Meteorology Commons^™

Metr 200: Weather And Climate—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Matthew S. Van Den Broeke

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark portfolio is meant to be an assessment of how well the objectives of METR 200 (Weather and Climate) are being attained by students in several classifications of academic major. Students from a wide range of backgrounds enroll in this course as a general science elective, and for many, it will be the only science course taken in college. Thus, it is important that course material be sufficiently accessible for all students, while providing meaningful information which will be applicable by students of all backgrounds once they leave the course. In this portfolio, an analysis will be presented showing …

The Educational Training Of Storm Chasers And Storm Spotters In Relation To Geographical Dispersion Across The United States, Paul R. Zunkel

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

When severe weather strikes, storm chasers and storm spotters confirm that what forecasters and meteorologists are seeing on a radar screen is actually occurring in the field. While some documenters are classically trained (i.e. they have a background in atmospheric science and or meteorology attained from a 4 year university) many others are not. There are currently two organizations available for the weather enthusiast to be a part of, SKYWARN and SpotterNetwork. These organizations give weather enthusiasts a background knowledge into severe weather; however, many weather enthusiasts are not classically trained and most have not taken any formal education in …

Spatial And Temporal Trends Of Snowfall In Central New York - A Lake Effect Dominated Region, Justin Joseph Hartnett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Central New York is located in one of the snowiest regions in the United States, with the city of Syracuse, New York the snowiest metropolis in the nation. Snowfall in the region generally begins in mid-November and lasts until late-March. Snow accumulation occurs from a multitude of conditions: frontal systems, mid-latitude cyclones, Nor'easters, and most notably lake-effect storms. Lake effect snowfall (LES) is a difficult parameter to forecast due to the isolated and highly variable nature of the storm. Consequently, studies have attempted to determine changes in snowfall for lake-effect dominated regions. Annual snowfall patterns are of particular concern as …

Statistical Topics Applied To Pressure And Temperature Readings In The Gulf Of Mexico, Malena Kathleen Allison

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The field of statistical research in weather allows for the application of old and new methods, some of which may describe relationships between certain variables better such as temperatures and pressure. The objective of this study was to apply a variety of traditional and novel statistical methods to analyze data from the National Data Buoy Center, which records among other variables barometric pressure, atmospheric temperature, water temperature and dew point temperature. The analysis included attempts to better describe and model the data as well as to make estimations for certain variables. The following statistical methods were utilized: linear regression, non-response …

A Thermodynamic Analysis Of An Intense North American Arctic Air Mass, Jessica K. Turner, John Gyakum, Shawn M. Milrad

Publications

Northwestern Canada is a genesis region of arctic air masses often considered to be formed primarily through radiative processes. However, the details of their life cycle are poorly understood. This paper examines the formation, maintenance, and dissipation of an intense and long-lived arctic air mass, using a thermodynamic budget analysis.

The airmass formation is characterized by a deep-layer, multistage process that begins with snow falling into a nascent air mass. Radiative cooling from cloud tops begins the process. After the snow abates and clear skies are observed, the surface temperature drops rapidly, aided by the high emissivity of fresh snow …

Information Content Of Seasonal Forecasts In A Changing Climate, Nir Krakauer, Michael D. Grossberg, Irina Gladkova, Hannah Aizenman

Publications and Research

We study the potential value to stakeholders of probabilistic long-term forecasts, as quantified by the mean information gain of the forecast compared to climatology. We use as a case study the USA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) forecasts of 3-month temperature and precipitation anomalies made at 0.5-month lead time since 1995. Mean information gain was positive but low (about 2% and 0.5% of the maximum possible for temperature and precipitation forecasts, resp.) and has not increased over time. Information-based skill scores showed similar patterns to other, non-information-based, skill scores commonly used for evaluating seasonal forecasts but tended to be smaller, suggesting …

Trends In The Ams Education Symposium And Highlights From 2012, Rajul Pandya, Donna Charlevoix, Eugene Cordero, David Smith, Sepi Yalda

Faculty Publications, Meteorology and Climate Science

The Department of Meteorology (now Atmospheric Sciences) at the University of Utah faced reductions in state funding in 2008 that reduced support for nontenured instructors at the same time that the faculty were becoming increasingly successful obtaining federally supported research grants. A faculty retreat and subsequent discussions led to substantive curriculum changes to modernize the curriculum, enhance course offerings for undergraduate and graduate students, and improve the overall efficiency of the academic program. Maintaining discipline standards and existing teaching loads were important constraints on these changes. Key features of the curriculum revisions for undergraduate majors included eliminating a very rigid …

An Examination Of Physical And Empirical Approaches In Forecasting Nonconvective Wind Gusts, Jeramie Lippman

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

Nonconvective winds can be a dangerous and costly weather hazard. For example, over a ten year span from 2002 to 2011, there were over 200 fatalities and nearly 1,000 injuries, as well as over 6.4 billion dollars in monetary losses due to high, nonconvective winds. An important subset to nonconvective winds is the nonconvective wind gust. When winds are already relatively strong, a sudden wind gust can magnify already existing hazards. Three different methods were evaluated to determine if either of two physically based algorithms can outperform an empirical algorithm. The two physically based methods were the Wind Gust Estimate …

University Scholar Series: Craig B. Clements, Craig B. Clements

University Scholar Series

Groundbreaking Research on Wildfire Weather

On November 28, 2012 Craig B. Clements spoke in the University Scholar Series hosted by Provost Ellen Junn at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. Craig Clements is an associate professor in the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science who received a $900,000 National Science Foundation CAREER grant for his work in tracking atmospheric conditions in and around wildfires. His work will better help predict wildfire behavior and conditions that could lead to increased wildfire danger.

