Full Transcript
Pete:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, this is Pete Lane. Today on Blind Abilities, we present Ryan Lukowicz, who has a fascinating interest in a unique topic – meteorology. As a matter of fact, he has studied meteorology for four years now, and has developed an expertise in the topic that is respected across the industry. And so you might ask, where did he attend college? How did he attain such an advanced knowledge of this subject that is rooted in complex science? Well, the answers to these questions may surprise you, because this individual did not attend college, at least not yet. After all, he is only 14 years old. Instead he has developed his expertise through self-study and his own initiative. Let’s meet Ryan Lukowicz.
Jeff:
You’ve been doing it for four years, that puts you only a decade old when you first got interested in meteorology.
Pete:
Ryan Lukowicz, a meteorological prodigy.
Ryan:
I’ve always had something for journalism and public speaking, and then I particularly enjoyed, you know, when the weather came on-
Ryan (recording):
Welcome to episode 36 of the Behind the Weather Forecast podcast, thanks for tuning in.
Ryan:
I did written forecasts, and live videos. I really took it up another level when I started my podcast, Behind the Weather Forecast.
Jeff:
What is doppler radar?
Ryan:
Doppler radar is the radar system that a lot of meteorologists use. It is truly the best of the best. Doppler radar’s very localized, it can pinpoint things down to a street or road or a part of a town.
Pete:
With his sights set on broadcast meteorology, focusing on the personal approach.
Ryan:
I always say the best people to turn to is your local station. We have three Providence stations, five Boston stations, and four stations in Connecticut in the three different markets.
Female meteorologist:
Areas north and west of Boston are going to get some-
Male meteorologist:
The highest total I’ve seen so far as a gardener was seven inches of snow-
Male newscaster:
-now, your storm team five forecast-
Female meteorologist:
-and that is why we have a winter storm watch just up from the National Weather Service.
Male meteorologist:
We’ve actually picked up a bit of snow shower activity-
Gale:
-and you know, Niles of our Boston station, WBZ, is tracking the blizzard. Danielle, good morning to you!
Danielle:
Absolutely, Gale, good morning to you-
Ryan:
I look at most of those to see what they’re all saying.
Pete:
Optimistic that accessible tools will come in due time.
Ryan:
I don’t know how we would work with the blindness. I don’t know, maybe Seeing Eye will come out with a model interpreting channel here.
Pete:
Joining Jeff in the Blind Abilities studio, one of our more fascinating guests, with a story of drive and ambition, and the motivation to focus on his goals. Now let’s join Jeff Thompson, with his guest Ryan Lukowicz.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah, we’re all kind of curious about the weather. It’s always, you know, what’s the weather like?
Jeff:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson. Today in the studio we have Ryan Lukowicz, and he is a high school student out in Rhode Island, and he has been studying meteorology, weather reporting, for over four years. Ryan, how are you doing?
Ryan:
I’m great, Jeff. How are you?
Jeff:
I’m good. Thank you so much for coming onto Blind Abilities. I heard your story, you reached out, and you know, you’ve been doing it for four years, that puts you only a decade old when you first got interested in meteorology.
Ryan:
Yeah, I got into it at an early age for sure.
Jeff:
And what led you to where you are today? What’s the drive behind it?
Ryan:
You know, my parents have always had the news on at night, you know, while we’re eating dinner, and in the morning when I was getting ready for school, and I’ve always had something for journalism and public speaking, and then I particularly enjoyed, you know, when the weather came on, and seeing- well, not seeing, obviously, but I guess hearing and observing what those people do and, I don’t know, I just enjoyed it and said oh, you know, maybe I could start my own thing, and then about four years ago, it was about 2016, probably closer to five years now to be honest with you, in the spring of that year I started my Facebook page, and I did written forecasts, and live videos. I really took it up another level when I started my podcast, Behind the Weather Forecast, which was started in July.
