- Pat L. wants to know
why storm clouds are dark.
(04/18/06)
- Katelyn C.
was inspired by the movie "The Mummy" to call in and
ask about dust storms.
As it happens, I actually do know a bit about how dust
storms work. (04/18/06)
-
John J. wants to know if the
colors he sees in a sunset
are related to what we learned about rainbows. That's
an interesting question. (04/18/06)
-
Ellen B. called in with a
great question about the
storms that formed to our south two days ago.
(04/13/06)
- Parts of
coastal California experience what is known as the "marine
layer" in which persistent fog and low clouds form and
last for much of the Spring. Drew wants to know why,
and it's a great question because it has to do with
stability. (04/13/06)
-
John G. wants to know
why this winter was so
mild and this April has been so warm. I wish that
I had a better answer for this great question.
(04/13/06)
- Julie McN.
made my day.
(04/09/06)
- Chandler
asked a question about
tornado sirens that has me stumped. Does anyone
know the answer to her question? If you can provide
documentation about where you got the answer, I'll give you
two extra points on the next test.(04/09/06)
-
During a busy day of watching
storms and not taking shelter, Meagan D. wanted to report
about a strange bolt of
lightning that she saw. (04/09/06)
-
Pat L. noticed that a couple of
times already this semester there have been
beautiful mornings
followed by stormy afternoons and evenings. This
is a fabulous observation and gives us a timely opportunity
to talk about stability. (04/09/06)
-
Chandler asked a pretty
straightforward question about
whether or not two
tornadoes could merge. I managed to make it much
more complicated than it would have to be by discussing the
topic of "multiple
vortex tornadoes". (04/09/06)
-
Tasha G. made my day.
She was looking at a weather map
similar to this one and
noticed that the weather
pattern shown is quite a bit more complex than the ones we
learned about in class. She's completely correct
in this assessment; in ATS 113, we only learn about one,
very simple example of how a cyclone can be configured (i.e,
the "open wave"), but much more complex patterns exist.
Atmospheric Sciences majors and graduate students get to
study these complex weather patterns. (03/30/06)
-
Allie H. wants to know
why
thunderstorms along the coast occur in the late afternoon.
(03/29/06)
- Meg McG.
heard about "Tropical Cyclone Larry", which hit Australia a
few days ago. She wants to know
what the
difference is between tropical cyclones and hurricanes.
(03/29/06)
- Zach K. says that his father
knows something about a
"weather machine"
down in Bellevue. I have no idea what this is--perhaps
some devious attempt by the Air Force to control the
weather? I don't know--does anyone else?
(03/21/06)
- Katelyn C. wants to
know what a "jet streak"
is. Notice that the student mentioned that she heard
the term while watching The Weather Channel--I'm so happy!
(03/21/06)
- Julie McN. wants to know
why the winters have been
so mild in recent years. Wouldn't we all?
(03/20/06)
- Julie McK.
has another question about
thundersnow.
I'm really hoping that someone sees/hears some thundersnow
today and calls in an observation about it, because I'd love
to hear about it. (03/20/06)
-
Jake W. wants to know why the
forecast was for a 100%
chance of precipitation, and then it didn't snow.
This business of "probability of precipitation" is tough,
but I'll try to explain what happened. (By the way,
notice that this means that Jake was paying close attention
to the forecast--I'm so happy!) (03/20/06)
-
Dave C. heard that there might be
thundersnow
today. (03/20/06)
-
Meagan M. wants to know how meteorologists determine
how much snow is going to
fall. (03/20/06)
-
Meagan D. got to see
a lot of exciting
weather over Spring Break, including a significant
hailstorm. Good stuff! Anyone else see any
exciting weather? (03/15/06)
-
Joe C. has a buddy who claims that
he can forecast the weather based on whether or not his knee
hurts. So what is the connection between
joint pain and the
weather? (03/15/06)
-
Jake W. has great question about
snowfall in Colorado. Specifically, he wants to know
why Denver gets so much
snow when it is on the lee side of the Rockies, while
Grand Junction gets so little snow despite being on the
windward side of the Rockies. A subtle difference in the
availability of water vapor is to blame, as you will hear.
