The Tuskegee Airmen were a highly respected fighter group formed in 1941. Prior to 1940, African-Americans were not permitted to fly with the U.S. military. Thanks to advocacy by civil rights groups and others, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed legislation in 1940 which prohibited racial restrictions on voluntary enlistments in the military and allowed African-Americans to serve in all branches of the Armed Forces, including the Army Air Corps (although on a segregated basis). This led to the development and founding of an African-American pursuit squadron to be based and trained at Tuskegee, Alabama.
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season officially begins in four days, although we’ve already had our first named storm – Tropical Storm Arthur. Tropical cyclones are among nature’s most powerful and destructive phenomena, and scientists are growing more confident that the increase in Earth’s surface temperatures is impacting the intensity of tropical cyclones. A new collaborative study that further explored this hypothesis was published last month by scientists from the Center for Weather and Climate (NOAA/NCEI) and the Cooperative Insitute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisonsin-Madison.
This month, I am so excited to profile one of my long-time friends and colleagues, Dr. Kristen Corbosiero. Kristen and I first met during our early days at UAlbany. We worked our way through graduate school together, taking many classes, doing teaching assistant work, and suffering through countless impossible homework assignments. After graduate school, we went our separate ways, so you can imagine how excited I was to learn that Kristen would be taking a faculty position at UAlbany and moving back to the area. Since that time, we see each other at professional meetings, meet for breakfast (though not frequently enough!), and it’s just been a real treat to have her back in the area. She is a gifted teacher and researcher, and I hope you enjoy learning about her and her work in this blog!
Just a couple of months after a devastating tornado tore across Nashville, Mother Nature had another blow for Music City. Late in the evening on Saturday, May 1, a complex of severe thunderstorms developed across southern Kansas. They continued tracking east through Missouri and western Kentucky over the next morning before finally reaching central Tennessee by the afternoon.
Shelf cloud approaching Hwy109 at I-40 near Lebanon, TN on May 3, 2020 photo by NWS Nashville meteorologist Brendan SchaperContinue reading “D is for Derecho”
This post was inspired by a fantastic article which was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) in December 2019 by Dr. Robert Houze of the University of Washington, and his daughter, Rebecca Houze.
I will never forget one of the first times I felt as an undergraduate that I had really arrived at the point where I was learning ‘real meteorology’. As an applied science, meteorology has a lot of core class requirements, including calculus and differential equations, physics, and chemistry. Thus, it is very easy to get bogged down in all of the prerequisites and lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel- learning about the science of weather that drove you into those classes in the first place. For me, that light at the end of the tunnel was an introductory weather and forecasting class which I took during the spring semester of my sophomore year. In that class, we did a lot of hands-on work plotting weather maps, which was something I really enjoyed. Actually, looking at data on weather maps and figuring out what it means is STILL one of my favorite parts of my job today!
Hey y’all, happy Thursday! Tomorrow is the first day of May, and although summer doesn’t technically begin until June 20, it already feels like summer in my soul – and my backyard (hello Alabama warmth, I’ve missed you!) As we embark on the warmest time of year, I thought it might be a good time to refresh ourselves on summer safety tips as we plan for those backyard barbecues, beach and lake days, and more time spent outdoors in general!
Hi guys! Welcome to our first Ask Me Anything, where we reached out to students of all ages to ask what their biggest questions about the weather were. We received some great questions, and we are so excited to answer them here!
Please feel free to ask questions at any time by filling out our question form, and we will be sure to answer them at a future AMA event!
In the past, we have blogged about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and discussed how the agency works. The overarching mission of NOAA is to predict and understand the climate, oceans, weather, as well as to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources. In this unprecedented time in history which we now find ourselves living in, many of these faithful civil servants continue to report to work to do their jobs and protect the public. Many of these individuals are working from home like so many of us, but many also must continue to commute to their workplace to do their jobs; the vast volume of weather data and the difficult task of issuing warnings and forecasts is not possible to do from a personal desktop or laptop computer. Kelly and I are both married (or in Kelly’s case, soon to be married!) to meteorologists who work for NOAA (my husband works for the National Weather Service at a local Weather Forecast office, while Kelly’s husband works for National Weather Service at the National Water Center), and we are so grateful for them and their coworkers who truly model what civil service means.
I thought it would be interesting to dig a little deeper into some of the agencies which make up NOAA, highlighting a little bit more of the invaluable work they do and how they contribute to NOAA’s mission. Since we are heading into the peak of severe weather season, it seemed like a great time to learn a little bit more about the Storm Prediction Center, which is located in Norman, Oklahoma.
In February 2014, I attended my first AMS Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement y’all. There were so many great talks, posters, and people. My professor at the time had told us to make sure we asked questions and talked to people….but, man, can that be intimidating! I didn’t get the courage to ask any questions in oral sessions…I mean, what if I asked a “dumb” question?! Luckily I now know that it is a very welcoming crowd – particularly for students – and there are, of course, no wrong questions. BUT – I did browse the poster session and got the courage to talk to different people presenting their work and research. Of course, a lot (okay, probably most) of it went over my head, and I certainly don’t remember what most of them were about…except for one. Even six years later, I still remember my favorite poster from that weekend and the person who presented it. This week’s Third Thursday interview will be highlighting that individual – Jennifer Saari.
Hello, and happy Thursday everyone! Today is April 9, and it has been three weeks since the first “stay-at-home” order was issued in California due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Tomorrow, New York will hit the three week mark as well. It’s hard to describe what the last few weeks have looked like, especially since it has impacted each of us in so many different ways, but the two words that come to my mind – roller coaster. It has been a roller coaster of emotions, with constant news updates and changes to policies and regulations. On top of all that, many are now are adjusting to a new normal, working from home. As someone who regularly works at home, I know that it can come with it’s own unique challenges and distractions. However, I also know that working from home right now is even more difficult – whether you are transitioning your children into online learning, adjusting to having your significant other as your coworker, or are trying to cope with the loneliness of social isolation if you live alone. Whatever your circumstance, I hope this blog can help bring some ease to your day to day. We will get through this together!