Ryan (recording):
Welcome to episode 34 of the Behind the Weather Forecast podcast, thanks for listening. I’m your host, Ryan Lukowicz. Here on the phone today is Harvey Leonards, the chief meteorologist up at WCVP-
Ryan:
The pandemic has been horrible for many reasons, obviously, for the world, but it has been good to provide extra time for people. I have a Twitter and an Instagram as well, Facebook is where my main audience is, and where I’ve been for a while, and now on the podcast I’m covering severe weather topics as well as interviewing various meteorologists, media members, and other interesting people.
Jeff:
Yeah, I’ve listened to a couple of them, and I was like wow, well, at least the meteorologists are at home and they’re able to spend some time talking about what they do best.
Ryan:
Yeah, it’s been really fun getting to hear their stories, especially like some of them are more national. My audience is mostly here in southern New England, and people have really enjoyed getting to know the meteorologists that they watch and I watch every day on TV, and then also I’ve had people on from Washington, Alabama, Atlanta. It’s been fun to also hear about different climates and different perspectives from across the country.
Jeff:
Did they get started in meteorology the same way you did? Sparked that interest, and then that led them further on down the journey?
Ryan:
Yeah, so everybody is different, you know, I’ve had 12 different people on, you know, they all have similarities and differences. There’s actually a couple here in Rhode Island who are reporters at the same station, so their stories are quite unique and they’re doing some cool stuff. Some people don’t really find out that they love it until they’re in college. I had one person on who didn’t find out until he was a junior in college, and a lot of times professors inspire them. Other people you hear a similar story to me, where they get into it from an early age and they’re sort of just hooked.
Jeff:
While you mention it, how can they go listen to your podcast?
Ryan:
It is Behind the Weather Forecast on Spreaker, Spotify, it’s not on Apple Podcasts, I don’t know why they haven’t approved it, it’s been months. You can also just search Behind the Weather Forecast or my name, Ryan Lukowicz, in your web browser and it should pop up, and then for the Facebook page, it’s @RyanLukowiczAccurate, and I know the last name is tough to say, it’s Polish actually, it’s L-U-K-O-W-I-C-Z.
Jeff:
As a freshman in high school, what kind of accessibility are you using today?
Ryan:
I have a Dell computer I use with JAWS, and I have for the moment a material prep specialist who gets the material from the teachers and adapts it. I use Microsoft Word and it really depends on what the assignment is. I have Voicestream Reader on my iPad, so of course I use that, for English and reading. Math has become a challenge, as you can expect. I didn’t learn braille right away, I learned it a little bit alter, a couple years ago. I’m pretty much fluent in it now, so I still do a lot of my math on the computer in a Word document, so I have like a braille reference sheet, and then I have the computer where I solve the problems and use equation boxes and do it that way on Word, and then email it to the teacher. As far as weather forecasting goes, I use my phone which is pretty much what I do everything for my page, my podcast, what’s cool is I just started this course a few months ago, and I use an app called Spreaker, I’m not sure what you use for recording, but I have my system where I have the guest who will call on my iPad. It’s not the most professional or most ideal, but I have Spreaker on the phone which is completely accessible actually, really pleasantly surprised by that, and I just hit the record button. When I want it to stop I just publish it, create a title, you know, using Voiceover and editing text fields and so on and so forth, and then it’s out.
Jeff:
Yeah, I think using Spreaker, which is available on iOS, I don’t know about the Android side of things- do you know if it’s available on Android?
Ryan:
I have no idea, I’ve always been an iOS person to be honest with you. I considered switching to Android just, I don’t know, for something different a couple years ago, and then I said no. I’ve just always had the iPhone, the iPad, of course I have the Dell computer-
Jeff:
If it’s working, why break it.
Ryan:
I assume it is, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. But that’s a very practical way of getting started in podcasting because you can do it all right from your phone and publish it, which is a good thing in the sense that you don’t have to do the editing because that keeps you on the top of your game on conducting the interview because there’s no wiggle room.
Ryan:
Yeah, it is a little bit of a- I guess a challenge, not necessarily editing it, but the way I look at it is it’s a very raw, I just like to publish the conversations as they are and when I’m doing one just by myself that’s about a severe weather topic or trending weather stories that are in the news, sometimes I’ll pause, I can pause the recording in the middle and take a break and do whatever, and then I’ll come back to it and do it the same way, so that works out well, but I mean, so far so good, I have not had any problems, haven’t had to edit any of them, nor really could I, but it is a great way to start out.
