Hey Ray! Why Are You Called A Meteorologist?

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Often, I get asked, "Why are you called a meteorologist when you study and predict weather, not meteors?"

The short answer is I do study meteors, but not the way you might think.

To understand this, we have to go back to the time of Aristotle. His writing of Meteorologica is the oldest, comprehensive work on the subject of meteorology.

Meteorologica contained all the knowledge they knew about weather at that time, and at that time, in Greek, anything that fell from the sky, or that is suspended in the sky was called a meteor.

This included everything in the atmosphere like rain, sleet, snow, and hail -- and even rainbows and lightning!

This is in addition to what we know call meteors, you know, the space rocks that hit our atmosphere.

In the atmosphere, we still consider most natural things as meteor, just more specifically.

If there is dirt, or dust in the atmosphere, those would be considered Lithometeors.

"Litho" comes from Greek, meaning "stone."

Meteorologists tend to focus mainly on hydrometeors.

This is water, in all of its different forms, in the atmosphere. Rain, snow, hail, sleet.

While you don't hear meteorologists say "hydrometeor" very often, if at all, meteorologists still sometimes do in meteorological "circles," just like a doctor would call a heart attack a myocardial infarction to one of their colleagues.

Our radars even have a function to classify the different types of precipitation it is picking up in the atmosphere.

We call that function "hydrometeor classification."

If you ever have a weather or science question, make sure to send it my way at HeyRay@kdka.com.