This past September at the SATELLITE show, leaders from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service joined representatives from privately owned weather forecasting companies for a discussion titled “How State-of-the-Art Satellite Weather Forecasting Saves the World.” The group outlined how advancements in satellite weather forecasting technology are responsible for saving millions of lives every year and trillions of dollars in government and private industry costs. It was one of the more fascinating and informative discussions of the conference, and what made it so effective was that the concept for the conference session was conceived, and led, by an actual meteorologist.

Meredith Garofalo, former broadcast meteorologist at Weather Nation, is now heading to New York City for a top-tier weather broadcasting job that will also include space technology and STEM education reporting. Meredith is a true space enthusiast, who successfully integrated her love of satellites and rockets with her full-time career in an effort to educate the broader public about how our activities in space directly impact our lives on Earth.

Meredith joins On Orbit host Jeffrey Hill to talk about how she caught the space bug, what she learned from her panel at SATELLITE, how meteorologists play an important role in space education, the ever-increasing value of visual, analytical data, and her dream of being the first broadcast meteorologist to go to space.