Not many youngsters harbour in their heart of hearts a secret urge to pledge their lives to isobars, or to swear forever to uphold Buys Ballot's law.
Indeed many meteorologists arrive at that profession quite by accident, having somewhere grasped a passing opportunity only to discover then that they quite liked meandering down this fallentis semita vitae - this "pathway of a little noticed way of life".
To qualify in meteorology to the highest international standards, a scientific background is essential. Many national meteorological services, including Ireland's, require their forecasters to have an honours university degree in physics or in mathematics.
Aspiring meteorologists with this grounding join their national weather service and there receive the necessary specialist training in a programme lasting about a year.
The prospective forecaster learns the rudiments of weather observing before undertaking a course in the theory of meteorology to an advanced level. Finally, there will be on-the-job training on how to analyse a chart and predict the daily weather sequence in a practical way. Many then go on to specialise in various branches of the science.
Anders Persson might be said to be a typical example. He is Swedish, as his name suggests, and in the 1960s he qualified at university and moved on to meteorology; he joined the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute where he trained to be a forecaster.
But Anders - strangely for one who has become eminently successful in his chosen field - claims that he found it very difficult to adapt to meteorology. He says modestly that during his training he simply learned everything by rote, and that since then he has spent his career trying to understand the information digested all those years ago.
This explains, perhaps, the title of his lecture tonight to the Irish Meteorological Society: "Is it Possible to Understand Dynamic Meteorology?"
Anders's quest led him through aviation forecasting and predictions for the Swedish ice-breaking fleet into meteorological training activities, and thence as an expert to the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, England.
There he is still involved in educational activities, which he describes as "having one foot among the practitioners, and the other with the theoreticians - a rather demanding position, but rewarding if you can stand the cross-fire".
If you would like to hear Anders Persson's Apologia pro vita sua, you can do so, starting at 8 p.m. today, in Theatre G33 of the UCD Earlsfort Terrace complex. All are welcome, free of charge, to hear what will undoubtedly be a most informative and entertaining talk.