Creative Writer Intern: Forecasting and Communications

Location: State College, PA Department: Forecasting

AccuWeather is seeking a highly creative, curious, and deeply collaborative Creative Writer Intern: Forecasting and Communications, to work directly with AccuWeather forecasters and the Writing Committee to further elevate the detail, clarity, precision, and distinctiveness of the language used to describe forecasts for our users. This role is designed for a graduate student or an individual with equivalent writing experience who brings fresh thinking about how complex weather information can be expressed in ways that are more detailed, precise, clear, engaging, and scientifically sound.

Embedded closely with Forecast Operations, this position will learn from meteorologists, participate in the forecast-writing process, and help develop new approaches, terminology, and descriptive frameworks that make AccuWeather forecasts more informative and better than what is available from any other source. The emphasis is on improving the consumer forecast experience - not traditional public relations - by helping forecasters communicate what the weather will be, what the impact will be, how it will evolve, what it may look like, and what details matter most to people making decisions. This includes a laser focus on developing stronger displays, greater artistry, and more effective visual communications that amplify the advantages of AccuWeather forecasts and content.

The Creative Writer Intern: Forecasting and Communications will serve as a bridge between meteorological expertise and exceptional consumer-facing writing, helping AccuWeather deliver forecast descriptions with greater depth, nuance, consistency, and usefulness while preserving the scientific accuracy and authority at the core of the AccuWeather brand.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Forecast Language, Detail & Description

Work side-by-side with forecasters to craft and refine accurate, detailed, consumer-focused descriptions of daily weather, changing conditions, major storms, seasonal patterns, and forecast developments.

• Elevate forecast language beyond basic conditions by identifying the most useful details, nuances, timing, impacts, transitions, and sensory descriptions that help users better understand what to expect. Use bold, catchy and descriptive language.
• Translate complex meteorological concepts into clearer, more detailed, consumer-friendly language without sacrificing scientific meaning, accuracy, or appropriate expressions of forecast confidence.
• Develop new descriptive approaches, vocabulary, sentence structures, and frameworks that make AccuWeather forecasts more distinctive, informative, and useful than competing forecast experiences.
• Help establish consistent terminology for recurring weather patterns while preserving enough flexibility for forecasters to communicate the unique character and details of each forecast.

Forecaster & Writing Committee Collaboration

Embed with AccuWeather forecasters to understand how forecasts are created, where language choices can add value, and how writing can better communicate meteorological insight to users.

• Work closely with the AccuWeather Writing Committee to test, evaluate, and introduce new approaches to forecast writing and description.
• Bring an outside writing perspective to established forecast workflows, asking thoughtful questions and proposing new ways of thinking, writing, and working.

Challenge conventional approaches to forecast description and explore new ways to communicate weather that provide users with greater detail, context, understanding, and value.

• Gather feedback from meteorologists and other stakeholders, iterate on language, and help turn successful approaches into practical writing guidance and repeatable standards.
• Support a collaborative environment in which meteorological expertise and strong writing work together to create a richer forecast experience.

Consumer Forecast Experience & Innovation

Review forecast descriptions across AccuWeather consumer experiences and identify opportunities to add specificity, context, clarity, and useful detail.

• Develop and test language that helps users better understand the timing, intensity, duration, variability, uncertainty, and real-world impacts of weather events.

Explore new ways to make routine forecasts more useful, engaging, descriptive, and impactful, bringing the same level of creativity and attention to detail to both high-impact weather coverage and everyday conditions such as temperature, wind, precipitation, cloud cover, humidity, visibility, and changing conditions.

• Help ensure forecast descriptions are clear and effective across digital platforms while retaining the depth and detail that distinguish AccuWeather.
• Contribute ideas that reinforce AccuWeather’s Superior Accuracy™ through the quality, precision, and usefulness of the forecast language itself.

Writing Standards & Continuous Improvement

Help evolve AccuWeather’s authoritative, trustworthy, detailed, and forward-looking forecast voice.

• Identify new ways to describe weather phenomena that are vivid, memorable, consumer-relevant, and scientifically sound.
• Contribute to forecast-writing standards, terminology guidelines, examples, and best practices used by forecasters and content teams.
• Study how forecast language performs in practice and recommend improvements based on clarity, usefulness, consistency, and differentiation.
• Encourage experimentation and fresh thinking while respecting operational requirements, meteorological accuracy, and established review processes.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in Communications, Writing, or a closely related writing-intensive field is required.

• Current graduate student in communications, writing, journalism, English, creative writing, technical writing, or a related discipline, or equivalent advanced or professional writing experience.
• Exceptional com