NWS Incident Meterologists (IMETs) - 2017 edition

Some of you may recall that I started to write about Incident Meteorologists (IMETs) last year (see for example August 10, 2016, August 11, 2016, and August 15, 2016.  Briefly, IMETs are Meteorologists with the National Weather Service who have received extra training that helps them provide onsite meteorology support services to wildfires and other incidents.

I hope to continue writing about IMETs during the 2017 wildfire season, so I want to take a little time to share some information about what IMETs do. 

First, there is a short article shared on the National Weather Service News website on A Day in the Life of an Incident Meteorologist (IMET) on the Front Lines of a Wildfire , some of you my recall that I shared this article in one of my blog posts from 2016. I thought it worth reposting a link to this article because I think that it provides a nice overview of what IMETs do. Those of you who watch the Weather Channel may be familiar with a show called the Wx Geeks hosted by Dr. Marshall Shepard from the University of Georgia, On December 16, 2015 he interviewed Heath Hockenberry from the National Weather Service who was the Fire Weather Program Manager for the National Weather Service, go here  to watch the 17-minute video.

I’d like to share a short video where you will hear NWS IMET Jeremy Wolf talk about his work.

Direct link to video

I am sure that many of you know about the West Mims Fire https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5153/ that has burned over 152,231 acres in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia, the fire is currently at 23 percent containment. Those of you who are interested in reading more about the West Mims Fire will want to read Bill Gabbert’s article on Wildfire Today about the West Mims Fire, he first wrote about the West Mims Fire on April 10th and he has written other articles as well which you can access via this link. When I went to the NWS IMETs Facebook page earlier today, I noted that IMETs were assigned to the fire on April 13th for two weeks and another on April 25th. A third IMET was assigned to the fire on May 8th.