Weather Geeks
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322 episodes
GUEST: Craig Ramseyer, Assistant Prof. at Virginia Tech When a drought is depicted on TV or in movies, you’ll usually see parched farmland with wilted crops and a distressed farmer in denim overalls looking over them. What about the drought that resides in the column of air above our heads, what does that look like? Well, there hasn’t been a TON of research on that aspect of drought…until now with my guest today! Craig Ramseyer is utilizing a newly proposed drought index to predict and measure flash droughts in the Caribbean, which aims to trigger policymakers to enact drought mitigation faster and more efficiently. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: Jeff Berardelli, WFLA-TV Chief Meteorologist As you go about your daily life, you may check your local news station for the weather for the day and for the rest of the week. How about a little sprinkling of the weather for the rest of the year? Or the rest of the decade? Our guest today has been incorporating hints of our changing climate in his local weather segments in hopes of getting his audience to be a little more conscious about the environment around them. Not too much to scare them, but just enough to make them stop and think! Let’s welcome Jeff Berardelli to the Weather Geeks podcast…! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: Madison Condon As much as you’d want to stop drinking out of plastic straws or hop on public transportation, there is only so much that one person can do to help save our environment and curb the effects of climate change. A lot of the responsibility comes down to our political and financial leaders. We have to hope that they have the right information provided to them to make critical decisions about our planet’s future, and if they don’t have that information, they may not be asking the right questions and thus getting the wrong answers. We have a special guest on Weather Geeks today to talk all about climate & environmental law, and that is professor Madison Condon from the Boston University School of Law. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: Dr. Kevin Simmons EPISODE INTRO: In our current tornado and severe thunderstorm warning system, if you are put under a warning, there is no question that you should take action and protect yourself and your property. But what if the warning is posed with a probability of the storm making a severe impact? Would you be more or less influenced to take action? What about if you own a business and have to make decisions not just for yourself, but also your employees and customers. A lot of questions and we’ve got just the guy here on the show today to maybe give us some insight into the answers! Dr. Kevin Simmons, who is a professor of economics at Austin College, focuses on natural hazards and he is here with us on Weather Geeks today… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: Evan Bentley EPISODE INTRO: In the world of meteorology, the letters “SPC” carry a lot of weight. From severe weather to flooding and fire, the Storm Prediction Center covers almost everything under the sun! Today’s guest has spent the past several years on staff at the SPC as a mesoscale-assistant/fire weather forecaster. He has brought his years of forecasting to Norman, Oklahoma and today he joins us on Weather Geeks… Welcome to the show Evan Bentley…. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: Dr. David Wilmouth EPISODE INTRO: On January 15, 2022, a massive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano occurred, sending literal shockwaves around the globe and releasing millions of tons of material into the atmosphere. This eruption was unprecedented in the modern satellite era in terms of how much water vapor was injected into the stratosphere and just how far into the stratosphere it penetrated. Here to talk about the impacts of the eruption on the stratosphere is Dr. David Wilmouth. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: Adam Smith, NOAA / NCEI EPISODE INTRO: 2023 set the record for the most billion dollar disasters in the United States in one calendar year. As the name suggests, a billion dollar disaster is a weather or climate disaster event with losses exceeding one billion dollars. From flooding to drought, winter storms to hurricanes, there were 28 billion dollar disasters last year. Our next guest is the lead scientist for the National Centers for Environmental Information Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disasters analysis. Welcome to the show Adam Smith… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: Dr. Jonathan Kahl, Professor at UW-Milwaukee If you’re a sports fan, you may know the term “Scorigami!” When you have a score combination that has never occurred before, you achieve Scorigami! And this inspired our guest Dr. Jonathan Kahl to create “Weathergami.” Instead of Team A vs Team B, he looks at high temperature vs low temperature at each location. While it sounds like a fun way to organize and visualize temperature data, it can have simple to digest benefits to discussing climate data across the country. Now, let’s geek out about Weathergami with the creator Dr. Jonathan Kahl… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: Greg Carbin Over the past half a century, we’ve been experiencing the same thunderstorms, blizzards, and hurricanes. Our changing climate may have altered how these weather phenomena act, and in turn the technology we use to research and forecast these events have changed as well! From a local NWS office to the SPC and the WPC, today’s guest has seen decades of change across these institutions and has made them all greater along the way. We’re talking to Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations at the WPC, ahead of his well-deserved retirement today on Weather Geeks See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. JUSTIN SHARPE We all know the saying “if a tree falls in a forest and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Well in our world, we can say something like “if a forecast is perfect, but it doesn’t get disseminated properly, did it do any good?” There are still leaps and bounds that need to be made in the weather industry to bridge the gap between the research and communication when it comes to severe weather of all shapes and sizes. We have Dr. Justin Sharpe here on the show today to discuss the work being done in the social sciences both in the present and future… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: LIZ LEITMAN You are probably familiar with severe thunderstorm and tornado watches. The storm prediction center and its predecessors have been issuing them since the 1950’s to alert people that thunderstorms may develop and bring damaging winds, hail or tornadoes. About a hundred of these are issued every year. Believe it or not, the first convective watch issued by a woman was just last year in 2023. The author of that severe thunderstorm watch was Liz Leitman - and she is here today on Weather Geeks! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. MICHAEL MANN The topic of climate change and the future of our planet is both a controversial as well as at times difficult topic to understand. But if we want to know more about our future, we need to take a look into the history of our planet and our species. In his latest book, , Dr. Michael Mann walks readers through our paleoclimate record and illustrates how it can serve as a roadmap to preserving our fragile moment. What you decide to do from there is entirely up to you. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
