Meet Our Meteorologists: Fred Allen 

Meet Fred

Fred Allen joined the Earth Networks team in 2010 (on his birthday, no less!), but he became interested in meteorology long before that. When Fred was younger, his grandmother influenced his career path by sharing her interest in the weather. Fred became a meteorologist in 1999 and hasn’t looked back since.

Of course, forecasting the weather and advising customers isn’t all Fred does. One of the most athletic meteorologists we have on staff, Fred’s “first love,” is basketball. A four-year high school varsity player, Fred still shoots hoops when he’s not working. His love for sports doesn’t stop at basketball either. Fred is also an avid bowler with plenty of trophies to show off.

Fred is also busy raising his children to be athletes themselves! He spends a lot of his time out of the office taking his kids to swimming lessons or to local parks. He and his wife are, excitedly, expecting their third child in late November 2018.

A Day in the Life of an Earth Networks Meteorologist

Fred, along with the rest of the meteorologists here at Earth Networks, has a lot on his plate. When asked if he could describe a day in the life, he replied with: “I’m not sure I can!”

It’s easy to see why. Each shift has its own tasks. These tasks vary greatly depending on the day, instances of severe weather, and the location of our clients. On any given day, you can find Fred doing one or all of the following:

• Pushing out multiple forecasts overnight
• Updating forecasts
• Answering phones
• Sending out specific, custom-made forecasts for clients depending on urgency or requests

Since Fred loves sports so much, it’s only fitting that he is the primary contact for the folks over at Major League Soccer (MLS). We work together with MLS to help keep their players, staff, and fans safe from severe weather. You can learn more about our relationship in the video below.

Fred works on a ton of other projects here as well. For exampl, he manages and coordinates our monthly Meteorological Operations Lunch-N-Learns. These internal presentations are a great way for the Met Ops Team to teach everyone at Earth Networks new meteorological updates.

More About Fred

There are many areas of meteorology, but Fred likes forecasting severe weather the best. “I’m a Massachusetts native, so my favorite storms to forecast are blockbuster Nor’easters.” Although, like any Northeast native, Fred dislikes those messy winter storms with mixed precipitation. We guess Fred is happy about the Sferic Maps winter weather layers which illustrate freezing rain probabilities.

Like most of our meteorologists, Fred is happiest when his forecasts and warnings make a positive operational, financial, and safety impact for the organizations that rely on us. Fred also provides meteorological support for another high-profile national sports league.

He loves remembering a time where he made the call to stop the game as a storm approached and resume the game as soon as it was safe again. “Both the start and end time to the lightning were spot on!” remembers Fred. That’s one of the great things about relying on our total lightning detection network.

Do You Need a Meteorologist like Fred?

A lot of times, organizations ask us if they need meteorologists to mitigate weather-related risks. According to Fred, it depends on how personal you want your weather information to be. “Everything we send out is all about their specific risk assessment and how to keep their assets protected and make the best decisions with the forecast information provided.”

Using a meteorologist is a lot different from turning on the local news or checking a weather application. If you have an event coming up that you’d like meteorological support for, please click the button below and Fred or another member of our team will be in touch!

Have You Ever Worked With Fred Before?

Have you ever worked with Fred before? Whether you were colleagues or he provided meteorological support to you or your organization, we’d love for you to share a story about him. Leave your stories in the comment section below and we’ll share them on social media.

Our meteorologists are some of the most important folks here at Earth Networks. Help us appreciate all their hard work and don’t forget to subscribe to our blog so you’ll know when we publish our other meteorologists profiles.