Water Vapor And Temperature Comparisons Between Airs/Amsu-A And In Situ Aircraft Observations From 87°N To 67°S And Sensitivities To Spatial And Temporal Differences, Minghui Diao, Loayeh Jumbam, Justin Sheffield, Eric Wood, Mark Zondlo

Faculty Publications, Meteorology and Climate Science

No abstract available.

An Analysis Of Deep Convection Initiation Environments, Noah Lock

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

Initiation is the part of the convective life cycle which is currently least understood and least well forecast. The inability to properly forecast the timing and/or location of deep convection initiation degrades forecast skill, especially during the warm season. The goals of this research are examine the spatiotemporal distribution of thunderstorm initiation points and to determine which atmospheric parameters (and ultimately processes) are most important for the initiation of thunderstorms. The spatiotemporal distribution of thunderstorm initiation points shows the expected peaks during summer and during the afternoon. The warm season also produces significant concentrations of initiation points near mountains, mainly …

Droughtscape, Fall 2012, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

Director’s report

Updated resources

Drought outlook and review

2012 and past droughters

Summer impacts summary

Urban planners and drought

USDM wins CLEAN seal

Meixiu Yu's Chinese SPEI

Ethiopian project

Mexican VegDRI

Drought monitor sculpture

Woolfolk, Dorothy (Gregory) (Sc 713), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 713. Letter written to Marjorie Clagett, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from Dorothy (Gregory) Woolfolk, Brandenburg, Meade County, Kentucky, in which she describes the tornado that devastated the town on 3 April 1974.

Sensitivity Of Limiting Hurricane Intensity To Ocean Warmth, James B. Elsner, Sarah Strazzo, Jill C. Trepanier, Thomas H. Jagger

Publications

No abstract provided.

Morris, Walter B. (Sc 29), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 29. Photocopies of letter written by Walter B. Morris, Gallatin, Tennessee, to his brother, Eastin Morris, Fort Pickering, Tennessee, pertaining to a shower of flesh and blood near Lebanon, Tennessee, on 17 August 1841, and of an article from American Journal of Science, 1841, pertaining to the same event. Also a letter to Julia Neal regarding photocopies, 1968.

Retrieval Of Sub-Pixel-Based Fire Intensity And Its Application For Characterizing Smoke Injection Heights And Fire Weather In North America, David Peterson

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

For over two decades, satellite sensors have provided the locations of global fire activity with ever-increasing accuracy. However, the ability to measure fire intensity, know as fire radiative power (FRP), and its potential relationships to meteorology and smoke plume injection heights, are currently limited by the pixel resolution. This dissertation describes the development of a new, sub-pixel-based FRP calculation (FRP_f) for fire pixels detected by the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) fire detection algorithm (Collection 5), which is subsequently applied to several large wildfire events in North America. The methodology inherits an earlier bi-spectral algorithm for retrieving sub-pixel …

General Aviation Weather Encounter Case Studies, John M. Lanicci, Massoud Bazargan, Daniel Halperin, Scott Shappell, Jaclyn Baron, Rebecca Iden, Carla Hackworth, Kali Holcomb

School of Graduate Studies - Daytona Beach

This study presents a compilation of 24 cases involving general aviation (GA) pilots’ weather encounters over the continental U.S. The project team interviewed pilots who had experienced a weather encounter, and we examined their backgrounds, flight experience, and weather encounter details. Results from meteorological data analysis for each weather encounter were consistent with findings of larger GA weather accident studies in terms of the types of hazards encountered and flight phase during which the encounters occurred. Investigation of pilot weather products and the sources from which they were obtained revealed a lack of uniformity of pre-flight data sources and underutilization …

Application Of The Weather Research And Forecasting (Wrf) Model To Simulate A Squall Line: Implications Of Choosing Parameterization Scheme Combinations And Model Initialization Data Sets, Mitchell Gaines

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

On January 29-30, 2008 a squall line of thunderstorms moved through the Ohio Valley resulting in four deaths and one injury. Such events highlight the importance of accurate forecasting for public safety. Mesoscale Modeling plays an important role in any forecast of a potential squall line. The focus of this study was to examine the performance of several parameterization scheme combinations in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model version three (WRF) as they related to this event. These examinations included cloud microphysics (WRF Single-Moment 3-class, 6-class, and Goddard), cumulus parameterization (Kain-Fritsch and Bets-Miller-Janjic) and planetary boundary layer schemes (Yonsei-University and …

Coastal Hurricane Damage Assessment Via Wavelet Transform Of Remotely Sensed Imagery, Ricky Carl Crowsey

Dissertations

This dissertation uses post storm imagery processed using wavelet transforms to investigate the capability of wavelet transform-based methods to classify post storm damage of residential areas. Five level Haar, Meyer, Symlets, and Coiflets wavelet transform decompositions of the post storm imagery are inputs to damage classification models of post hurricane and tornado damage. Hurricanes Ike, Rita, Katrina, and Ivan are examined as are the 2011 Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes.

Wavelet transform-based classification methods yielded varying classification accuracies for the four hurricanes examined, ranging from 67 percent to 89 percent classification accuracy for classification models informed by samples from the storms …

Droughtscape, Summer 2012, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

Director’s report 1

Drought expanse 1

Upcoming ranch workshops. 3

Drought outlook and review 4

Spring impacts summary 6

Hawaii impact workshops 9

Remote sensing of drought. 10

China workshop . 12