Weather Geeks

As Hurricane Milton bears down on the state of Florida, Dr. Matt Sitkowski and Dr. Greg Postel of The Weather Channel sit down to discuss this prolific storm.

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Guest: Dr. Matt Bilskie, Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia

A lot of our Weather Geeks listeners will remember the classic game show, “Press Your Luck” and living in a city along the Gulf or Atlantic coastlines is a lot like playing it! Every single hurricane season, you are hoping that you can make it across the board without hitting a Whammy. But sometimes, Mother Nature isn’t so kind and she could hit you with the Triple Whammy from a landfalling hurricane, which is scientifically called compound flooding! What is that and how can we mitigate against it? Our guest today Dr. Matt Bilskie has been working on methods to better assess this threat so your family and property can be safe and you don’t have to continue pressing your luck…

Chapters

1. 00:00 Living on the Coast: Playing Press Your Luck
2. 06:55 The Hazards of Water in Hurricanes
3. 07:02 Understanding Compound Flooding
4. 19:42 Mitigating Compound Flooding with Nature-Based Solutions
5. 25:27 Future Floods and Climate Change

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Guest: Bill Haskell, Artist

Artists and musicians will often cite a muse as their inspiration for their works of art, which is usually a love interest or dreams of success. But what about the weather? Can it be a muse? For us Weather Geeks, we find inspiration in the weather in every single model run and supercell structure, and it turns out that we aren’t the only ones! Today on the show we have Bill Haskell to discuss how he incorporates the weather around him into his beautiful landscape paintings.

Chapters

1. 00:00 Finding Inspiration in Weather
2. 02:14 The Power of Weather in Art
3. 07:45 Tornadoes as Metaphors
4. 13:01 The Appeal of Tornado Paintings
5. 18:32 The Smallness of Humanity
6. 23:17 Incorporating Weather in Art

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Guest: Scott Rayder, President of Lynker

Here on the Weather Geeks podcast, we don’t have to remind you what NOAA is and how they work every single day to protect life and property. But there are a lot of others out there who have never even heard of NOAA and don’t truly understand where their weather forecasts come from. They may be surprised that The Weather Channel or their favorite mobile phone app isn’t the one issuing a tornado warning for their area! NOAA does it all, and they need the funding in order to keep doing it, and unfortunately, they aren’t getting enough of it. On the show today we have former NOAA Chief of Staff Scott Rayder to discuss why more funding is desperately needed before it’s too late…

Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction
2. 08:12 Advancements in Weather Forecasting
3. 14:54 The Evolving Landscape of Weather Modeling
4. 30:59 Recognizing and Supporting NOAA's Critical Work
5. 37:42 Conclusion

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Guest: Dr. Jeremy Werdell, Oceanographer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

From the smallest plankton to the grandest cloud formations, the PACE mission is poised to capture the breathtaking complexity of Earth's interconnected ecosystems. PACE stands for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem. It's a mission that transcends mere scientific curiosity; it's a rallying cry in the face of our planet's most urgent environmental challenges. By unraveling the mysteries of Earth's ecosystems, PACE equips us with the knowledge and tools needed to confront these challenges head-on. On the show today, we have Project Scientist Dr. Jeremy Werdell to break down the mission and why it’s so important for the future of our planet…

Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction to the PACE Mission
2. 06:16 The Importance of Studying Sea and Sky
3. 07:42 Aerosols: Understanding Atmospheric Particles
4. 14:51 Clouds: Their Role in Climate and Interactions
5. 20:35 Instruments of the PACE Mission
6. 26:34 Early Success and Data Release
7. 34:27 Looking Ahead: Discovery and Interconnectedness

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Guest: Dr. Jordan Schnell, Research Associate for CIRES at CU Boulder; NOAA GSL

You know the Phil Collins song that goes “I can feel it coming in the air tonight?” Well that’s how allergy sufferers feel when they see the trees starting to bloom again in the spring! It signals the return of pollen, which can be debilitating to millions of people. And that can even extend into the summer with ragweed and grass pollen! Scientists at NOAA have developed a brand new pollen forecast that can both help those with allergies live a sneeze-free life, but can also model how pollen particles move around in and interact with our atmosphere. Today on the show we have Dr. Jordan Schnell to discuss this exciting new product and other air quality hot topics…

Chapters

1. 00:00 The Impact of Pollen on Allergy Sufferers and the Development of a New Forecast
2. 04:03 Dr. Jordan Schnell: Research, Air Quality, and Electric Vehicles
3. 15:38 Modeling Pollen and Its Interaction with Weather
4. 26:11 Impact of Pollen on Weather
5. 33:29 The Future of Pollen Forecasting
6. 42:54 Innovative Projects at Ceres

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Guest: Andrew Brady, Founder of AtmoSphere Analytics

To some in the meteorological industry, Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning could seem like scary things. But as technology improves, we can learn to harness these things and use them to our advantage to help further our mission: to save lives and property from the threats that weather can pose. Our guest today is doing just that and then some! Andrew Brady has created a weather prediction model that is powered by advanced machine learning. How is he using this to forecast tornadoes and severe weather accurately from a time frame as short as 1 hour to as far out as 120 hours? Well, that’s what we’re going to geek out about today…

Chapters

1. 00:00 The Power of Machine Learning in Weather Prediction
2. 06:31 The Creation of MMFS and StormNet
3. 16:16 HazCast and Real-Time Data in Severe Weather Prediction
4. 26:10 Performance and Real-Time Evaluations of StormNet
5. 41:18 Future Developments of StormNet

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Guest: Dr. Stella Kafka, AMS Executive Director

The world of meteorology is vast, with the options of different career paths spreading far and wide! You don’t have to be on TV in order to be a successful meteorologist, nor do you have to work for the government at the National Weather Service. In that same vein, you don’t have to be a meteorologist to be involved in the American Meteorological Society, even though it’s in the name! Your career may take you in a different direction, but there is always a weather geek in there somewhere. That’s why today on Weather Geeks, we have the new Executive Director of the AMS Dr. Stella Kafka on the show to talk about her journey into this position and where she wants to take the organization in the future…

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Guest: Dr. Brian LaPointe, Research Professor at Florida Atlantic University

As we are heading into the throes of summer, a lot of you are going to be slathering on sunscreen and heading to the beaches! Heck, you may be listening to this podcast while ON the beach! While you’re there, wouldn’t you want to know more about the waters surrounding you and what little microscopic critters could be floating around in there? Maybe, maybe not, but we are going to geek out about it either way! I’m here with Dr. Brian LaPointe from FAU who is an industry expert in water quality across our country’s shorelines.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Background
• 08:29 Eutrophication and Water Quality
• 27:12 Regulation and Management for Coastal Protection
• 37:13 Warming Water Temperatures and the Growth of Sargassum
• 45:04 The Human Alteration of the Nitrogen Cycle and Harmful Algal Blooms

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Guest: Rick Smith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist for NWS Norman

If you feel it, chase it! That is the tagline for one of the biggest movies of the summer and probably the biggest weather movie of the decade: Twisters. After the initial geek out took place, we were left with a lot of questions! Did it live up to its predecessor Twister, which inspired meteorologists all across the country to pursue their passion? Will we see a brand new wave of Kates and Tylers in the coming decades? Before we think too far ahead, we’ve got to break down the SCIENCE in the film, and who better to do that with than Rick Smith, the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at NWS Norman…

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction to Twisters and Rick Smith
• 09:14 Involvement with the Movie Twisters
• 23:12 Accuracy of Science in Twisters
• 34:02 Weather Modification and Taming Tornadoes
• 36:42 The Future of Twisters and Potential Sequels

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