This last point is an important one because when I was a meteorologist student (eons ago), I think most students hoped to work as a forecaster for the National Weather Service or on TV. The BLS also notes that job growth for meteorologists from 2014 to 2024 is expected to be 9% faster than average and that the best prospects will be in the private sector.
It is similar to mean but is preferred in some cases because it is not as influenced by outliers (relative big or small numbers). The median is the middle value in a range of sorted data.
According to the BLS, the median salary in 2016 for atmospheric scientists (including meteorologists) was $92,460. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) is the federal agency that tracks employment data. The American Meteorological Society has defined meteorologist at the request of various employers that needed a standard definition. There are many outstanding colleagues that work in the military, weather forecasting and other communities that may not meet the criteria provided by the AMS, but for the sake of this article, I will use their guidelines.
