Forecasting the City That Never Sleeps

“My forecast determines in some way, shape or form, whether the lights stay on in the city that never sleeps,” said Jessica Ptashenchuk, a meteorologist with Con Edison.

Con Edison, New York City’s sole electricity provider, also supplies the Big Apple with gas and steam power. Ptashenchuk’s work as a meteorologist has a direct impact on the lives of 10 million people. She is the first female meteorologist to work for Con Edison, the only utilities company in the state with its own meteorologists.

As a meteorologist, Ptashenchuk reads data from weather stations and weather models to determine temperature, humidity and wind speed. She studies data from Con Edison’s 21 weather stations to learn if there will be an ice storm, snowstorm, a deluge of rainfall or a drought. Ptashenchuk then shares that information with her fellow team members in the Con Edison Emergency Preparedness Office to guide their actions. Team members use it to get ahead of the storm or to repair the damage after the storm has passed.

Her weather forecasts have even saved lives. “Safety is probably one of the foremost things we care about at Con Edison, in terms of making sure that our crews are getting out to respond to outages once it is safe to do so,” said Ptashenchuk. “Getting the startand end times of storms accurate is something we really pride ourselves on when we are forecasting because we can’t have crews working out in dangerous weather.”

Intuition plays a part in her work. “A big role intuition plays is just understanding the biases that all weather models inherently have no matter how much money and AI you pour into these weather models,” Ptashenchuk noted.

A good meteorologist learns what those biases are, and why they occur in order to provide an accurate weather forecast.

One of the many things that Ptashenchuk loves about her work is translating complex data and weather information into everyday, understandable knowledge. “That teaching aspect of meteorology and my role as a meteorologist at Con Edison is the most rewarding, and probably the best part of the job,” she said.

Her fascination with the weather began in childhood. It led her to Rutgers University where she received her bachelor’s degree in meteorology in 2017.

“Every day is different here at Con Edison,” Ptashenchuk said. “Yes, I start my day, every morning, looking at the weather and coming up with a forecast, but aside from that there are so many different things we take on and tackle that every day is a unique challenge.”

One of the “different things” Ptashenchuk alluded to is that she is responsible for coming up with the emergency weather scenario for the Corporate Emergency Response Drill. These practice scenarios prepare Con Edison for responding to real weather emergencies and power outages. When the real disaster strikes, ConEd not only responds, it helps other organizations, like the NYC Emergency Management Department, do so as well.

What’s on the horizon for Ptashenchuk? Any day now, she and her husband are expecting the arrival of a baby. And as any parent knows life with a new baby, while rewarding and joyful, is harder to predict than the weather.