As a meteorologist, Laura produces routine forecast products (advisories and updates that you would see on TV or on weather apps). Laura works at the only office physically located in Georgia, which covers forecasts and warnings, such as tornadoes and flash floods, for about two-thirds of the state. There are 122 National Weather Service offices scattered across the country. While most people think of meteorologists as the people who deliver the local daily weather forecast on TV, the couple works largely behind the scenes, analyzing weather data and its impacts, getting us all prepared for weather’s next big event. But graduates of Tech’s earth andĪtmospheric sciences program leave with a fundamental knowledge of earth science-as well as a passion to solve the world’s problems. While he was in class, James might have resented sitting through lectures on earthquakes and atmospheric chemistry when all he wanted to learn about was severe thunderstorms and hurricanes. The curriculum didn’t just focus on one facet, but provided them with a breadth of knowledge in the field.
The closeness to their hometowns played a factor, but the big draw was the prestige of the school and the holistic approach of Tech’s earth and atmospheric sciences program. She walked out of the meeting with an offer for a volunteer position.īoth Laura and James turned to Georgia Tech to jumpstart their careers in meteorology. What was supposed to be a 15-minute conversation lasted an hour and a half because she wouldn’t stop asking questions. Through acquaintances, she set up an interview at the National Weather Service in her hometown of Peachtree City, Ga. In the eighth grade, she was given a homework assignment to talk to someone with an occupation that she might like to have someday. “It was kind of a no-brainer that I wanted to go to a university where I could become a meteorologist.”Īs for Laura, she wanted to be a dentist. “During elementary school, when we had our closed-circuit television broadcast, I was the TV weather guy,” James says.
He spent the first few years of his life in North Carolina before moving to Georgia, and he remembers staying up late to watch the old TV version of radar, looking for snow. Since the age of four, James knew he wanted to be a meteorologist. But according to James, it was not because of Jeanetta. Instead of watching cartoons as a kid, he would sit and watch the Weather Channel for hours. Laura Belanger likes to tease her husband, James, that his first love was Weather Channel meteorologist Jeanetta Jones.