Jeff:
Yeah. I think it’s a great way for starting out because when you have the capabilities to edit everything, you know that as you’re doing a recording, you can just stop and know you’re gonna edit it, you don’t have to think it through, you can just wing it, but when you’re live like a radio broadcaster or someone that’s gonna be on camera or on the microphone, you gotta get your game going. You gotta be ready, prepared, and go, and I think by doing it the way you’re doing it, you’re gonna develop a skill set that you wouldn’t develop if you had a studio where you’re recording and then you spend four hours editing it, making it polished and perfect, I mean, there’s basis for that, but I think it’s really good that you’re doing it this way because it’s a really good skill set to- I mean, you said you were interested in public speaking and meteorology is a passion of yours, you’re combining them all together and there you go, good job.
Ryan:
Yeah, thank you, and I guess it really depends on what you’re doing it for too, right? I mean, if you’re just starting a podcast with no intention to be on TV or on the radio, then that’s totally fine for you to edit, I think editing is obviously a great tool and, yeah, I mean, for me I just haven’t done it and you really said that well and, you know, I think it’s good to develop that, it’s something I have developed within these past few months.
Jeff:
Can you give us a little bit of your journey with blindness and your education and how that’s transpired?
Ryan:
I have coloboma of the optic nerve, which as far as I know makes your optic nerve shorter or something like that. I don’t know the exact details, and then a couple years ago I lost all of my vision to retinal detachment in the right eye, and my left eye is nonfunctional at this point, and so I call myself almost completely blind, but I really don’t have any functional vision. As far as my education goes, I’ve had a really great journey in the public school system. We’re lucky enough here to live in a good town, it’s a good school district, and I’m really happy to be here and I always commend the entire school department, everybody, all the teachers, you know, we have good kids who go to the schools and that always helps, you know, I hear of a lot of horror stories from, you know, my other blind friends that I know from camp, especially those in urban areas who don’t have a good experience with getting accommodations or so on and so forth, so I’m glad that hasn’t been really the case with me, so I consider myself lucky and you know, I haven’t run into too many problems with the education part, I mean so far so good. Of course there are challenges, it takes longer, which can be frustrating at times, but I’m so lucky to have the support system I have.
Jeff:
Now, you mentioned the iPad, a lot of people use the iPhone and a lot of people might have a Mac or a Dell computer as you mentioned, and the iPad is something that some people who are visually impaired think that there’s too much real estate. How do you utilize the iPad?
Ryan:
To be honest with you, I use my phone for most of what I do. I have two iPads, I have a school one and a home one. The school one is great because it can be transported obviously between home and school and used for things such as Voicestream Reader. Even I use it for reading Word documents connected to my refreshable braille display, so it has a lot of different purposes. I’m on my home one right now, I don’t use it a ton, it’s older, but I use it for things like Zoom meetings and the guests on the phone, so to be honest with you I have transitioned to my phone for pretty much all of my weather stuff, but I still like to do, like, doing an interview on Zoom right now, that’s much easier on the iPad. You know, the phone’s great, but I think people need to keep in mind, you know, what if it breaks, what if, I don’t know, it gets stolen, god forbid? You need to have some type of a backup, even if it’s not as good. You know, I have a phone number on the iPad so I can call and text using WiFi, so it’s a good backup, I think.
Jeff:
Yeah, so your iPad has the cellular?
Ryan:
No, what I have is an app called TextNow, which I encourage everybody to get, and I use it actually for, you know, the weather forecasting people can text me, it’s 401-329-2792, it’s different than my regular phone number for people I know. I say, you know, people can always text if, you know, they can’t find the podcast, they want the link, if they have weather questions. That’s another great thing to have for your audience, and I’ve connected it to my phone and my iPad, and what’s great is people can call me through that, and I can have that on my iPad, use my phone to record, and that’s how I perform the interviews, so I know there are apps like Google Voice, I tried that one, it wasn’t perfect for me, so I just tried a bunch of them and TextNow was my favorite, so I stuck with that one.