(03/15/06)
- Jake W. is
going somewhere in a month, and he checked the long range
forecast from The Weather Channel's website. That got
him thinking about whether or not
forecasts that far out
are worth anything. (03/15/06)
-
Brittany P. wants to know
why it was sleeting the
other day when the temperature was a few degrees above
freezing. This actually gives me a good
opportunity to sort out some misunderstandings about the
differences between hail and sleet. Later in the
course we will discuss the vertical temperature profiles
needed to produce sleet in the atmosphere. (03/15/06)
-
Tasha G. noticed
a halo around the moon,
and the next day there were storms. She wants to know
if there is a connection. This is a great observation,
and it tells us important things about warm fronts.
(03/15/06)
- Tim saw
snow swirling in an eddy
between Kiewit and Gallagher Halls, and he wants to know
what's up with that. In general, this was a nice
illustration of what friction and turbulence look like in
the real atmosphere. (02/21/06)
-
Danae has an explanation for why
it is so cold, and she also wants know what's up with the
mist or drizzle that
she was seeing this weekend. (02/21/06)
-
Jake W. saw on the news that
Greenland is melting at a faster rate than was originally
thought, and in the story the reporter mentioned that this
has implications for the weather of North America and
Europe. Jake
wants to know why. (02/21/06)
-
I only got three takers when I
asked you guys to tell me why it was so cold this weekend.
I heard from:
Everyone was on the right track, and so they all get the two bonus points.
The best answer would be a combination of their answers.
The high pressure that is coming in from Canada has cold,
north winds, so there is lots of "cold air advection" going
on. Even better, the high pressure and the
anticyclonic flow will result in clear skies, and you'll
remember that clear skies are associated with colder
temperatures at night because clouds act like a blanket,
absorbing LWup and reemitting it as LWdown. Make sure
that you understand this stuff before the test on Tuesday!
(02/19/06)
- Jake W. heard that there has
been record snow in the
mountains of Colorado, and he thinks that I know
why. (02/19/06)
- Meagan D. notice that it was
really warm the other (Valentine's Day, if I'm not mistaken)
and she is wondering why it was
so unseasonably warm.
I took a shot at the answer, but a better question is while
is it going to be so cold this weekend? (02/16/06)
- Chandler D. says that the TV
meteorologist ascribed the heavy snowfall in the east to a "high
amplitude pattern", and she wants to know what that
means. That's a really good question, and it ties in
nicely with the things that we are going to be learning
about "zonal" and "meridional" jet streams in the third unit
of the course. (02/13/06)
- It's Friday, February 10, and
Katelyn C. has observed that this is
the warmest day of the
week so far, despite the fact that it snowed last night!
Needless to say, she want to know why this is.
(02/10/06)
- Kathy R. has observed this
January that
all of the warm days were also very windy. There's
a good reason for that, as explained on the audio file.
(02/07/06)
- Jake wants to know how a
meteorologist at The Weather Channel knows that there is a
30% chance of snow
for the following weekend. Notice, by the way,
that this means Jake is watching The Weather Channel--I'm so
proud! (02/07/06)
- In the first-ever call to the
audioblog with TWO students, John G. and Chris D.L. want to
know what was up with the
little hailstorm in Omaha last weekend. (02/07/06)
- Liz B. says that she has heard
that there is
a connection
between wintertime thunderstorms and snowfall.
I've never heard of this, but that doesn't mean it's not
true. Has anyone else heard of this? (02/07/06)
- Joe wants to know about the
unusual conditions in the atmosphere that give rise to
thundersnow.
(02/07/06)
- Derek says that he once
experienced a "heat
burst"--a weather phenomenon in which temperatures rise
suddenly, often to more than 100 degrees F! I had
never heard of this phenomenon, but the process by which it
happens is very relevant to the next couple of lectures.
