Meteorology Commons^™

Verification Of The Cobb Snowfall Forecasting Algorithm, Josh Barnwell

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

 Forecasting storm total snow accumulation is one of the most difficult aspects of meteorological forecasting.  The forecaster has to interpret three main variables in order to forecast snowfall accurately.  These forecasting variables are the duration of the snowfall, the amount of liquid water the storm will produce, and the snow density or snow ratio.  With the advancement of computer models in recent history, the need for a quick and easy interpretation of these variables has grown, and to improve on previous forecasting techniques’ disadvantages with including the three snow forecasting variables.  The Cobb Method snowfall forecasting algorithm utilizes model data …

Droughtscape, Spring 2011, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Register Now

Forecasters Say Dryness in TX and SW to Continue

Drought Planning, The Game: Coming Soon

Ding Takes New Post

South and Southwest Lose Crops, Fight Fires

Drought Monitor Authors Review Enhanced GIS Tools and New Processes

Trends Of Wind And Wind Power Over The Coterminous United States, Eric M. Holt

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The trends of wind and wind power at a typical wind turbine hub height (80 m) are analyzed using the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) dataset for 1979-2009. Based upon the wind speeds at NARR’s vertical layers right above and below the 80 m level, the wind speeds at 80 m are estimated using two methods assuming the wind profile respectively as linear and power-law distribution with respect to the altitude in the lower boundary layer. Furthermore, we calculate the following variables at 80 m that are needed for the estimation and interpretation of wind power: the air density, zonal …

Droughtscape, Winter 2011, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Register for the U.S. Drought Monitor Forum

La Niña Brings Southeast, Southwest Drought

International Efforts

Drought Returns in 2010

Impacts Emerge “Before” Summer Drought in East

October-December Quarterly Impacts Summary

Climate Adaptation for Local Government

NDMC Elicits Missouri River Basin Recollections

Woudenberg Coordinates Educational Booklet

Influence Of Karst Landscape On Planetary Boundary Layer Atmosphere: A Weather Research And Forecasting (Wrf) Model–Based Investigation, Ronnie Leeper, Rezaul Mamood, Arturo I. Quintanar

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Karst hydrology provides a unique set of surface and subsurface hydrological components that affect soil moisture variability. Over karst topography, surface moisture moves rapidly below ground via sink holes, vertical shafts, and sinking streams, reducing surface runoff and moisture infiltration into the soil. In addition, subsurface cave blockage or rapid snowmelt over karst can lead to surface flooding. Moreover, regions dominated by karst may exhibit either drier or wetter soils when compared to nonkarst landscape. However, because of the lack of both observational soil moisture datasets to initialize simulations and regional land surface models (LSMs) that include explicit karst hydrological …

A Synergetic Use Of Satellite Imagery From Sar And Optical Sensors To Improve Coastal Flood Mapping In The Gulf Of Mexico, Naira Chaouch, Marouane Temimi, Scott Hagen, John Weishampel, Stephen Medeiros, Reza Khanbilvardi

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

This work proposes a method for detecting inundation between semi-diurnal low and high water conditions in the northern Gulf of Mexico using high-resolution satellite imagery. Radarsat 1, Landsat imagery and aerial photography from the Apalachicola region in Florida were used to demonstrate and validate the algorithm. A change detection approach was implemented through the analysis of red, green and blue (RGB) false colour composites image to emphasise differences in high and low tide inundation patterns. To alleviate the effect of inherent speckle in the SAR images, we also applied ancillary optical data. The flood-prone area for the site was delineated …

Improved Verification And Analysis Of National Weather Service Point Forecast Matrices, Paul Fajman

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Verification is the process of determining the quality of forecast information. Office and personal forecast verifications are significantly lacking throughout the National Weather Service for many reasons. The primary reasons are that verification is time consuming, tedious, and monotonous. This research attempted to ease that process by creating new computer procedures to automate the verification process. The new procedures were tested using two years of forecasting data from November 2007 to November 2009 from the Omaha/Valley Weather Forecasting Office to serve as a framework for future verifications. Point Forecast Matrices (PFM) produced by the National Weather Service twice daily and …

Propagating And Non-Propagating Intraseasonal Oscillations In The Tropical Atmosphere: Their Vertical And Horizontal Structures And Developing Mechanisms, Zhaoning Liang

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A fixed beamformer is proposed and designed to identify source regions of Intra-Seasonal Oscillations (ISO) in the tropical atmosphere. After tested by simulations of single and complex sources of waves, the fixed beamformer is applied to the ECMWF interpolated data grids to detect and identify source regions of the ISO in the tropical Indian and Pacific Ocean region. Results show that the fixed beamforming technique can uniquely identify the source region of the ISO, the source regions of all major ISO in the tropical Indian and western equatorial Pacific region from 1974 to 2002 have been identified.