Jeff:
TextNow. That’s the name of it, TextNow?
Ryan:
Yeah, it is. It can be found on the app store. The accessibility is- to be honest with you, it’s usable, but all of the texts come up as images, so you have to scroll through and you actually have to open every text. Now, I don’t use it a ton, I just use it for guests and occasional conversations, so for me it’s not a big deal, and to be honest with you once I’m done talking with the viewer I just delete the conversation anyway and I keep all the guests in case I ever need to get in contact with them, you know, for whatever reason, so accessibility I give it, I don’t know, a C+, but it works for me.
Jeff:
Yeah, and that’s not unlike a lot of other types of apps that we use, once we get used to how we use them, we use them and then someone says, “How do you use it?” I have to pause for a minute and go, um, I don’t know? I just use it. Because you get that muscle memory down, so I suggest that anybody that uses something, keep using it, you know, it gets better for you, it might not be for everybody, but when you find something works for you, use it.
Ryan:
Yeah, and I will say I’ve always heard from folks in the vision field, and I always say, you know, you’ve gotta troubleshoot, you know, for example, with a lot of these weather websites I use, they’re not perfect but most of them you can use to at least get the information you need. It’s not always easy, you know, get to the website, find the information, and you know, it’s done in a couple minutes, sometimes you need to take 10, 20 plus minutes to work with these different websites and figure out the system they use and make it work for you.
Jeff:
Mm-hm. Now, I had a couple questions for you. Doppler radar, I hear that all the time. What is doppler radar?
Ryan:
That’s a great question, yeah, so doppler radar is the radar system that a lot of meteorologists use. You’ll hear from different TV stations, “This is Connecticut’s only live doppler radar,” and you know, of course the TV stations and the various meteorologists who have access to it always love to hype it up and make it a big deal, but it is truly the best of the best, especially in the weather department of course. A lot of times in the summer we get severe thunderstorms, and those can be very difficult to track if you don’t have doppler radar, and really doppler radar’s very localized, it can really pinpoint things down to a street or a road, or maybe a part of a town, and it’s also updated more frequently and more descriptive and useful, so I think that all news stations have their strengths and weaknesses, and I will say the ones that are best at covering those summer weather threats usually have the doppler radar and that’s why it’s a big part of what they do. I think it’s a great thing, as well, to have and to utilize, and I will say stations who have that have a big advantage.
Jeff:
Yeah, that’s really interesting when you hear people talk about a low pressure and then a high pressure system coming in, some people wonder what that really means or a cold front, the winds, the westerlies, and all sorts of factors that come in that- predictability about weather is always interesting. To me it’s really interesting, I always thought that a meteorologist should have like a batting average down in the corner of the screen, you know? Now, there’s a European system, why don’t you tell me the difference between the American and the European predictions?
Ryan:
Yeah, so there are two of the biggest models that forecasters use and a lot of times they can be very inconsistent several days from a snowstorm. There isn’t necessarily one that’s more right or wrong than the other, a lot of times if you’re forecasting a major snowstorm and it’s a week out, it’s really tough for anybody to get a good grip on what to expect, just because there is so much variation in all those models, but I think especially those two. A lot of times I see one is maybe forecasting two to four feet and then you have the one might be forecasting two to four inches, so of course models are the core of weather forecasting and a meteorologist’s job is to interpret that. There’s no doubt it’s a challenge, and they’re highly unreliable several days away, especially when the weather becomes active.
Jeff:
Have you been able to do any interpretations?
Ryan:
I have not actually looked at any models, a lot of times I’m just following meteorologists on Twitter to see what they think, a lot of times they share higher level discussions that wouldn’t necessarily be on TV. To be honest with you, I don’t know how it would work with the blindness in terms of trying to interpret those, who knows if, I don’t know, maybe Seeing Eye will come out with a model interpreting channel here, so I don’t know how that would work, I’m sure there’s a way and by the time I’m actually into the field several years out, I’m sure there’ll be something, but for right now it’s a lot of interpreting other people’s forecasts, and also, you know, I’ve been doing this for several years now, so a lot of times it’s just gut intuition and what have I seen in the past that is going to impact my decision on whatever storm is coming up?
