About Me
Here's a few more details about me, outside of storm chasing...
My parents and sister and I lived in Kirkland, Washington (Seattle metro) until I was eight. At that time, we moved to the East Side of the Cascade Mountains, to the much smaller town of Ellensburg. My family raised many different animals on our small hobby farm, including cats, dogs, rabbits, chickens, geese, guineas, sheep, cattle, and occasionally skunks (though not on purpose...). Not to mention the fish, butterflies, moths, and praying mantises that my sister and I raised from time to time.
The first profession I decided to follow was that of a veterinarian, back when I was very young and my favorite TV show was "All Creatures Great and Small", about the British vet James Herriot. When I was about five or six, our dog got sick and I realized I couldn't handle sick pets very well. This was about the time I decided to be a marine biologist, because I loved the ocean and marine animals so much. This was also around the time I saw the old 50s musical "Oklahoma!" and decided that someday I wanted to go to the state of Oklahoma. Mostly because of all the cowboys, wide-open farm country, and tornadoes. :-P
When I was ten, I saw my first two comets, Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp. At that point I decided to become an astronomer. When I was twelve, I saw my first tornado, which passed right by my family's farm. Then came a brief time where I wanted to become a meteorologist. By the time I was a junior in high school, however, I'd changed back to wanting to be a marine biologist.
My sister and I were homeschooled all the way through high school. While juniors in high school, we started taking college classes at Central Washington University, in Ellensburg. After my first quarter, I changed my mind from marine biology to Spanish, as I found I loved learned foreign languages. I graduated high school in 2003 and declared my major in geography. Between Spanish and geography, I briefly wanted to be a photojournalist after my photography class. I finally realized I just had to pick something and stick with it, so settled on geography, as I enjoyed my geography classes and had decided to go to graduate school in meteorology or climatology.
In the summer of 2005, a lifelong dream came true as I was given the opportunity to go to Oklahoma for a 10-week research project. I had such a wonderful time that I knew I wanted to come back and study at the University of Oklahoma. I also had the chance to go storm chasing a few times, and quickly got hooked.
I graduated from CWU in June 2006, with a BA in geography, minors in physics and math, and a GIS certificate (geographic information systems). I'd applied to both OU and Penn State for graduate school in meteorology, and was accepted to both. After much deliberation, I felt OU would likely make me happiest (I already knew people there and I wanted to experience severe weather firsthand), so I drove down to Norman on the day after I graduated. I arrived three days later and started my research work one week later.
It has certainly been a huge adventure over the past few years. In spring 2009, I graduated from OU with an MS in meteorology. My research work was in storm electrification and lightning. From fall 2009 through spring 2010, I taught two semesters of a severe weather class at OU, and really loved it. I also began storm chasing with KSBI-TV in Oklahoma City in spring 2010. In summer of 2010, I began work on another research project in lightning. I'll be wrapping that up in spring 2011, and then I'll be looking for other employment.
Happy Chasing!
Hobbies/interests: storm chasing, star gazing, going to/watching sports games, playing volleyball and tennis, hiking, fishing, swimming, biking, roller blading, stamp collecting, practicing the piano and the banjo, reading, keeping my cat out of trouble, listening to music, photography, traveling, programming, working on this website, etc....
Favorite sport: BASEBALL!! Especially Seattle Mariners baseball! Hockey and football deserve an honorable mention.
Favorite types of weather: tornadoes, supercells, lightning, hail, and mesoscale convective systems (hence why I live in Oklahoma)
Questions? Comments? Email me at: webmaster@greenskychaser.com
© 2009 - 2011 by Rebekah LaBar. All rights reserved.