Meteorologist

Portland General Electric is seeking a meteorologist with skills in operational and fire weather forecasting, as well as data science. The primary responsibility will be to create a daily forecast to and provide briefings to keep operations and emergency management informed of potentially impactful weather including wind, ice, snow, and fire. The candidate must have expertise in forecasting critical fire weather patterns that lead to high fire danger.

The successful candidate will also produce seasonal weather outlooks, lead or support the development of predictive models, and support the development of tools, dashboards, and other forecast products to advance forecasting and fire environment analysis.

This position will also serve on the PGE incident management team when the Emergency Operations Center is activated supporting situational awareness and incident response operations , including public safety power shutoffs to mitigate the risk of wildfires.

Primary Job Responsibilities:

• Interpret meteorological data and forecasts to produce a daily impacts-based forecast and briefing for operations
• With a strong understanding of both probabilistic and deterministic modeling, work collaboratively with meteorologists, data scientists and risk modeling team to support development of predictive modeling for outage and ignition probability.
• Advance the development of meteorological tools for fire environment analysis
• Develop and maintain user interfaces for meteorology tools that provide actionable situational awareness insights
• Analyze historical weather data to support fire environment and impactful weather event analysis
• Effectively communicate findings from data analysis and forecast information to deliver reports to a variety of stakeholders
• Collaborate with diverse teams to develop plans and procedures
• Develop relationships and collaborate with both internal and external stakeholders, data scientists, project managers, engineering, operations, analysts and leadership to develop data driven solutions for weather, climate, and risk assessment models
• Assist with managing PGE's weather station network including siting new locations and managing network data
• Provide weather analysis to support wildfire risk assessments including development or refinement of High Fire Risk Zones

Secondary Job Responsibilities:

• Assist storm preparedness and power restoration efforts by providing concise, detailed forecasts during periods of extreme weather to a variety of stakeholders. This may result in shift work, and extended hours.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Meteorology, Atmospheric Sciences, or related area of study
• Experience: Typically 5+ years in operational weather forecasting, prefer 2+ years in fire weather forecasting (including completion of S290: Introduction to Wildland Fire Behavior)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated knowledge of meteorological phenomena, fire science/behavior, climatology, geography, forecasting techniques, weather model analysis, data science and programming languages.
• Proficiency in using meteorological software, tools, and data sources
• Ability to ingest, decode, analyze, and visualize meteorological observational and model data
• Demonstrated experience and expertise in the utilization of Python for geospatial data analysis
• Thorough understanding of various probabilistic and ensemble forecasting methodologies, with particular emphasis on the utilization of probabilistic numerical weather prediction methods for determination and presentation of various weather risks
• Knowledge of Pacific Northwest meteorology
• Experience preparing findings and presenting complex technical information to both technical and nontechnical audiences
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to efficiently handle multiple projects and requests.
• Three years of weather forecasting experience in the energy and/or utilities sector
• Thorough knowledge of fire/wildfire behavior, the National Fire Danger Rating System, and completion of wildland fire classes such as:
  
  • S-390: Intermediate Wildland Fire Calculations
  • S-490: Advanced Fire Behavior Calculations
• Thorough knowledge and experience with:
  
  • Database creation and manipulation, data management platforms, data collection, storage, and management
  • Data visual analytics platforms: PowerBI and Neara
  • Various numerical analysis packages Pandas, Scikit Learn, Scipy, etc.
  • Leveraging and building out capabilities in Neara
• Thorough knowledge and experience with interpreting climate models
• Experience briefing stakeholders on the potential for extreme weather and impacts to business as it pertains to both market and operational utility operations

Knowledge, skills, and abilities

Advanced knowledge of forecasting tools.

Advanced skills in using database applications.

Intermediate skills with programming languages used in department.

Advanced analytical thinking skills

Advanced business acumen

Advanced decision-making skills

Advanced enterprise/business awareness skills

Advanced influence skills

Advanced presentation/facilitation skills

Advanced written/oral communication skills

Advanced diplomacy skills

Physical and Cognitive Demands

Cognitive:

Consistent use of logic or scientific thinking to define problems, collect information, establish facts and draw valid conclusions (for example, engineer, HR director, plant manager, etc.).

Ability to adhere to set response times, deadlines and time-sensitive tasks

Ability to follow accuracy standards

Ability to follow through on decision-making tasks

Ability to interact effectively and collaboratively within a team environment

Ability to communicate and problem solve when under stress

Ability to respond and adapt to frequent change

Ability to accept and demonstrate self-awareness when provided constructive feedback

Ability to discern feedback and acknowledge ownership of areas of improvement

Ability to avoid future mistakes by applying reasonable skills to new but similar work situations or tasks

Ability to successfully collaborate with peers, managers, and others within the organization

Demonstrates sound memory

Ability to process new information to be applied consistently to work tasks

Schedule/Attendance

Ability to work long hours

Ability to work a variable schedule

Ability to report to work and perform work during periods of severe inclement weather

Ability to consistently meet attendance standards for regular, reliable, predictable, full-time attendance [for part-time positions, change to part-time attendance]

Physical Capabilities

Driving/travel/commute

• Occasionally within service territory (one to two times a month or less)
• Overnight inside/outside the service territory Occasionally (one to two times a month or less)

Computer use (use computer regularly for entire work shift)

Office environment

Actual total compensation, including a performance based incentive bonus, is commensurate with experience, skills, qualifications, education, training, and internal equity.