NCAR scientists have performed one of the most detailed simulations ever of a massive tornado outbreak. They simulated two waves of tornadic storms that occurred on April 27,2011 in Alabama, the deadliest U.S. tornado day since 1925.
Every so often, a dome of upper-level high pressure sits in place for a few days, sometimes as long as several weeks. A major block can produce seemingly endless stretches of blazing heat or bitter cold. By the time it dissipates, it may leave behind a whole stack of broken weather records and an array of disastrous consequences.
A group of scholars and students from nine countries came together in Boulder this summer for two weeks of study dedicated to the world’s second largest and second most populous continent.
The MetEd online training service covers topics in meteorology, weather forecasting, and related geosciences. Users can delve into everything from satellite meteorology to tsunami preparedness and forecasting dust storms.
According to Rick Anthes, the human and economic costs of weather-related disasters would be far greater without NOAA’s satellite and radar observations and weather forecast models.
Prior to massive flooding early in 2011, long-term drought plagued the Australian state of Queensland . As part of a broad research program on cloud seeding, NCAR researchers have been steadily crunching data from a 2008–09 field project that looked into how to make the clouds drop more rain on the region.
A new study led by NCAR’s Wei Yu and CU-Boulder’s Weiqing Han looks at the effects of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), the largest source of intraseasonal (within one season) variability in the tropics, causing wet and dry periods to alternate.
The surfeit of snowfalls across the U.S. East Coast over the last two winters brought ample evidence of just how much the white stuff can vary from place to place—and how difficult it is to assess accurately.
Rick Anthes, UCAR president, looks at atmospheric predictability in general and presents some remarkable examples of recent successful experimental predictions.
Clark Evans from the University of Wisconsin examines Tropical Storm Erin, the rare cyclone that actually became stronger over Oklahoma than it did over water.
How could a tornado outbreak kill more than 200 people? Several factors—meteorological, geographical, and sociological—came together in a rare and deadly way.
Snowstorms have been a dime a dozen across much of the central and eastern United States over the last few months, but four of them got special scrutiny.
The biggest upgrade to the U.S. weather-radar network in 15 years gets rolling this winter with a minimum of fanfare—debuting under the radar, as it were. But the new capabilities should get their fair share of attention in the long run.
A new study by NCAR scientists looks at the accuracy of snow gauges. Making accurate measurements of snowfall is critical for weather forecasting, climate studies, and hydrology. But a combination of snow gauge geometry and weather conditions can lead to systematic measurement errors.
It's good to remind ourselves how far weather prediction has come in recent years. The ferocious winter storm that assailed the U.S. Atlantic coast in late December 2010 offers a great case in point.
Issuing a five-day weather forecast was once a daring enterprise. Today, we’re not only accustomed to long-range weather forecasts but also to seasonal-scale outlooks. Hurricanes and sea ice show how far we've come.
International collaboration has always been at the heart of COSMIC, a six-satellite network that intercepts GPS signals to measure weather, climate, and space weather variables. Now one of the leading university collaborators on COSMIC, the University of Graz, is UCAR’s latest international affiliate.
Julia Slingo from the U.K. Met Office foresees physicists and mathematicians engaging with many other disciplines to provide world-class weather and climate science and services.
