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Jim Woodmency
Jim Woodmency
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Five days a week, Jim Woodmency pads down the hall from his bedroom at 4 a.m. He grabs a cup of coffee and then walks a few more steps into his office, a small room in his Jackson home. From there, Woodmency forecasts the area weather for locals and visitors alike. He earned a degree in meteorology from Montana State University in Bozeman. Thinking he wouldn’t be able to use his degree without chaining himself to a desk or living in a city, he made his way to Jackson in 1982, landing a job with the Jenny Lake Climbing Rangers. During his years of seasonal work with the climbing rangers and High Mountain Heli-Skiing, Woodmency kept finding practical uses for predicting the weather. Today, he works full time from his home office, running www.mountainweather.net, a new and improved incarnation of the www.mountainweather.com website he launched in 1997. (December 21, the winter solstice, was the official retirement date of his original site.) He also does live weather forecasting on Jackson radio stations KZ95 and KJAX 93.3 FM.
Q. What made you decide to study meteorology?
A. I was a climber and backpacker. Ever since I was young, I had an interest in the outdoors. I thought it would be a good thing to know more about weather.