Jeff:
Yeah, sometimes you’ve just gotta walk outside and see what it’s doing. I use smart devices now and then, and it depends on which one, the Amazon device or the Google device, is connected to, whether it’s using the Weather Channel or some other thing, getting its data. You might be expecting one inch of snow or four to eight inches of snow, it’s like, hmm, smart devices, you may wanna recalculate those things and see if they could come up with a more accurate one, but it’s a tough thing to do, as you just mentioned.
Ryan:
Yeah, I always say, the best people to turn to is your local station, you know, even if I know a lot of people are moving away from watching it on a television, but even if you have it on your phone, you know, all of these stations have mobile apps where you can livestream their newscasts and it’s important to hear your forecast from an actual person and I’m somebody who likes, you know, I’m in the Rhode Island area, I like to check, well, we have three Providence stations, five Boston stations, and four stations in Connecticut in you know, the three different markets. I look at most of those to see what they’re all saying, I think it’s important to do a little bit of research and fortunately, as a consumer as well, and that’s what I focus on, sort of doing the research for the person and making it easier for the consumer to find the information.
Jeff:
Yeah.
National Weather Service:
The National Weather Service in Condon has issued a wind advisory, which is in effect from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time…
Jeff:
Now I notice when there’s severe weather coming in, some people turn on, it’s like the National Weather Service, and it kind of sounds robotic, in a sense, it kind of goes ching, ching, ching, weather report blah blah blah, what is that all about?
Ryan:
So the National Weather Service has their different systems of severe weather, I’m not exactly sure what you’re referencing but I can tell you we have local radio stations here and I assume this is the case across the country that, when the weather service issues certain warnings, usually severe thunderstorm warnings, tornado warnings, the warnings that are most imminent and impactful, you’ll hear like a beep, it’s like the emergency alert system I think. That’s something that is just programmed to happen. If you want more accurate, robust forecasts, I always recommend, you know, just go to the National Weather Service website, and as we were talking about, your local stations in the market to find out more about what’s going on, because I like to hear it from real people.
Jeff:
Breaking away from real people, there is weather apps that people can get on their smart devices, what weather apps do you think are the best ones to have?
Ryan:
To be honest with you, I don’t use a lot of those, I don’t support many of them, just because a lot of times there are not real people interpreting those forecasts, and I’ve talked about this at length with several people on my podcast who have been guests, and just talking about how unreliable and vague a lot of them are, especially like the weather app you have automatically downloaded on your phone when you get it. Again, I don’t use it often, I don’t look at it, but it’s frankly not updated, and I know people unfortunately tend to turn to that, you know, they feel, okay, it’s right in front of them, of course it’s gonna be accurate, it’s already downloaded on my phone, but the reality is there are not real people interpreting those forecasts, which is of course a meteorologist’s job and I feel that really needs to be done. You know, the information a lot of times you’re getting from those apps is maybe the high and the low for the day, and then maybe the percentage chance for rain, which can often be deceiving because a lot of times we may only have a 20% chance of rain, meaning rain isn’t gonna fall all day, but 20% chance can still mean, okay, severe thunderstorms with downpours, or even, you know, hail or various threats like that, so to be honest with you I mostly rely on local stations, the National Weather Service, my intuitions, and there are a couple of apps I use for just finding out current weather, rain reports sometimes that are in the area, the temperatures, the winds, humidity, so on and so forth.
Jeff:
Well, even 20%, like if there was a 20% chance I could win the Powerball, I would try it a lot more. I mean, you still can win, so that’s a good point you make about even though it’s 20% if it does strike gold, you could be in for a big tornado or whatever, that is pretty vague. Yep, I got stuff like WeatherGods, and the Weather Channel and all these other ones and all that, and honestly when we have some weather coming in, I always turn on the local radio station because I think they are interpreting, and I like how you use interpreting, you’ve got the human interpretations of what factors are out there and everything, and some algorithm may be just locked in on something else, and I like how you went down by streets and stuff like that, because coming off the Great Lakes there, I think it was off of Lake Erie, they always get these snowstorms that can come in that, one part of the neighborhood might get eight inches of snow and the neighborhood next to them might get one inch, and they can predict that with I believe the doppler radar, that’s really cool to see systems like that.