Examinations of ISO …

Droughtscape, Fall 2010, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

CDC Issues Drought Guidance for Public Health

La Niña May Intensify Drought in South

Recent Workshops and Meetings

East Feels Impacts as Heat Intensifies Drought

New Products

Nicole Wall Co-Facilitates Republican River Basin Task Force

NDMC Climatologist on Ethiopia Team

An Intercomparison Of Regional Atmospheric Circulation And The Melt Season Loss Of Arctic Snow Cover And Sea Ice Extent Across The Land–Ocean Boundary, Angela C. Bliss

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study is designed to compare the monthly continental snow cover and sea ice extent loss in the Arctic with regional atmospheric conditions including: mean sea level pressure, 925 hPa air temperature, and mean wind direction among others during the melt season (March-August) over the 29-year study period 1979-2007. Little research has gone into studying the concurrent variations in the annual loss of continental snow cover and sea ice extent across the land-ocean boundary, since these data are largely stored in incompatible formats. However, the analysis of these data, averaged spatially over three autonomous study regions located in Siberia, North …

Droughtscape, Summer 2010, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Upcoming Workshops

Mild Drought Season Likely to Persist

Drought Impacts Intensify in Upper Midwest

Visiting Scientists

North Carolina Takes Drought Monitor Seriously

International Work- Murcia, Spain, June

Droughtscape, Spring 2010, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

NDMC and NC Drought Council Team Up

Drought to Intensify in Northwest and Hawaii

International Work

Impacts Recorded in Hawaii and Western States

U.S. Drought Monitor Archives Enhanced

Low-Water Impact Surveys Completed

K-12 Drought Outreach

Droughtscape, Winter 2010, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

USDM Forum Highlights

Drought Likely to Ease

Research Shows Birds Vulnerable to Drought

Drought Recedes in 2009

CA, TX Suffer Impacts from Ongoing Drought

NDMC Wishes Ryu Well

Conferees Pick SPI for Global Drought Index

Effects Of Lightning And Other Meteorological Factors On Fire Activity In The North American Boreal Forest: Implications For Fire Weather Forecasting, David Peterson, Jun Wang, Charles Ichoku, Lorraine Remer

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

The effects of lightning and other meteorological factors on wildfire activity in the North American boreal forest are statistically analyzed during the fire seasons of 2000–2006 through an integration of the following data sets: the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) level 2 fire products, the 3-hourly 32-km gridded meteorological data from North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), and the lightning data collected by the Canadian Lightning Detection Network (CLDN) and the Alaska Lightning Detection Network (ALDN). Positive anomalies of the 500 hPa geopotential height field, convective available potential energy (CAPE), number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, and the number of consecutive dry …

Droughtscape, Fall 2009, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Fall 2009

Impacts Of Meteorological Factors On Modis-Observed Fire Activity In The North American Boreal Forest: The Role Of Lightning, David A. Peterson

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The meteorological impact on wildfire activity in the North American boreal forest during the fire seasons of 2000 – 2006 is statistically analyzed through an integration of the following data sets: the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) level 2 fire products, the 3-hourly 32-km gridded meteorological data from North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), the instantaneous lightning data collected by the Canadian Lightning Detection Network (CLDN), and the Alaska Lightning Detection Network (ALDN). Positive anomalies of the 500 hpa geopotential height field, convective available potential energy (CAPE), number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, and the number of consecutive dry days are found …

Droughtscape, Summer 2009, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

U.S. Drought Monitor Forum, 2009

El Niño Could Bring Wet Winter After Hot Summer

Around the World

Agriculture Hit Hard in California, Texas

Predictable Patterns in Missouri River Basin?

Seeking Low-Flow Effects in Colorado, Southeast

VegDRI Began Coast-to-Coast Coverage in May

Droughtscape, Spring 2009, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

U.S. Drought Monitor Publishes Map 500!

Weakening La Niña May Mean Relief for Texas

Upcoming Workshops

Drought Impacts Worst in California, Texas

CoCoRaHS to Request Drought Impact Data, Too

NDMC Adds Researcher

K-12 Students Learn About Drought

A Century Of Climate Change For Fairbanks, Alaska, Gerd Wendler, Martha Shulski

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Climatological observations are available for Fairbanks, Interior Alaska, for up to 100 years. This is a unique data set for Alaska, insofar as it is of relatively high quality and without major breaks. Applying the best linear fit, we conclude that the mean annual temperature rose from -3.6°C to -2.2°C over the century, an increase of 1.4°C (compared to 0.8°C worldwide). This comparison clearly demonstrates the well-known amplification or temperature change for the polar regions. The observed temperature increase is neither uniform over the time period nor uniform throughout the course of a year. The winter, spring, and summer seasons …

A System For Estimating Bowen Ratio And Evaporation From Waste Lagoons, Arturo I. Quintanar, Rezaul Mahmood, John H. Loughrin, Nanh Lovanh, Monica V. Motley

