prediction world.
Cody:So not just March Madness brackets, which is really the common way to do it, but, developing my own computer ratings
Shelby:30 seconds.
Cody:For football and basketball and other sports for the better part of 20 something years since I was in graduate school. And so predicting who's gonna be number 1, who's gonna win the national championship, who's gonna make it to the NBA finals.
Shelby:15 seconds.
Cody:All of those things. I've been doing that for for 20 something years, again, using those sorts of formulas and starting good conversations, at the at the office, at the lunch table about who's the better team, who's gonna win this weekend. Been doing that for ages. Yeah.
Shelby:Very nice. So do you have an idea of sort of your general track record? Like, how how well have you done with those predictions? And do you wanna give any spoiler alerts to people who are listening for who to choose for, I don't know, like the NBA finals?
Cody:Oh, man. NBA finals, too early to tell. Right? Because the season just got underway a few games ago. I would say since we are we're recording this in early November of 2024.
Cody:As much as people are making fun of, Ryan Day for losing to Oregon and not able to win a big game, they just won on the road at undefeated Penn State. Ohio State is real. Oregon, Dan Lanning, absolutely, they are real. Don't sleep on IU. They're 9 and o.
Cody:They're 2 wins out of 3 games left, 2 wins away from probably qualifying for the playoff, 3 wins away from playing for a bye in the college football playoff. So legit teams out there in addition to all the wonderful SEC teams and and big 12 teams and others who are out there too. So those are those are some picks those are some some ideas that the computers are saying are really good teams.
Shelby:Right. So
Cody:yeah. Track record, all of us who have done this, there are probably 5 or 6 dozen of us across the country who do this sort of thing. You can't beat Vegas. A computer can't beat Vegas because you cannot beat a human touch. In the same way that the temperature forecast you see on your phone is a straight computer generated thing in an app, A human will beat that every single time because a human touch will recognize, nope.
Cody:That's biased. Nope. It's supposed to be a little bit sunnier. Right? A little bit of correction.
Cody:A little bit of human correction is gonna win every single time. But most of us are all comparable to the others. The a formula will give you, about the best prediction of reality no matter how you draw it up, no matter where you put the plus and minus signs. It all turns out just about the same way every time. So, yeah, comparable with with some of the with some of the best and some of the other ones that are out there too.
Cody:Yeah.
Shelby:Yeah. We'll have to check back in in, like, early 2025 and see see how your NCAA football predictions
Cody:Let's
Shelby:pan out.
Cody:Let's see who, yeah, let's see who made it through the through the bracket. Yeah. Exactly.
Shelby:Yeah. Alright. It is now my turn.
Cody:Alright.
Shelby:Cody, if you don't mind to time me.
Cody:You got it.
Shelby:Yep. This will be my yes, please segment. So yes, please. Let's, get excited for the holiday season. At the time of recording, it's a little early for that.
Shelby:But by the time this comes out, we'll be sort of in the midst of the holiday season. And I recognize that for a lot of folks, this is an incredibly stressful time. If you work in retail, I can only imagine what that is like. You probably are so tired of holiday music by the time the actual holidays roll around. But I love the holidays because I look at it as an opportunity to to sort of be extra nice to somebody.
Shelby:So I try to tip a little extra if I can.
Cody:30 seconds.
Shelby:I try to be really friendly anytime I'm traveling to the flight attendants. You know, they're probably going through some really tough times with with customer service and the the public facing portion of their job during this really stressful period of the year. So use that as an opportunity to embrace being nice.
Cody:15.
Shelby:Embrace being kind. Make their day. Maybe that'll be a little memorable, and it will make you feel better about yourself and really bring the holiday cheer. So I love this time of the year. It feels nice and cozy.
Shelby:So hopefully, we can all embrace that a little more.
Cody:Love it. Yeah. I think for me, the the most stressful part of traveling is dealing with other people. Yes. Because you you try to be a little bit, a little bit serendipitous about it and just say, okay.
Cody:Look. If the flight's delayed or if the if it's gonna snow and you need to adjust the driving plans a little bit, fine. Do that. But, boy, there are some people who are just not bless their hearts. Yes.
Cody:That are just not good travelers.
Shelby:Right? Bless their hearts. Exactly.
Cody:Yeah. Try to, yeah, try to be a good traveler and and try to appreciate that if you're delayed, it's okay. Go get a deck of cards and play play some solitaire, play some gin rummy or something, and it's it's gonna be alright. You're gonna get there.
Shelby:Yeah. We're all on the same boat.
Cody:Enjoy the journey. Yeah. The journey can be just as enjoyable as the destination sometimes.
Shelby:And even if it's not, it usually makes for a good story.
Cody:That's right. You've got a lifetime story to to remember and tell. Yeah. Exactly right. Yeah.
Shelby:Thank you again, Cody. And for folks who are listening, join us next week for what will be our last episode of the season. So we look forward to having you back. Earth on the Rocks is produced by Kari Metz with artwork provided by Connor Lomgruber, with technical recording managed by Kate Krum and Betsy Leija. Funding for this podcast was provided by the National Science Foundation Grant, EAR dash 2422824.
