Tom Ainsworth joins KCAW’s Robert Woolsey on the eve of his retirement after 36 years with the National Weather Service. Ainsworth is the Meteorologist in Charge at the Juneau station. And after all these years, one of his favorite things? Working the forecast desk, which he says keeps him grounded – despite watching the sky.
Over his tenure as a meteorologist, Ainsworth says he has seen a lot of change in two areas: the technology he uses to track the weather, and the weather itself. He remembers the days of teletypes, facsimile machines, and big, bulky monitors. Now, it’s all see hi-res images and full color. And expectations have kept apace: people want more from their forecasters. Mostly, that means more detail. Back in the day, Ainsworth says, Sitka to Yakutat would have been a single forecast area. Now, it’s broken down into several sections.
As for the weather, Ainsworth says Southeast Alaska is warmer than ever. He measures that in part by the decline in snowfall, a familiar issue to many Alaskans in Southeast struggling with drought. He can’t say if it’s a short term blip or a long term trend, but rather suspects the later.
And his plans for retirement? Ainsworth doesn’t have many, besides relaxing and traveling.