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

A low‐cost system was deployed above a swine waste lagoon to obtain estimates of Bowen ratios and characterize lagoon temperatures. The system consisted of humidity and temperature sensors and anemometers deployed above the lagoon, water temperature sensors, and a meteorological station located by the lagoon. To evaluate the system, data was analyzed from the 25th through 28th June 2007. Bowen ratios showed diurnal behavior near the lagoon surface characterized by negative values during day and positive ones at night. Latent (evaporation) and sensible heat fluxes were towards the atmosphere and the lagoon, respectively for most of the day. A diurnal …

Droughtscape, Winter 2009, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Bastrop TX: Feb. 12 Central CA: Feb. 24, 26

La Niña May Keep West and Gulf Coast Dry

Big Canoes to Launch

2008 in Review

U.S. Feels Drought Impacts in 2008

NDMC Welcomes Widhalm, Sakamoto

Climate Modelers at Workshop Look to Sea Surface Temperatures for Drought Prediction

Ecosystem Jenga!, Natalie Umphlett, Tierney Brosius, Ramesh Laungani, Diandra L. Leslie-Pelecky

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Students are often taught that ecosystems are "delicately balanced," But what. exactly, does this mean? How do we help students relate what they learn in the classroom about ecosystems to the world immediately around them?

As scientists who work closely with middle school students as part of a National Science Foundation-funded Graduate Fellows in K-12 Education program called Project Fulcrum. we have learned that abstract concepts, such as "delicately balanced ecosystem," are often not truly understood. We addressed this concern in a seventh-grade science classroom in Lincoln. Nebraska. by introducing students to locally threatened saline wetlands and the endangered Salt …

Droughtscape, Fall 2008, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Washington Workshops Scheduled for November

Look for Warm West, Rainy Gulf, Easing Drought

New Drought Monitor Authors Profiled

Drought Impact Awareness Growing: Weather Forecast Offices, Geographers Highlight Issue

NDMC Takes on New Projects

Hundreds+ See NDMC at Ag Trade Show

NDMC Welcomes New Employees

Droughtscape, Fall 2008, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Washington Workshops Scheduled for November

Look for Warm West, Rainy Gulf, Easing Drought

New Drought Monitor Authors Profiled

Drought Impact Awareness Growing: Weather Forecast Offices, Geographers Highlight Issue

NDMC Takes on New Projects

Hundreds+ See NDMC at Ag Trade Show

NDMC Welcomes New Employees

Droughtscape, Summer 2008, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

VegDRI Expands West

Spring Rains Ease Drought But CA Still Dry

Scholar Donates Books

NDMC Welcomes Employees Bathke, Nothwehr

Latest Workshop Info Up

State Lawmakers to Focus on Drought Planning

Decadal Variation -- Clues to Droughts and Floods?

Droughtscape, Spring 2008, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

San Angelo, April 24

Winter Sees Little Change in U.S. Drought

News Stories Reveal Array of Mitigation Strategies

NIDIS Wants You!

Sea Surface Temperatures Can Help Predict Drought

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Sampling Of Malodorous Compounds In Air Using Stir Bar Sorbtive Extraction, John H. Loughrin, Nanh Lovanh, Arturo I. Quintanar, Rezaul Mahmood

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Twisters, (poly)‐dimethylsiloxane‐coated magnetic stir bars, were used to measure compounds typical of swine manure malodor in air. In initial experiments, a time to achieve equilibrium was determined by preloading the stir bars with ten compounds with a range of volatilities and polarities and then monitoring their loss. The rate of loss was dependent on compound volatility, and the time for equilibrium to be attained varied widely, from 22 min for phenol to 210 min for skatole. To test whether the Twisters would respond linearly over a range of concentrations, the stir bars were placed in vented jars with solutions of …

Droughtscape, Winter 2008, Kelly Smith

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Now Up & On-Line:

Winter 2008 Outlook and Oct.-Dec. ’07 Summary

NDMC Experts Serve as Resource for Media

Drought Hits Ag and Urban Interests in 2007

Climatological Summary of Drought in 2007

NDMC Welcomes Data Miner Bo Zhang

New Grant Awards

Diagnosis Of The July 6, 2002 Ogallala, Nebraska Flash Flood, David B. Radell, Mark R. Anderson, John W. Stoppkotte, James R. Mccormick

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

During the early morning hours of 6 July 2002, a mesoscale convective system (MCS) traversed southwestern Nebraska and produced more than 40 cm of precipitation, resulting in a flash flood that closed Interstate 80 and caused one fatality near Ogallala, Nebraska. Regional climatology yields that this flash flood ranked first in precipitation amount for a 24 hour period over the past one hundred years. Synoptic and mesoscale features similar to other flash flooding events and conducive to extremely heavy precipitation were in place over the Central Plains, including a weak upper level ridge, high precipitable water values (180% of normal), …

Droughtscape, Fall 2007, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Fall 2007 Outlook

Diverse Impacts Reported in Summer of 2007

Decadal Climate Cycles Hold Predictive Potential

Drought Experts Take Roadmap to Congress

NDMC Research Updates