ROUNDTABLE WITH: JEN CARFAGNO, DR. GREG POSTEL, HEATHER ZONS Another year around the sun means another year of all sorts of weather, both the beautiful and the horrible. Every single season brought its own flavor of extreme weather, from crippling winter storms to monstrous tornadoes to scalding wildfires and of course tropical storms and hurricanes. Even if these weather events didn’t physically impact you, their scope in the weather world was so large that you couldn’t ignore the conversation. And speaking of conversation, we’re going to close out the year on the Weather Geeks podcast and break down these most notable weather events of 2023! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DEREK MANZELLO, PROGRAM COORDINATOR Picture a coral reef, and you probably have visions of Flounder from The Little Mermaid or Crush from Finding Nemo. Coral reefs should be brimming with life, and are one of Earth’s most diverse ecosystems, providing significant ecological, economic and societal benefits. Unfortunately, they are threatened by climate change, pollution and more. Dr. Derek Manzello - an award winning coral reef ecologist - leads NOAA’s efforts in the Coral Reef Watch Program to understand and predict the trends in warming oceans and our fragile coral reefs. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: CHRIS GOODE, CLIMAVISION FOUNDER INTRODUCTION: You know the saying: if you put good in, you get good out! In the meteorology world, if you put good data in, you’ll get a good forecast out. But what about the areas that don’t have good data to put into the model, more specifically good radar data? Some areas just aren’t adequately covered and lie in what’s called a radar gap or a doppler dead zone. This makes researching and forecasting severe weather in these areas much more difficult. One way to alleviate this issue is to install more hi-res radars which is what a company called Climavision is doing. Joining us today is Chris Goode, the Founder & CEO, to talk about why it’s important to install these radars and what their company hopes to do with the information it collects. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: MAYRA OYOLA-MERCED, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT UW-MADISON INTRODUCTION: Whether it is preparing for hurricane season or getting ready for a severe weather outbreak, you might hear the phrase “weather models.” All kinds of data go into these models, but a new input could be game changing for weather modeling as we head into the future. Satellites. Our next guest is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where her research focuses on satellite and space-borne remote sensing, specifically in the areas of aerosol and cloud radiative effects, severe weather, air quality, and disaster/hazard risk reduction. Welcome Mayra Oyola-Merced to the show… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. ANDREW SCHWARTZ For several months of the year, the Central Sierra Snow Lab looks like a winter wonderland. Over 60 feet of snow fell this past winter at the lab and our next guest was there to experience it all. Dr. Andrew Schwartz, lead scientist and station manager of the University of California Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, studies snowfall, snowpack, and the impact of climate change on these. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. STEPHANIE ZICK, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT VIRGINIA TECH When we think of tornadoes, our minds are immediately drawn to the Southern Plains or the Southeast, right? Well the Midwest has also had their fair share of damaging and deadly tornadoes, not just historically but every single year. A lot of research has been focused on our typical “Tornado Alleys” but sometimes the Midwest gets lost to the wayside. However, researchers at Virginia Tech have discovered multiple different breakthroughs in tornadogenesis all throughout our atmosphere over the Midwestern states. Today on the show, we have Dr. Stephanie Zick to break it all down for us… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HOST JEN CARFAGNO WITH GUEST DR. GREG POSTEL With a raging El Nino in effect, the Eastern Pacific hurricane season was bound to be above average. However, the number of storms that have impacted land has been surprising! From October 9th to October 25th, western Mexico has been hit by FOUR consecutive tropical cyclones. Three were hurricanes at landfall, and the one we want to focus on today is Hurricane Otis. First thought to make landfall as either a strong tropical storm or a weak hurricane ended up becoming the strongest landfalling hurricane in the Eastern Pacific in under 24 hours! How did this happen and what can we as an industry learn about this storm to help improve forecasting and communications in the future…? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. GREG POSTEL & JEN CARFAGNO, THE WEATHER CHANNEL INTRODUCTION: With a raging El Nino in effect, the Eastern Pacific hurricane season was bound to be above average. However, the number of storms that have impacted land has been surprising! From October 9th to October 25th, western Mexico has been hit by FOUR consecutive tropical cyclones. Three were hurricanes at landfall, and the one we want to focus on today is Hurricane Otis. First thought to make landfall as either a strong tropical storm or a weak hurricane ended up becoming the strongest landfalling hurricane in the Eastern Pacific in under 24 hours! How did this happen and what can we as an industry learn about this storm to help improve forecasting and communications in the future…? