eastern pa weather authority

Eastern PA Weather Authority meteorologist Mike DeFino, left, and meteorologist and owner Bobby Martrich, right, show off some of their weather forecast models in Martrich's Allentown home.

(Express-Times Photo | BILL ADAMS)

There are only so many jobs on television or with the National Weather Service.

So when Allentown resident Bobby Martrich wanted a career in meteorology, he knew his best bet was starting his own company.

In June 2012, Martrich started Eastern PA Weather Authority, an online weather prediction website for the Lehigh Valley. In the two years since, the company has gained almost 200,000 Facebook followers and just served as the official weather predictor for Musikfest.

The company is almost at the point that Martrich can work at it as a full-time job, through paid forecasting services for snow plow companies, landscapers, roofers and others with weather-dependent businesses. He's also hired other meteorologists — one full-time and four part-time — to expand the company into New Jersey, Delaware and northeastern and southeastern Pennsylvania.

"I got the trust of the social media first and then went into the private part of the business," the 38-year-old Martrich said. "It's an easier conversation because a lot of them follow us."

That's how Musikfest parent company ArtsQuest had heard of the company. Ray Neeb, ArtsQuest's vice president of facilities and festivals, follows the company on Facebook and Twitter and was impressed with its record in predicting last winter's snowfall.

Musikfest sometimes needs to cancel concerts because of lightning, and having meteorologists either onsite or on-call is incredibly helpful, Neeb said.

While this year's Musikfest featured only one rainy day and the threat of storms another day, partnering with Eastern PA Weather Authority was fruitful, Neeb said.

"Having those guys ... take the guess work out of it for you is great because it's not my day job," Neeb said.

Eastern PA Weather Authority served as Musikfest's weather predictor through a joint marketing agreement and Martrich hopes the stint might get him paid work with other Lehigh Valley event organizers, he said.

Model work

Eastern PA Weather Authority consults multiple forecasting models in making their predictions, said Mike DeFino, the company's full-time meteorologist, who is based in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Different meteorologists favor different modeling services, and Eastern PA generally spends a lot of time analyzing multiple models before making their predictions, DeFino said.

The company says it went 15 of 17 on predicting last winter's snowfall, including the huge Feb. 13 storm that brought 19.2 inches of snow to the region. Eastern PA was the first to say the region would receive between 12 and 18 inches, DeFino said.

"Everyone else came on board late," he said.

The storm brought the company a huge jump in Facebook followers and boosted its reputation, which led to more paying customers, Martrich said. With a reliance on paying customers, Martrich and DeFino say the old adage that meteorology is a field where you can often be wrong but still be employed doesn't apply to private weather companies.

"If we're wrong, it's bad — our clients rely on us to be right," DeFino said.

Social media aspect

Frank Lombardo has been in the private weather prediction business for 37 years, including 28 years as owner of Hackettstown-based WeatherWorks. The company provides forecasting services for the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Jets and the Baltimore Ravens, but it's the multitude of snow plowing companies and others in the snow and ice industry that makes up the majority of the company's business, Lombardo said.

WeatherWorks employs 20 full-time and 10 seasonal meteorologists and has customers throughout the United States, Lombardo said. While the number of private weather companies has grown exponentially with the escalation of social media, Lombardo said WeatherWorks hasn't been greatly affected because of the company's longstanding good reputation.

One customer was looking to cancel his contract with WeatherWorks because he had found another company that could provide snow predictions for a lot less. Then he found out the company was run by two 14-year-old boys, Lombardo said.

"What has happened in the last 10 years with the arrival of the Internet is everyone thinks they're meteorologists," Lombardo said. "It really hasn't affected our bottom line — we're confident with our product."