Ryan:
And, you know, something I’ve always been very involved with is really focusing on different areas and you know, there are these TV markets that cover, you know, several miles of ground, different things can happen in different parts of an area, and a lot of those weather apps do things based on region or area or state. I’ve always been somebody who forecasts for certain towns and certain events, and saying okay, well, you know, if you’re northwest of the city it’s this much, if you’re around the city it’s this much, south and east it’s this, so it’s important to have those different zones if you will, especially when doing things like a snowfall forecast, that’s really important.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah. We had 10 inches of snow five miles north of us, we got about eight, and about 30 miles south of us they got one inch. That’s a huge difference, and that comes from listening to the local weather, that’s where we always go, yeah. So Ryan, it’s really neat to see that you have such great passion for what you want to do, and you’ve kind of got your goals set on what you want to do, what advice would you have for someone who is in that same age group as you, as they’re looking towards their future?
Ryan:
I think anything that you’re passionate about can be turned into a career, I think people are especially finding that now the pandemic and extra time on people’s hands, it always inspires me to hear the stories about people who got furloughed or laid off who are now starting their own small businesses, which I think is very brave of them. I would just say, you know, it’s not always easy and I think that everybody sort of finds their place and everybody is meant to do a different thing, regardless of if it’s to be on TV, or to be a nurse or a doctor, which is now of course more important than ever, maybe you want to be a schoolteacher, which, oh god, both of my parents are, I don’t recommend it, or you know, there are just so many different jobs in the world, people are meant to do different things.
Jeff:
That’s true. And it’s really nice that you’ve found a passion that you really like, because that’s what it’s all about. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, why are you doing it?
Ryan:
Yeah.
Jeff:
That’s great. Well Ryan, thank you so much for coming onto Blind Abilities and talking about your passions, your journey, Behind the Weather podcast found on Spreaker.
Ryan:
Yeah, Spotify, Google Podcasts, there are a few other ones, or you can just search it in, you know, just type in Behind the Weather Forecast in your web browser.
Jeff:
Well, I’ll just send you something or another to make sure you get on the Apple- in the orchard.
Ryan:
I know.
Jeff:
I did find it over on Spreaker and checked out some of it and it’s really good, people, go check it out, he talks to professional meteorologists across the country technically. It’s just interesting to hear these people’s stories, because usually you see them come on for 10 minutes, talk about the weather, they’re pointing over here, whatever they’re doing, they’re projecting the weather and stuff, but you never hear the background story behind their experience, so it’s really neat that you’re tapping into that, bringing it to us and letting us enjoy their passions, so thank you.
Ryan:
Of course, yeah, it’s my pleasure.
Jeff:
Well yeah, we’re all kind of curious about the weather. It’s always, you know, what’s the weather like?
Ryan:
Mm-hm. It impacts us from day to day, yeah.
Jeff:
Good luck with all your studies and all that stuff, and it was really neat to meet you.
Ryan:
Thank you.
Jeff:
Thanks for coming on, thanks for reaching out, and we’ll stay in touch.
Ryan:
Yeah, absolutely. Sounds good.
Jeff:
All right, take care, have a happy new year.
Pete:
We’d like to thank Ryan Lukowicz for joining us on Blind Abilities today, remember you can follow Ryan on Facebook @RyanLukowiczAccurate, and that last name is spelled L-U-K-O-W-I-C-Z, and be sure to subscribe to his podcast, Behind the Weather Forecast. You can find it on Spreaker, Spotify, or just search for Behind the Weather Forecast or for Ryan Lukowicz. And from all of us here at Blind Abilities, through these challenging times, to you, your family, and friends, stay well, stay informed, and stay strong. Thank you so much for listening, and have a great day.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff:
For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities, download our app from the app store, Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com. Thanks for listening.
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