Fred Schmude

Fred's Story

“Long-range weather forecasting is a key element in what clients are looking for now. They are getting hit with weather and they want to make sure they're not caught off-guard again. They also know we have this service. Clients are catching on to the idea that there's something they can do. It's not that they can change, divert or prevent the weather, but they can be pro-active and plan for it.”

With degrees in Meteorology and Geology, in addition to solar expertise, Fred holds a set of skills that have earned him many titles throughout his career, including: aviation meteorologist, offshore/marine meteorologist, and manager of StormGeo’s Onshore team of forecasters.

Fred’s interest in meteorology was sparked at the age of 12, when it snowed in Houston, Texas a record three times in 1973.

“This was the trigger – it ‘snowballed’ from there. I listened to the weather guys on TV, switching back and forth between all the networks, and got in the habit of watching the weather and learning the weather.”

Fred started out as an aviation meteorologist and weather map drawer for Universal Weather and Aviation in 1990, where his main duties included pilot briefings, weather map drawing over the U.S. Europe and Asia, and marine forecasting. During this time, he was also a consultant for a small group of land-based clients over the Southern U.S.

“ImpactWeather was formed in the mid-1990s to support land-based, tropical and marine clients and I became the 6th forecaster in that group. My experience expanded to include severe storm, winter storm, tropical and long-range forecasting.”

Fred worked his way up from a shift forecaster to a supervisor, and eventually to the manager of the StormWatch team. ImpactWeather then became a part of StormGeo, where Fred is currently a Senior Scientist for Long Range Forecasting, predicting temperature, precipitation and wind based on long range global weather indices and solar interactions affecting climate.

In addition to training a team of StormGeo forecasters involved in long-range weather prediction, Fred brings his geological expertise to the table by helping clients to better understand how they may be affected by phenomena such as tsunamis and earthquakes. This includes earthquake and volcanic monitoring and assessment.

Recent research

• Seasonal wind forecast out to 1 year for North America and South America
• Development of a flow pattern speed and cold air index
• Expanding seasonal forecasting by using other global indices.

Expertise/topics

Keywords/Tags Long Range Weather Forecasting; Meteorology; Tropical Weather Forecasting; Winter Storm Forecasting; Solar; Geology

Conferences

Speaker: EUCI – 5th Annual Storm, Planning And Preparation Conference, Houston, TX, March 2–3 2015.

Speaker: Utility and electric provider, Louisville, KY, 2016.

Speaker: Utility and electric provider, Houston, TX, 2017.

Schmude, Fred. “A Statistical Approach to Forecasting of Seasonal Anomalies in Wind for Renewable Power Production”, 98th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, Austin, TX, January 7–11 2018.
Watch the presentation here.

Education

Fred holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Geology from Texas Tech University (1986). He also received a Bachelor’s of Science in Meteorology from Texas A&M University (1990).