Understanding How The Weather Works

Matt Bolton

Matt Bolton, a student psychologist in Central Florida, was How The Weatherworks’ Lead Intern from August 2011 to August 2017. During the course of his internship, he facilitated two full redesigns of the company website, assisted in facilitating weather learning across the country, and, among other things, conducted various research projects that were presented at numerous AMS, National Weather Association (NWA), and American Geophysical Union (AGU) conferences.

No longer an intern, he maintains an emeritus position at HTWW for professional collaborations, still maintains the company website, and remains heavily involved in the National Weather Camp Program run by HTWW.

Meteorology has always been a deeply-rooted passion for Matt. In 2008, he began pursuing it, pre-professionally, while in high school. This included intensive self-study weather education, online blogging, and eventually a reaching out to local and national meteorologists. As a high school sophomore, he joined (and became active in) the West Central Florida Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), for which he began to serve in several elected and appointed leadership positions as early as his senior year of high school.

From 2012-2014, he volunteered with a local emergency management office; prior to that experience, he shadowed with the Tampa National Weather Service (NWS) office and local media meteorologists. He was also a weather observer for the Tampa Tribune/Tampa Bay Times, and a blogger for WTSP-TV.

Matt serves on the NWA's Professional Development and Diversity Committees. With the Professional Development Committee, he works to promote opportunities for professional development in meteorology at all levels, particularly at the pre-college and college levels. With the Diversity Committee, he works broadly to promote higher ethical standards within the weather enterprise, with the end goal of bringing about a more harmonious community. Matt focuses on enabling a better understanding of various disabilities and learning-affecting conditions and how they relate to meteorologists’ mission of providing life-saving weather information to the general public.

Matt's weather interest has led him to pursue a semi-professional photography career. His interest in photography grew from years of cloud-watching and, as a result, his photographic pursuits are focused (pun intended!) largely around weather-, nature-, land-, and city- scapes.