20 tasks, each one witnessed by the sources that watched the job — and behind every one, a prompt you can use tonight.
You’ll split time between data work, meetings, and field coordination. Morning often means checking datasets in ESRI ArcGIS and Excel, running scripts or statistical tests in IBM SPSS, then drafting findings in Word or PowerPoint.
Afternoons are for meetings with planners or government clients using Outlook, advising on environmental health standards, or supervising students/technicians. Some days you visit sites to monitor development impacts and collect samples; other days you write technical documentation or prepare legal technical sections for orders or consent decrees.
Start with ESRI ArcGIS and Microsoft Excel—ArcGIS for mapping environmental impacts and Excel for cleaning and summarizing data. Learn Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook because you’ll write reports and coordinate with stakeholders every day.
Next, get basic skills in IBM SPSS Statistics or equivalent for statistical tests, and Adobe Acrobat for producing final PDF reports. Basic coding in C++ helps for custom data tools, but it’s less urgent than the others.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 89,250 people were employed in this occupation in 2025. The median pay was $82,220 per year, the lowest 10 percent earned about $52,520, and the top 10 percent made about $140,010.
Use those BLS numbers as a guide—actual pay varies by location, employer (government vs. private), and your experience with technical tasks like environmental remediation planning, compliance, and complex data analysis.
Use AI for repetitive tasks: cleaning spreadsheets, automating simple GIS workflows, or generating draft summaries. Always keep the original data and document every transformation so your methods are reproducible.
Never let AI replace technical judgment: validate model outputs in SPSS or ArcGIS, check statistical assumptions, and have a human expert review any regulatory or legal language before it goes into orders, reports, or consent decrees.
Meteor analysts focus on analyzing environmental or atmospheric data to assess impacts, support regulations, and advise agencies. You’ll spend more time on compliance, legal technical sections, and remediation strategies than a meteorologist, who mainly forecasts weather.
Environmental scientists may do broader field ecology or lab work. Meteor analysts often bridge science and policy: they prepare reports, use ArcGIS and SPSS for analyses, and develop technical parts of administrative orders.
A bachelor’s in atmospheric science, environmental science, or a related field is common; courses in statistics, GIS, and programming help. Practical skills: ESRI ArcGIS, Excel, SPSS, and writing technical documents in Word and PDF.
Internships with government agencies or environmental firms where you can monitor impacts, run surveys, or help write compliance documents are very valuable. Supervising or training others later comes from on-the-job experience.
Employers expect strong GIS skills—proficient use of ESRI ArcGIS for mapping, spatial analysis, and producing maps for reports. Being able to take raw survey data, clean it in Excel, run statistical tests in IBM SPSS, and import results into Word/PowerPoint is essential.
You don’t need to be an expert coder, but basic scripting (even simple C++ or Python) to automate repetitive analyses speeds work and makes you more competitive. Concrete proof: include a project or portfolio showing ArcGIS maps, SPSS output, and written reports.