By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — As the new science and operations officer at the National Weather Service Office in Caribou, Todd Foisy has already implemented a few new programs and technologies to help strengthen meteorologists’ forecasting abilities. One new program, for example, automatically enters cloud cover from current satellite imagery to a program that assists forecasters with weather predictions — a task that previously meant manually imputing the same data into the program.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Charged with keeping forecasters equipped with the latest scientific advancements in forecasting, new Science and Operations Officer Todd Foisy has been at the technological helm of the National Weather Service’s Caribou office since November.
It’s Foisy’s job to determine what new sciences and technologies to incorporate at the weather office, and he’s responsible for training and administering those technologies.
Foisy began work at the Caribou weather office in early November and while the snow has been slow-going as of late, the Alabama-native can’t wait for winter to precipitously announce its arrival.
Foisy and his wife, Jenevra, love snow.
They love snow so much that it’s their daughter’s middle name.
But Foisy’s passion for weather started long before he met his wife and well before 8-month-old Zola arrived; he recalls first being very interested in the weather back in 1993 when a blizzard hit his hometown of Birmingham.
He was only 12 years old at the time, but he vividly recalls that 17 inches of snow fell during the storm.
While many of us are too busy devising ways to remove the snow from dooryards to study it, one of the things Foisy finds fascinating about the flurries is that one inch of water can produce vastly different amounts of snow due to temperature and how well the flakes form.
As Foisy explained, one innocuous inch of rain can mean between eight inches and three feet of snow.
Foisy first started working with the National Weather Service during college in 2001, and began working full-time in 2004 after graduating from the University of Utah.
Having been the science and operations officer for a couple months now, Foisy still finds time to participate in daily forecasting from time to time.
Not only is forecasting an enjoyable part of the job, it helps him find areas where new technologies could benefit the meteorologists with either time-saving tools or increased accuracy.
“I like being able to help make better forecasts for the public,” the new science and operations officer said.
Foisy’s also a driving force behind the office’s Facebook page.
