March 9, 2022

A Look Back at the Dawgcast 2 Years Later with Rachael Fewkes

Published March 9th, 2022

By Rose Schoenfeld

Interview with Rachael Fewkes – Last founding student member of the UW Dawgcast still at UW. 

Rachael is a senior studying Atmospheric Sciences concentrating in Meteorology and has been at UW for 3 years now. Rachael recalled that the Dawgcast started back in Winter quarter 2020 when Shannon O’Donnell, Professor Cliff Mass, and Matthew Charchenko (UW Atmospheric Sciences Class of 2021) recognized that the UW department focused largely on research meteorology and offered few broadcast options. Shannon even noticed that other schools with meteorology program had popular broadcast meteorology clubs and classes, and she wanted UW to offer the same opportunities for students. 

When the Dawgcast started out (in 2020 before the pandemic) Rachael recalls being able to “tour places like KOMO studio,” and “meet and work in person.” After only a few months, with the rest of the world, the Dawgcast “went online” and forecasters needed to “start working from home by connecting to the graphics computer remotely.”  The pandemic “prompted the club to get more involved with social media during a time starved for human interaction,” still meeting over Zoom the club “managed to grow the Twitter following by about 2,000 followers.”

Now, as things get back to normal the Dawgcast is able to meet in person (a 3 credit class in winter, 1 credit Autumn and Spring) and has around a dozen members, a large increase from the original 4 students (pictured below on a tour of KOMO News Studio)!

Find Rachael Fewkes on Twitter @rachaelfewkes