Retirement of Long Time NWS Indianapolis Meteorologist Joe Skowronek

Retirement of Long-Time NWS Indianapolis Meteorologist Joe Skowronek

After a long and memorable career in the National Weather Service (NWS), meteorologist Joseph Skowronek retires on October 31, 2021 from NWS Indianapolis, Indiana (IND).

Joe graduated in 1988 from Northern Illinois University. He began his weather career by working at the University of Chicago for Dr. Ted Fujita from 1988-1990, where he participated in research regarding satellite parallax, tornado damage surveys, and analyzing microbursts using Doppler radar. It was a great learning experience!

In May 1990, Joe began his NWS career at the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Weather Service Office (WSO) as a weather observer. In January 1993, he was reassigned to the Indianapolis NWS office, also as an observer. In 1995, Joe was promoted to a forecaster position at IND, where he continued to work for the remainder of his career. In all, Joe completed 31.5 years of Federal service!

Over that time, Joe experienced many changes in the NWS’s structure, technology, and services, and gained expertise in the forecasting and warning of all types of weather hazards. Joe is very reliable, respected, and level-headed. He openly shares his knowledge and forecasting best practices with his peers. He was involved with model verification for a number of years at IND, and recently has been fire weather program leader as well. Joe frequently incorporates model ensemble data very well into his day-to-day forecasting decisions. In his extra time, he performed local research of significant hail and tornado statistics and climatology across central Indiana, and most recently was cross-trained and worked several shifts at the Central Weather Service Unit (CWSU) ZID in Indianapolis.

Finally, Joe has been an excellent mentor to new meteorologists and the entire IND staff, freely sharing his forecast knowledge and guidance. He has been an excellent teammate within the NWS IND family, and will be greatly missed by his co-workers and friends in our office and in the NWS!