Articles

Weather Risk Communication for Professional Golf
Weather Risk Communication for Professional Golf
Author Interview Series: Dr. Robert Atlas
Author Interview Series: Dr. Robert Atlas
Numerical Weather Prediction & Model Performance: What Everyone Should Know
Numerical Weather Prediction & Model Performance: What Everyone Should Know
The Heat is On: Summer Safety Webinar with Melissa Griffin
The Heat is On: Summer Safety Webinar with Melissa Griffin
2022 AMS Weather Band Photo Contest
2022 AMS Weather Band Photo Contest
Tags: photography
Understanding and Predicting Tornadoes
Understanding and Predicting Tornadoes

Distinguished Professor of Meteorology Paul Markowski of Penn State University provides a special inside look and first hand stories about how scientific “storm chasing” and state-of-the-art computer simulations have helped us better understand and predict tornadoes. 

AMS Councilmember, Policy Fellow, and Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Erica Grow leads the conversation following Professor Markowski's presentation. 

Think and Act Like a Lifeguard – Where Weather, Water and Waves Meet
Think and Act Like a Lifeguard – Where Weather, Water and Waves Meet

Any beachgoer could find themselves in trouble or see someone else in danger. For our own safety, we can learn how to think like a lifeguard. 

By Bruckner Chase
Winter Weather: Forecasting Snow and the Challenges That Come With It
Winter Weather: Forecasting Snow and the Challenges That Come With It

Millersville University Weather Information Center (WIC) Director Kyle Elliott shows how to recognize and analyze the large-scale weather patterns that are favorable for winter storm formation.

Airborne Science and NASA Mission Support
Airborne Science and NASA Mission Support

Join the AMS Weather Band for a webinar series on weather related careers! We are learning from a variety of professionals how they use meteorology in their jobs, and what type of weather knowledge matters most for them. 

This webinar features Ryan Bennett, who is the Data Manager at NASA's National Suborbital Research Center, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute. 

Inside the Hurricane Hunters
Inside the Hurricane Hunters

Lt. Col. Nicole Mitchell takes the AMS Weather Band inside the missions and experiences of the renowned Hurricane Hunters! This special event also features discussion with Bryan Norcross as moderator.

Tags: cruising
The Past, Present, and Future of the Northeastern Storm Conference
The Past, Present, and Future of the Northeastern Storm Conference

The Northeastern Storm Conference is the largest and longest running student led conference in the nation. What once was a small meeting of students on the Lyndon State College campus has grown into a three-day conference with hundreds of attendees from across the country.

By Gabrielle Brown
Can A Hedgehog Forecast Rain?
Can a Hedgehog Forecast Rain?

While the scientific methods have varied a great deal, weather forecasting has been a subject of human endeavor for as long as we have written records! Ancient forecasters used everything from cloud observations to jellyfish sightings to predict the weather and help them make their most important decisions on topics from going to war to sowing crops. 

By AMS Staff
Developing Tools for Forecasting and Communication: The Human Role in their Design
Developing Tools for Forecasting and Communication: The Human Role in their Design

There have been many changes in the role of humans in the forecast process in recent years and many new roles that have been created in this era of social media, smart technology, and artificial intelligence. This webinar series details how humans will use machine learning and other techniques to develop tools that will assist forecasters, not replace them.

By Falko Judt, Greg West, Pat Market, Dan Nietfeld, Robert Hoffman, Neil Stuart
Science is Cool and It Helps People
Science is Cool and It Helps People

AMS 2018 Keynote Speaker Richard Alley joins us to share his enthusiasm for science and science communication.

By Richard Alley
Some Welcoming Remarks
Some Welcoming Remarks

The Weather Band is for all of us who are fascinated with the wide range of phenomena we see in the atmosphere, from the power of hurricanes to the delicacy of a dendritic snowflake.

By Keith Seitter
The Today Show's First Forecast on Television
The Today Show's First Forecast on Television

Watch TODAY anchor Dave Garroway deliver the national weather forecast via telephone and by hand.

By The Today Show
Interview with Jill Pelto
Interview with Jill Pelto

We sat down with artist and science communicator Jill Pelto to learn more about her background and fieldwork, her artistic process, and why she sees art as the key to connecting more audiences to science. 

Shock Troops of Disaster: WPA and the 1938 Hurricane
Shock Troops of Disaster: WPA and the 1938 Hurricane

Watch the original film on relief efforts by the Workers Progress Administration to help communities along the East Coast of the United States recover from the "whirling, shrieking vortex of high wind and heavy rain" caused by the massive hurricane of 1938. 

The Value of Volunteer Observations for Tracking Heavy Rain in Mesoscale Convective Systems
The Value of Volunteer Observations for Tracking Heavy Rain in Mesoscale Convective Systems

In his book, Cloud Dynamics, Robert Houze quotes Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn:

“The fifth night below St. Louis, we had a big storm after midnight, with the power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a solid sheet.”  (Houze, Cloud Dynamics, Academic Press, 1993). The likelihood is that Twain's story was recounting a common occurrence in the Midwest summer: what we know today as the mesoscale convective system or MCS, a conglomeration of thunderstorms that often reach a peak in the middle of the night.

By Ted Best
The Iguanas Are Falling
The Iguanas Are Falling

Well, it’s that time of year again. The National Weather Service in Miami has issued an unofficial warning for falling iguanas the week of Christmas. 

From Fear to Forecasting: How I Learned to Love Tornadoes
From Fear to Forecasting: How I Learned to Love Tornadoes

If you know me, it’s no secret that my love of tornadoes runs deep. Ever since I saw my first funnel cloud at two years old, I’ve wanted to be a meteorologist. I knew I didn’t want to be a broadcaster, I wanted to do “behind-the-scenes” research on tornadoes.

 

What is a secret though is that I’m deathly afraid of tornadoes.

By Alyssa Reynolds
Setting a National Temperature Record at Loma, Montana
Setting a National Temperature Record at Loma, Montana

On January 14th-15th, 1972, a National Weather Service (NWS) cooperative observer (COOP) site located in Loma, Montana recorded a 103F degree temperature change (-54F to 49F) within twenty-four hours, thereby breaking the previous record of 100F recorded on January 23rd-24th, 1916 in Browning, Montana. 

By Andrew Horvitz, Scott Stephens, Michael Helfert, Grant Goodge, Kelly T. Redmond, Ken Pomeroy and Ed Kurdy
"What If?" Or The Importance of Standards
"What If?" Or The Importance of Standards

What if weather observations were made differently in each country, or even by State or region? 

We compare observations to understand weather phenomenon in order to predict future conditions and document historical ones. If each location took their observations differently, we would never be able to understand what we are looking at.

By Paul M. Fransioli, CCM
Weather in a Pen Stroke
Weather in a Pen Stroke

Before today’s technology was available, skilled technicians plotted cloud and atmospheric observa­tions on weather maps by hand. New observations arrived over telegraph or Teletype, and the plotter would create a new map each time. The information arrived in an alphanumeric code, and the plotter would have to decode and record the correct data at the location of each station. The information had to be entered quickly in order for the plotted map to be current. It also had to be entered in a universally accepted format, and it had to be legible so that the analyst could use the plotted map.

By Robert Houze and Rebecca Houze
Perils of Free Ballooning Make Great Adventure
PERILS OF FREE BALLOONING MAKE GREAT ADVENTURE

On May 30, at exactly 5 P. M., Eastern Standard Time, a great throbbing sigh, followed by a ringing cheer, went up from the multitudinous assemblage gathered at Bettis Field, Pa., for it was then that, in the words of the program, the first racing balloon "leaped into space."

By Lieutenant William O. Eareckson