Hey, nice to see you on my website! My name is Daan van den Broek and I am a meteorologist.
I am born and raised in Weesp, a small city near Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Ever since I was a little boy, I have been extremely interested in the weather. When it was snowing, I would stand in front of the window (or preferably, outside) for hours. Like many young children, I used to be a bit scared of thunder, but the fear quickly turned into a fascination. Already at the age of four, I told my parents I wanted to become a weatherman.
This passion for the weather never disappeared. The first aspects of meteorology I learned with help of weather books for children. Around the age of 11, I started to learn and analyse weather charts myself with the help of internet forums. In high school I selected the study track nature and science. I finished high school with a dissertation about forecasting the weather.
After high school, in 2016, I went to the Wageningen University where I completed the bachelor program Soil, Water, Atmosphere, with a specialization in atmosphere. During my bachelor, I went on an exchange to The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). I lived in Longyearbyen, Svalbard for four months. Living in the Arctic was an absolute dream coming true. In those four months, I completed a minor in Polar Oceanography, Meteorology and Climate. I finalised my bachelors with a thesis on “Cyclogenesis over Northeastern Greenland“. This thesis was graded 8/10.
Shortly after I started studying, I began to write blogs and weather forecasts for the Dutch website Alpenweerman.nl. In the 3rd year of my bachelor, I started working as an assistant meteorologist for the company weeronline.nl, a Dutch weather website. A few months later, I got the offer to work as a junior meteorologist for another Dutch website, Weer.nl. I this website as a freelancer from 2019-2023.
Currently, I am based in Helsinki, Finland. Besides working as a freelancer (Daan van den Broek Meteo Services, Finnish Business ID: 3204022-6), I study the master program Atmospheric Sciences with meteorology as the main study track. During the summers of 2021 & 2022, I worked as a research assistant for the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR). Here I was a research assistant and contributed to research on extratropical cyclones. As part of my master’s degree, I again went to Svalbard for two months. This time, I specialized in the interactions between the ocean, sea-ice and atmosphere. In April 2023, I went to the Canadian Arctic for a week, to attend the Arctic Snow School. Currently, I’m working as research assistant at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
Other than the weather, I am very fascinated by nature, specifically mountains and the Arctic regions. In my spare time I like to walk outside or drive on my mountain bike, especially exploring the Finnish national parks. Furthermore, I am a big football fan and enjoy playing football (and sports in general) myself.