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. LONNIE THOMPSON It’s not just superheroes and first responders that risk their lives to save others, but what about a climatologist? Would you believe that our guest today climbed the summit of multiple mountains for climate research so we could all better understand how our climate has changed over the years? Well it’s true, and it really is an honor to have him on the podcast today! Subject of the upcoming documentary CANARY, Dr. Lonnie Thompson went where no other climate scientist would dare to go in order to find information and observations that changed how we can see centuries in the past. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: REI GOFFER, TOMORROW.IO Ursa Minor. Canis Major. Orion. These are all star patterns that you can detect in the night sky called constellations! No matter where you live on Earth, there are constellations that will greet you as you look up. That same principle inspired the company Tomorrow.io to create a plan to launch dozens of radar satellites to help increase coverage of life-saving weather observations around the entire globe, in the hopes that they will be able to sample every point on the planet, nearly every hour. Sounds like an immense undertaking doesn’t it? Well we wanted to talk to Tomorrow.io’s co-founder Rei Goffer about this ambitious plan… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DON HARTSELL INTRODUCTION: In the upcoming months, we have not one, but two solar eclipses that are set to sweep across the continental United States: an annular eclipse on October 14 and a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. The eclipse in April will be the second total eclipse to cross the country in the past decade and the last until 2044. It will also serve as the final exclamation point on a month-long research expedition across the country aimed at collecting data on airborne microplastics aboard an airship as it travels from California to Texas. Joining us is one of the leaders of the expedition, Don Hartsell, to discuss the journey and what the group on board hopes to achieve. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. RANDY CERVENY When we hear about extreme weather and changing climate, often we hear about the extreme records that are associated with these events: Things like the hottest temperature streak, the heaviest rainfall, and so forth. You may notice when these events are reported, it’s often with the caveat: “if verified”. An often overlooked, but vitally important caveat. So, who are these verifiers and how do they corroborate world record weather? For the World Meteorological Organization, one of those people is Dr. Randy Cerveny and he’s joining us today to discuss how extreme events are verified and why it’s so important to go through a rigorous verification process. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. MICHAEL MANN The topic of climate change and the future of our planet is both a controversial as well as at times difficult topic to understand. But if we want to know more about our future, we need to take a look into the history of our planet and our species. In his latest book, , Dr. Michael Mann walks readers through our paleoclimate record and illustrates how it can serve as a roadmap to preserving our fragile moment. What you decide to do from there is entirely up to you. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. JUSTIN SHARPE We all know the saying “if a tree falls in a forest and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Well in our world, we can say something like “if a forecast is perfect, but it doesn’t get disseminated properly, did it do any good?” There are still leaps and bounds that need to be made in the weather industry to bridge the gap between the research and communication when it comes to severe weather of all shapes and sizes. We have Dr. Justin Sharpe here on the show today to discuss the work being done in the social sciences both in the present and future… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUESTS: DR. LINNEA AVALLONE & NICHOLAS ANDERSON, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION While aircraft radar has come along away over the past several decades, the U.S. National Science Foundation, or NSF, is looking to take things a step forward with an investment of over 90 million dollars to create the Airborne Phased Array Radar. This will be a state-of-the-art radar that will be attached to the outside of an aircraft and flown over land and oceans to get remarkably close 3D views of what is going on deep inside clouds and severe storms. And the weather research implications of this new system could bring new understanding to severe storms and tropical cyclone research. Joining us today from the NSF are Dr. Linnea Avallone, Chief Officer for Research Facilities, and Nicholas Anderson, Program Director for Physical and Dynamic Meteorology. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. RICK KNABB INTRODUCTION: As we approach the midpoint of the 2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season, we just experienced the landfall of Hurricane Idalia: a major hurricane. With much of the season still ahead of us, we're joined today by The Weather Channel hurricane expert, Dr. Rick Knabb, to discuss the storm and what to expect going forward into the rest of the season. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: JOHN VALLIANT While this year’s wildfire season in the United States hasn’t really picked up steam, the wildfires in Canada have taken over the headlines. Not just because of the extent of the fires, but because of the smoke they are emitting that is wafting into the U.S. and causing some of the worst air quality seen in years. This has been forcing Americans to pay attention to what is happening north of the border and ask questions about these fires, in the past, present and future tense. Today, my guest and I are taking a look at Canada's wildfire past with one of the worst in the country’s history at Fort McMurray. Let’s welcome author John Vaillant to Weather Geeks See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GUEST: DR. SUNDARARAMAN GOPALAKRISHNAN With the Atlantic hurricane season in full swing, a new hurricane forecast model is ready to improve forecast accuracy as well as increase our understanding of tropical cyclones. Joining me today is Dr. Sundararaman “Gopal” Gopalakrishnan, senior meteorologist and leader of the modeling team that is behind NOAA’s newest hurricane forecast model. The Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System, or HAFS, integrates the best of existing hurricane forecast models while adding in key advancements in research. The result is a more accurate forecast that helps scientists as well as the public. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
