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Meet Justin Pullin: deputy chief of staff, NWS; and chair on AMS board for early career professionals. 

Scientists have encountered difficulty determining long-term hurricane trends “Only hurricanes that affected people’s lives were known and reported,” notes Suzana Camargo of Columbia University. However, Camargo and colleagues created an algorithm that identified tropical cyclones back to 1850 in the Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) dataset, which uses historical global climate observations to reconstruct weather patterns.

Explore how Penn State’s online Weather Forecasting Certificate program can turn weather enthusiasts and those who work in weather-related careers into weather information power users to enhance their hobbies or careers.
 

Did you know that snow can fall at temperatures above freezing? In this presentation from the 2022 AMS Weather Band Community and Citizen Science Symposium, Jeff Uhlik describes the impact of community engagement through the Tahoe Rain or Snow project. The group is working to reduce inaccuracies in determining precipitation type by estimating the temperature of the rain-snow boundary, which is used in weather forecasts and hydrologic models. With help from Tahoe Rain or Snow weather spotters, they have been able to record evidence of snow consistently falling at above-freezing temperatures in the Sierra Nevada. This project is now expanding in 21/22 to include many parts of the Western US.

In this presentation from the 2022 AMS Weather Band Community and Citizen Science Symposium, Craig Lowe shows how Bahamian Storm and Hurricane Interceptors came to be and what they do to assist The Bahamas Department of Meteorology and The National Emergency Management Agency with valuable information on active Weather Threats.

Join Mallory Brooke of Nor'Easter Weather Consulting as she takes us inside the weather and the ski industry to look at teleconnections, forecasting tools, and how forecasts are used for events like the World Cup at Killington. This will also include a deeper dive into different weather issues and their impacts at the World Cup years 2016-2019.

Behind the bloody beaches of D-Day and the deathly bloom of mushroom clouds in the bright desert, behind supercomputers and the weather app on your phone, there is a mainly unrecognized group of young women who wielded the power of math to change the course of history. 

Weather spotters play an important role in the severe weather warning system. Since the 1970s, the National Weather Service (NWS) has trained citizens to collect, confirm, verify, or supplement radar and other data, thus, “serving as the nation’s first line of defense against severe weather.” Today, “SKYWARN,” is a volunteer program with over 350,000 trained spotters. The network includes police and fire personnel, 911 dispatchers, emergency management workers, public utility workers, and other concerned citizens.

I tend to go overboard for books. I value my library card more than my driver’s license. But then, I’m a book addict. 

There are so many books on meteorology that it can stagger the mind. You really don’t need to read a ton of books if you are an amateur, but you should get some orientation and familiarity with terms and processes.

Dive into the fascinating history of weather maps with Barbara Mayes Boustead. In this presentation she reveals the science and process of hand analysis and discusses its relevance in a world of digital maps. 

I am approaching this particular blog post with a bit of consternation and reservation. Most of us are so enthralled by the progression of daily weather that we become amateur weather observers.

A very thrilling, nervous, and euphoric moment occurred back on February 18^th with the touchdown of NASA’s Martian Perseverance Rover. The Perseverance Rover is a component of the larger Mars Exploration Program (MEP) and includes a robotic helicopter named Ingenuity. Perseverance confirmed a successful touchdown within the Jezero crater at 3:55 pm EST, ending a 204-day flight from Earth to its new home, Mars. Meteorological instruments, similar to the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) of the Martian rover, Curiosity, have begun recording surface air and ground temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, and ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Severe cold waves on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico are infrequent but of great moment. Human habitation and dress are not here adapted to extreme cold; cattle and other livestock are inadequately sheltered from winter extremes, and tropical fruits and winter truck are subject to extensive damage and occasional total destruction from abnormally low temperatures. In economic loss and human suffering, a severe cold wave, reaching our southern and southeastern borders, ranks with the hurricane.

How does a rocket get to space? For that, it needs the help of a very special team of weather forecasters. 

The 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron (45 WS) provides comprehensive weather services to America’s space program at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Patrick Air Force Base. These services include weather support for pre-launch, launch, post-launch, routine weather forecast, 24/7 watches/warnings, flight briefings, and special missions. 

As World War II progressed, a shortage of technical officers left the U.S. increasingly vulnerable. In an effort to shore up defenses, what was then the U.S. Weather Bureau, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Navy began to recruit women hydrologists, mathematicians, and meteorologists.

Vincent Schaefer's 1955 study on changes in atmospheric conditions between the base of a mountain and its peak was only one small facet of Project Skyfire. Originally aimed at reducing lightning caused fires in timber forests in the western United States, this project created a number of fascinating projects, including Schaefer's extensive research into cloud seeding. 

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.

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.