Passion Drives Success

A Profile of Suzanne Van Cooten, Native Meterologist

By Rajul Pandya

Suzanne Van Cooten, Chickasaw Nation, wonders if the fact that she was born on February 15, 1968 – during one of the worst snowstorms in Oklahoma City history – has anything to do with her passion for meteorology. Her parents and grandparents did instill in her a fascination with and appreciation of weather as they “would take me outside and we would look at the sky, feel the wind, and notice the humidity on a ‘tornado’ day. In the fall, we would go outside and look at the thin wisps of cirrus, ‘mare’s tails,’ high in the atmosphere. From the ‘mare’s tails,’ the color of the sky, and the leaves on the trees, you could tell the first cold snap was coming or if an ice storm was a couple of days away. It was just something you could feel if you grew up here. The weather was something you respected.”

Van Cooten is believed to have been the first Native female meteorologist in the United States. She knew as a child growing up in central Oklahoma “that people could survive tornadoes and weather extremes. What I did not know was why. Were we more prepared in Oklahoma, did we have better buildings, or were we just very lucky? To find the answers to these questions is why I became a meteorologist and a civil/environmental engineer... if we can predict weather and its effects better, if we can design safer structures, if we can keep people from building in disaster-prone areas, if we can communicate these threats better through improved communication and language programs, then we can save more lives.”

Throughout high school, Van Cooten was an avid sportswoman (playing softball, basketball and soccer) and cellist while taking an accelerated curriculum of math, science, and English. She attended the University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman on an engineering and music scholarship, where she tried out electrical and civil engineering. It wasn’t until her junior year that she discovered her passion for meteorology. She received her bachelor of science degree in meteorology from OU in May 1991.

A Career in Weather Forecasting

Van Cooten has worked for the past 14 years in a variety of weather-related roles at the National Weather Service while also pursuing her master of science degree in engineering and her Ph.D. in engineering and applied science at the University of New Orleans. She has been an operational forecaster, hydrologist, regional program manager, and research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service. She has done everything from preparing advanced forecasts for the public and the aviation fi eld, to forecasting wave height, wind direction and speed as well as visibility for the entire Gulf of Mexico. Van Cooten remembers “the additional forecasting responsibilities of issuing gale, tropical storm and hurricane warnings for the Gulf of Mexico in coordination with the Tropical Prediction Center.” She has also coordinated and forecasted memorable severe weather occurrences including “several tornado and large hail events in North Texas, the Thanksgiving 1992 North Texas ice storm, and Gulf Coast tropical season events including Hurricane Georges (1998) and Tropical Storm Allison (2001).”

At present, Van Cooten works as a hydrometeorologist for NOAA’s Offi ce of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma. Her research focuses on “historical precipitation patterns and how these climatological patterns, coupled with improved rainfall estimation techniques, can improve streamfl ow predictions for water management applications.” According to Van Cooten, “Weather affects everything we do and every decision we make, so I thrive on my interesting and diverse career and the wide circle of friends my experiences have given me. I can talk intelligently to an amazing spectrum of people, as weather is a critical factor in commodity trading, agriculture, energy production, sporting events, tourism and public policy. I am a social person and I rely on these skills and networking abilities to get people excited and motivated about the science behind meteorology, hydrology and engineering. What is even more exciting is that many aspects of these fi elds remain unexplored. The best thing about my job as a research scientist is that I am now in a position to build teams of outstanding professionals with seemingly unrelated areas of expertise to discover the answers to our most complicated issues in water resources and how we will manage these resources in the future.”

Occupational Hazard

Van Cooten knows that the least desirable aspect of her job is “getting the forecast for a natural disaster ‘right.’ As a hydrologist, you can forecast river stages that will cause catastrophic damage to major metropolitan areas where you live. As a meteorologist, you can predict the area where tornadoes and large hail will develop. As an engineer, you can predict what damage will occur with a hurricane storm surge, winds and inland river flooding. The hardest part is when these predictions come true in an area where you and your loved ones live. As a professional, you must stay and work through these events and work even harder in the aftermath where your office buildings are damaged and your staff has worked long hours. You have to worry about what happened to your family if they evacuated and what is the condition of your home and belongings in addition to providing top-level service and operational forecasts for rescue and cleanup operations.”

Advice for Prospective Students

Van Cooten has some important words of advice for anyone interested in the possibility of a career in meteorology, an area she refers to as “an inexact science.” She relishes the fact that “there are many fascinating questions to be answered. In my opinion, these questions will only be answered if we have a scientific workforce that is as diverse in expertise, thoughts and culture as the multifaceted subjects we are seeking answers to.”

Students heading in the direction of meteorology need to excel in math and science, believes Van Cooten, as well as “have a creative spirit to be able to adapt this fundamental knowledge to a local application or forecasting issue.” Other necessary qualities for succeeding in this field include communication skills. “You also have to be able to communicate effectively to warn people of danger, write a concise and accurate forecast product, author professional articles to document your scientific successes and speak in public forums to your peers, supporters and political advocates,” relates Van Cooten.

“I see the most successful scientists as those who are not only credible in their scientific positions, but are also able to deliver their message to a wide variety of audiences. “I see the geosciences as inextricably linked to the Native American community,” she continues. “The fields of geology, hydrology, meteorology and geography have their historical foundations in the stories passed down through Native American cultures. Native Americans have always been connected to the Earth and its environment. As a student, you can begin to bring these geosciences to your communities and engage Native Americans as our nation’s environmentalists. These programs are needed by both the United States and the Native American communities to provide a fair and equitable leadership role for Native Americans in the design of United States public policy for water resource management and environmental monitoring.”

Future Issues

When asked about her thoughts on the major issues her field will need to address in the future, Van Cooten acknowledges, “As meteorologists and hydrologists, we will have to emphasize the role of the social sciences in our future research planning. One emerging need is the way we will manage water resources. How do we make the choice for the growth of a metropolitan area in a desert region of the southwest United States to the detriment of aquifer recharge and agricultural diversions downstream? Another area is development in disaster-prone areas such as barrier islands, coastlines and floodplains. How do we make an accurate assessment and development decision for these vulnerable areas and account for the needs of people dependent on the water for their livelihood?”

Clearly, the field of meteorology needs a host of passionate, well-trained professionals to address these critical issues that directly and indirectly affect the quality of life of everyone in this country and beyond.