Meteorologist found sunny skies at BCS
Tune into the weekend weather broadcast in Lexington, Ky., and you'll see a Butler Catholic School graduate delivering the report.
Eagle-eyed forecasters could first spot Jill Szwed's interest in weather in fourth grade, and by seventh grade her meteorological skies had opened. The 28-year-old credits those early school years with leading her down the path toward a happy career.
“As I started getting really interested in the weather, there were a number of teachers who really pushed me into the direction to continue to explore more and explore different avenues within science,” Szwed said.
It all started for Szwed in fourth grade, when she attended a two-week summer camp to learn all about weather.
From there, her interest grew relentlessly. She asked for books on the weather for birthday presents — not weather-related novels, but encyclopedic, scientific tomes. Scientific books about different types of weather and atmosphere patterns became regular Sunday afternoon reading, she said.
In seventh grade, her science teacher Carolyn Volponi encouraged her to participate in the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science. For a science-fair style competition, Szwed collected weather data daily from various television news weather forecasts.The next year, she upped her game and began collecting data from three local stations plus the Weather Channel, then compared their predictions to the actual weather on the following day.“I don't remember which one was best, but I know the Weather Channel was not very accurate,” Szwed said. “Accuracy is very important in my day job now. I'm sure there's similar people documenting my accuracy now. A little payback.”She squeezed in one last notable weather-related event in her Butler Catholic years — in eighth grade, her mentor for her graduation project, Barbara Moran, helped her get set up for a day shadowing meteorologist Stephen Cropper at WPXI. She watched the whole forecast come together, from the early scientific analysis to the final forecast delivery alongside evening news.Before graduating college, the 2006 Butler Catholic alumna returned to Pittsburgh for a summer interning with Cropper.
Szwed, the daughter of Elaine and Dan Szwed of Butler Township, speaks highly of the Catholic education that helped her discover her love of weather.Her enrollment in Catholic schools didn't stop when she graduated from Butler Catholic — she went on to attend St. Joseph High School in Natrona Heights.While there's a sizeable Butler Catholic contingent in Natrona today, Szwed was the first to make the move. After that, she kept it up by attending St. Louis University.“That's another thing I think Butler Catholic really instilled in me as well, my Catholic identity,” Szwed said. “If it wasn't for Butler Catholic, I probably wouldn't have gone to St. Joe's. And if it wasn't for St. Joe's, I don't know if I would have ended up at St. Louis University.“It all started at Butler Catholic. We would pray as a class every morning. We went to class once a week. It really became an important part of my life.”
Szwed's career began properly in an unlikely place: Clarksburg, W.Va. It's one of the smallest television markets in the country, but Szwed struck meteorological gold during her second winter there.A heavy snow began falling around lunchtime on a Friday, and she ended up staying the night at the station. Upon waking the following morning, 30 inches of snow had arrived.“We were doing around-the-clock coverage,” Szwed said. “That was the biggest snowfall that area in West Virginia had seen in a number of years.”Now that Szwed is in Kentucky, her audience has dramatically grown. Her station, Lexington's NBC affiliate WLEX, provides weather forecasts for 40 counties, she said.Szwed delivers afternoon weather reports as well as the weekend broadcast.
Notable weather is fairly frequent in Kentucky, Szwed explained, and the highlight of her time there was no exception. Her station shipped her out to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby last year. She watched — and reported — as the racehorse Justify beat out a muddy field and an incredibly rainy weekend on its way to winning the Triple Crown.Szwed said she would like to forecast in Pittsburgh, but so far her career is spanning several states aside from Pennsylvania.Still, she remembers fondly where her weather love affair all began.“It was a well-rounded experience. Not only for my mind, and educationally driving me toward my future career, but also on a more spiritual level as well,” Szwed said. “Catholic education was a whole body and spirit education for me. I'm certainly grateful for that.”
