Weather Geeks

Guest: Clinton Wallace, Director of the SWPC Weather Geeks often spend their time looking up at the sky, but there are some Geeks that look even farther up! Forecasters at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center are tasked with looking at everything PAST our atmosphere to warn us of any impending threats. However, sometimes those threats can be visualized as a spectacle with the Northern Lights, which we were ALL treated to one of the greatest shows of our lifetimes back in early May. How did the Space Weather Prediction Center forecasters know this event was coming? Well they were led by Director Clinton Wallace, and we have him on 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: John Ross, author Whether you’ve heard about D-Day or the Battle of Normandy through a textbook at school many years ago or from a documentary on TV, the images you’ve seen of the seaborne invasion surely are etched into your mind. All of the troops storming the beaches from the sea, flanked by gunfire and explosions. Of course the logistics of conducting such an organized siege is one thing, but one aspect that many people don’t know is how much of an impact the weather had on that pivotal battle. And if that battle did not happen, there would be cascading effects that would change our history forever. Ahead of the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, we have author John Ross on the podcast today See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Guest: Charlie Peachey, Mount Washington Weather Observer The United States sees almost every kind of meteorological phenomena imaginable, but there’s one place where the weather can be amplified. Located at over 6000 feet in New Hampshire, Mount Washington is famous for its weather extremes. The Mount Washington Observatory is a world renowned institution with a mission to advance understanding of the natural systems that create Earth’s weather and climate. Our guest today is a Weather Observer and Research/IT Specialist with the observatory… welcome to the show Charlie Peachey! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Guest: Dr. Falko Judt, Research Meteorologist at NCAR In tropical meteorology, the term ‘rapid intensification’ describes a tropical cyclone that does just that: it rapidly intensifies. The official definition is a tropical system whose maximum sustained winds increase by at least 35 mph in a 24-hour period. Sometimes though, it’s much more intense. In 2023, Hurricane Otis in the Eastern Pacific saw its winds increase by 115 mph in less than 24 hours before slamming into Mexico as a rare Category 5 storm, while Hurricane Idalia intensified by 55 mph from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in the day before making landfall in Florida’s Big Bend. The ‘how’ and ‘why’ some storms rapidly intensify is still shrouded in a bit of mystery. Here today to help us unveil a bit of that, we welcome Falko Judt, a research meteorologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Guest: Dr. Amy McGovern, University of Oklahoma We as humans all have biases whether we like to believe it or not, especially when it comes to meteorology. You may have heard of confirmation bias, Dunning-Kruger effect, survivor’s bias, cognitive dissonance and more! However, humans aren’t the only ones who are susceptible to bias: it has been shown in newly-evolving AI. How can we nip these glitches in the bud before they could potentially get out of hand? Our guest today Dr. Amy McGovern from the University of Oklahoma is working to tackle that exact problem… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Guest: Dr. Baker Perry, National Geographic Explorer  When it comes to the highest places on Earth, the Rockies, the Andes and of course, the Himalayas come to mind. And while hikers have scaled these peaks, real-time weather data is scarce at these high altitudes. These are not highly populated areas, so why would we need to have weather stations installed in these remote frontiers? Joining us today to explain why and what it means for not only our understanding of the present climate, but the past as well, is National Geographic Explorer Dr. Baker Perry. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Guest: Dr. Nicole Mölders, Professor at University of Alaska Fairbanks If you grew up in a colder climate, your parents always told you that you have to dress in layers, all the way down to your socks! But if you grew up in a warmer climate, you were told to wear lighter fabrics and colors so the sun’s heat wasn’t too intense on your body. These are more than just pieces of advice that have been passed down through the years, they have foundations in science! On Weather Geeks today, we have Dr. Nicole Mölders, who is the leading expert on the intersection of weather and fashion and we’re going to dive into her latest book about the certainly geeky topic… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Guest: Dr. Stephan Rasp, Senior Research Scientist at Google As technology continues to improve, weather models are becoming increasingly more accurate in the short term due to increased computing power and increased resolution. But how can we quantify that increase in accuracy? It seems like a basic question, but one that isn’t so easy to answer....without the assistance of machine learning!. Joining us today is Stephan Rasp, to talk about WeatherBench, an open-source framework that aims to help answer the questions on weather model accuracy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.