 He then joined the faculty in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State in 1978, where he taught courses in weather analysis and forecasting, natural disasters, and other topics until joining The Weather Channel (TWC) in June 1999.Forbes has had a variety of experiences outside of the classroom, including surveying the damage paths left by about 300 tornadoes and windstorms, including Hurricane Andrew and Typhoon Paka.As part of his research at Penn State, he was lead weather forecaster for numerous field research programs around the country.