Lindley Hall, home of the Atmospheric Science Program

Spring Art on the Lawn

The KU Atmospheric Sciences Program was chosen as this year’s Excellence in Undergraduate Advising Award winner.

Dean Danny Anderson recognizes the Atmospheric Sciences program with the Excellence in Undergraduate Advising Award. Dr. Terry Slocum and Dr. Donna Tucker were there to represent the program from the Department of Geography, University of Kansas. Karen Ledom, Interim Director of the College's undergraduate office, was also on hand.		Dean Anderson presents the award to Dr. Tucker and Dr. Slocum.

KU meteorology students crazy about the chase

Lawrence Daily Forecast--courtesy of the KU Atmospheric Science student forecasters:

Because the UDK doesn’t publish on stop day, today will be the last forecast of the year. Thanks to everyone who signed up for the email list and helped contribute to the students’ success, I really appreciate it. And many many thanks to Bev M. for always sending them out and posting the forecasts on the department websites! I hope a faculty member or one or more atmo students will keep it going next year, I’d hate to see it end just because I’m not here.
-Shawn

Synopsis:
Expect the unsettled weather pattern to continue as we head into the weekend. As a broad trough mixes in and out of the area there will be several chances for showers and storms to develop. Models are currently unsure on the timing of when the boundary will move further south. High levels of CAPE will lead to chances for severe weather on Thursday and over the weekend. Temperatures will be quite warm and dew points will remain high, leading to higher heat indexes over the forecast period. The southerly flow will aid in the warm moist air flow into our area through the weekend. Good luck with finals!
Tonight: Partly cloudy. Low near 65.
Thursday: 20 percent chance of showers and storms. Mostly sunny, high 87. South winds at 10-15 mph.

Thursday night: Partly cloudy with a 40 chance of showers and storms. Low 68. South wind at 15-20 mph.

Friday: Sunny. High 90, low 69.

Saturday: Slight chance of showers and storms late, otherwise partly cloudy. High 88. Low 66.

Sunday: 30 percent chance of showers and storms with mix of clouds and sun. High 83. Low 64.

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Congratulations to Adam R. Smith, Atmospheric Science senior, on being named KU's first Student Employee of the Year!

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Randy Baker, Geography/Atmospheric Science Advisory Board member and Atmospheric Science alumnus (B.S. 1985) was interviewed recently for Weatherbrains podcast.

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Paper co-authored by Nathaniel Brunsell highlighted by NSF.
"Time of Year Important in Projections of Climate Change Effects on Ecosystems"

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Congratulations to Atmospheric science senior Sasha Glanville, who was selected to participate in the prestiguous NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) this coming summer. Sasha and the other SARP students will conduct observations on board the NASA P-3B aircraft flying along the southern California coastal region. The student researchers will focus on trace gas measurements and multi-spectral imaging of land and ocean surfaces.

**** University of Oklahoma WXCHALLENGE, a national forecasting competition****

Hi everyone,

This year we’re going to continue participating in the University of Oklahoma WxChallenge (ignore OU’s name on it, they just run it, they don’t rule it), and hopefully build on our finish from last year. An exciting new thing this year is that Juneau, AK, and Hilo, HI are forecast cities, the first time the contest has chosen places outside the Continental US.

Here’s how it works:

The contest begins in late September and runs for 10 weeks each semester. The forecast locations rotate every 2 weeks and can be anywhere in the U.S. (the schedule is at http://www.wxchallenge.com/challenge/schedule.php). The way it works is that every contestant submits a forecast composed of a max and min temperature, maximum sustained wind speed, and precipitation amount every Monday-Thursday by 0000 UTC (7pm CDT, 6pm CST). The forecast is for the following day from 0600 UTC-0600 UTC (24 hour period). Error points are subsequently calculated and people with less error points are higher in the standings and so forth. One thing I should note is that freshmen and sophomores compete in a different category than juniors and seniors. Grad students are a separate category, as are faculty/staff.

The cost is $3 for the fall semester and $5 for the full year. If you just do the fall, you can sign up to do the spring later on, if that works better for you. For those of you taking ATMO 605 in the spring, I make participation in the WxChallenge mandatory for that class, so it would never hurt to get an early start.

There are a lot more details about the contest that can be found on the website http://www.wxchallenge.com. I will say that this contest is one of the best ways to get forecast experience and I've found that for myself and others throughout the years, it's been a good learning experience and fun at the same time.

Forecasting starts Monday September 26th. I will be holding an information session about the contest for those that sign up the week before the contest starts (time/date TBA). I also tentatively would like to hold weekly early-week forecast discussions about whatever city we're forecasting for at a time convenient for all participants.

****IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN PLAYING****, please either fill out the attached sign up sheet or email me the requested information on that sheet NO LATER than Wednesday, September 21st.

I hope you decide to join, and how you rank in the contest is only a small part of the benefit. Mostly, it's a good experience that will help prepare you for real-world forecasting, it looks good on a resume, and it will also help get our department's name out there among meteorology departments nationwide.

Thanks,

Shawn

Shawn Milrad
Visiting Assistant Professor
Atmospheric Science Program
Dept. of Geography
University of Kansas
413A Lindley Hall
Phone: 785-864-3040
E-mail: s732m108@ku.edu

Meteorology students at the Univ. of Kansas planning trip to help tornado victims in Alabama

http://www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_kansas/meteorology-students-at-the-univ.-of-kansas-planning-trip-to-help-tornado-victims-in-alabama

Atmospheric science grad students working with Prof. David Mechem do the heavy lifting to install a disk array in the Atmospheric Science Linux cluster. The disk server provides an additional analysis capacity and 60 Terabytes of storage for regional climate simulations, cloud-resolving models, and eddy-covariance tower data. These computing resources support our research projects funded by NSF EPSCoR, NOAA, Department of Energy, Office of Naval Research, and NASA. Pictured, from left to right in the photo, are Halley Holmes, Prescott Bishop, David Huber, and Kathryn Clark.

Just an FYI for those who read the Daily Kansan and/or are interested:  KU Atmo 605 students are now the forecasters for the Kansan newspaper! (the paper is no longer using weather.com).  You can find our forecasts today on page 2, at the top.  We hope to make this a year-round thing, where KU ATMO majors will be producing forecasts for the paper in addition to recording for the KU Weather line. 

As a reminder, anytime you need a forecast, you can call the Weather Line at 864-3300. (shameless plug)

Congratulations are in order for Nate Brunsell, who has just received an NSF Ecosystems grant (with Paul Stoy at Montana State University) for a project entitled “Scaling ecosystem function: Novel approaches from MaxEnt and Multiresolution.”

Congratulations to Nate Brunsell for receiving the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers. The fellowship was awarded for his proposal: "Using Maximum Entropy Production to assess heterogeneity, optimality, and extreme events in land-atmosphere dynamics". This work will be conducted during a year long stay at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany.

If you would like to get better at weather forecasting, the WxChallenge is a very good opportunity. The WxChallenge is a national forecast contest administered by the University of Oklahoma, which allows you to compete against some of the best collegiate forecasters in the country.
Contestants make 24-hour forecasts for pre-selected cities across the country (somewhat like ATMO 605, for those of you that have taken that). Contestants may be anyone from freshmen to faculty to alumni. Contestants may participate for Fall, Spring, or the whole year. Awards are given on both an individual and a team basis (must have 5 students from to be eligible for team stuff, but anyone can earn individual awards).

More details about the WxChallenge may be found at www.wxchallenge.com.

Congratulations to Atmo major Anne Alexandra Glanville on her C.E. Spahr Scholarship in the Sciences, John P. Feighner Scholarship and Veta B. Lear Memorial Award. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas honored 73 students with more than $77,000 in scholarships and awards this spring. All the scholarship recipients and most award winners are attending classes at KU this fall. The scholarships and awards, which are made possible by gifts to KU Endowment from alumni and friends, were awarded based on merit, need or both. “These students represent the most talented young scholars in the College. I am grateful that we are able to offer this support to foster their success,” said Interim Dean Gregory B. Simpson.

Congratulations are in order for Dave Mechem who received the J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award for 2008-2009 in the Natural Sciences Division of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences!

Congratulations to our 2009 Geography and Atmospheric Science Graduates!

Congratulations to Kees van der Veen on his promotion to Full Professor.

See who came to the Atmo Reunion, May 8, 2009

Congratulations to Ava Dinges and Andrew Oberthaler who have won American Meteorological Society Undergraduate Scholarships! Congratulations also to Sylvia Davison who has won an AMS Minority Scholarship and plans to come to KU.

ATMO undergraduate student Jesse Lundquist was selected for the prestegious National Weather Service Student Career Education Program (SCEP).  This is a paid internship with the National Weather Service.

Congratulations to the Atmospheric Science Program on receiving the Cooperative Observer Award from the National Weather Service for the University's weather station near Lindley Hall. The station is one of the oldest of Kansas' stations. Pictured, left to right, are Richard McNulty, Johannes Feddema, Curtis Hall, Bill Newman of the National Weather Service, David Mechem, Donna Tucker and Terry Slocum. To read more, please click here.