Search Results

Deep hail accumulations, sometimes up to 50 cm in depth, have occurred frequently enough to catch the attention of the National Weather Service (NWS), the general public, and social/digital media outlets.

Despite the extreme nature of these storms, adequate reports or measurements of accumulated hail depth are currently not collected or archived, and products to track or forecast these events do not exist, preventing guidance from being issued to emergency responders, transportation departments, and the general public.

In this talk presented at the 2022 AMS Community and Citizen Science Symposium, Dr. Lam introduces a Hong Kong based Community Weather Information Network (Co-WIN) which provides local meteorological information from the rooftops of primary and secondary schools (and has over 170 members). He provides a comprehensive overview of network operations including sensor development, data quality assurance, public engagement and scientific investigation. The talk also includes examples of using the network data for various applications such as numerical downscaling for high-resolution forecast and extreme heat warning signal system for heat stress-related health threats will be covered, illustrating the importance and the contribution of citizen science to  traditional scientific studies. 

Here are a few of the news stories that we've been following in the last week. Do you have a story we missed? Share it in the community!

Scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts have developed a new mathematical approach that they say can substantially improve the prediction of extreme weather events. Analyzing the connectivity and patterns between geographical locations, it could potentially save thousands of lives and avoid billions in economic losses. Prediction times for events like El Niño, monsoons, droughts or extreme rainfall could be increased substantially, to a month or in some cases even a year in advance, depending on the type of the event.

Over the past four summers, community scientists in over 50 US cities have set out to measure the distribution of ambient heat across urban environments as part of a national campaign ("Heat Watch") led by CAPA Strategies and NOAA's National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS). The highly engaging program has involved hundreds of community participants as data collectors with simple-to-use equipment, engaging training material, and meaningful input to study design and interpretation of the resulting ambient heat maps. Gaining an element of civic legitimacy through the participation of local communities, the generated datasets are used by municipal planners, health departments, academic researchers, and others to identify heat vulnerabilities and rapidly advance local heat resilience efforts. 

In this presentation from the 2022 AMS Weather Band Community and Citizen Science Symposium, Christopher Bridges discusses how the effectiveness of water resources management projects in rural communities can be limited by a lack of reliable long-term monitoring data. This is particularly important when considering agricultural drainage water, stormwater runoff controls and floodplain management in the erodible soils of the Coastal Plains. Additionally, measurement of extreme precipitation events is essential to understanding flooding risk in rural areas.

This is Part II of the series by Dr. Lea Hartl discussing the history and data records of the automatic weather station on Denali Pass. If you missed Part I, follow this link. 

On February 20th, 1989, a three-person team of Japanese mountaineers climbing the West Buttress route on Denali reached High Camp at 5243 m.a.s.l. The team leader, Noboru Yamada, was hoping to become the first person to summit the highest peaks of the seven continents in winter and was climbing with two other experienced mountaineers, Teruo Saegusa and Kozo Komatsu, on this occasion. The weather on the 20th had been relatively calm.

Following on from Part I of Weather and Death on Everest, there follows here an indepth look at the meteorological foundations of the storm and the resulting physiological effects on the mountaineers

Analyzing the Into Thin Air Storm

From the 8th to the 13th of May 1996, the summit temperature on Mount Everest underwent an approximate 10°C drop.