(01/19/06)
|
- Karl gave my a CD with several
dozen really nice pictures of clouds and the sky. Here
are a couple of highlights:
1
2
3
4
5
6 (04/19/06)
-
Katelyn C. sent in three pictures
she took of low clouds. Notice the cathedral in the
background. 1
2
3.
(04/19/06)
- Dave C. sent
in three nice pictures of atmospheric optical phenomena:
the auroras,
the green flash,
and a nice sun pillar.
(04/19/06)
- Ben E. has buddies in Iowa
City, so here are more great pictures of the aftermath of
the tornado outbreak:
1
2
3
4
5.
- Holy cow!
Katelyn G. was in Iowa City the other day when the tornadoes
struck there! "I wanted to send you my pictures from
the Tornado that hit down in Iowa City on Thursday. I was on
my way home (driving) to Chicago and I stopped in Iowa City
at the University to pick up one of my friends and the next
thing...the city was a disaster. Luckily none of us were
hurt but these pictures where taken of places across the
street from where we were! It was crazy! Everything was a
mess and it was amazing how quick it all happened." I
can imagine! Here are the four pictures:
1
2
3
4.
(04/18/06)
- Ryan (well, actually, Ryan's
dad) found two unusual pictures of clouds online.
One shows some clouds associated with a
gust front, while the other is a very tiny (but very
nice) picture of a thunderstorm out over the
sand hills.
(04/17/06)
- Chris D. sent
in three pictures (1
2
3) that he took the
other day as the storm rolled in to campus. (04/17/06)
-
More great stuff from
Jonathan: (04/17/06):
- The first picture here is a great shot I took during my
summer school in Ireland. It was taken from the
Aran Islands
just off the west coast of Ireland.
- The second
and third
pictures are of an amazing rainbow in San Francisco that me
and my mom caught coming home one day. If you look closely,
you can see a double rainbow. In person it was much
clearer.
- The next is a
video of
the same rainbow on our way to our house. It is pretty
amazing, but much more surreal in person! (This is
very well done, by the way!)
- The final two pictures are just two pretty neat pictures
from Sausalito, CA.
One looks out
at a sailboat in the bay, and the other is from the same
spot, but looking toward
downtown San
Francisco.
-
Shannon sent in a number of
interesting images: (04/17/06)
- There are three nice pictures of clouds, taken on a
Caribbean cruise. (1
2
3)
- There are three nice pictures from the great flood of
1993 in St. Louis. (1
2
3)
- Finally, there is
this
particularly nice picture of clouds, taken while Shannon
was on Spring Break in California.
-
Katelyn C. writes, "I've been
holding out on you too--I'm attaching a few pictures from my
trip to the Gulf over winter break. The pictures were taken
in one of the poorer districts of New Orleans, where the
damage was most severe. Enjoy?" (1
2
3
4
5) I like
the question mark at the end, too! Nice stuff.
(04/17/06)
- Karl had lots
of pictures to share, including
this amazing picture of the
sky. (04/17/06)
- Jonathan D. has been holding
out on us! Check out the great stuff that was
apparently just filling up his hard drive: (04/13/06)
- "One of them is
right after a thunderstorm
outside the local grocery store, the colors and clouds are
amazing."
- "Another is of a lightning strike that my
sister took, that is probably her best picture of lightning, it
is kind of a hobby of hers. (1
2)"
- "And finally I am sending you some pictures of a weather
event that happened like January 2nd right after we left Los
Angeles. We got over the mountains and in the valley on I-5
heading north towards San Francisco when the winds picked up.
The winds were just unbelievable, I am not going to try to
guestimate the wind speeds because I know I would probably be
way off, but I think the pictures kind of speak for themselves.
Speed limit signs
were literally being ripped out of the ground, if you look
in the background of that picture, fruit orchard trees were
being overturned, and
billboards were
being shredded. Then there are two pictures of semi's,
one is of a semi
overturned on the side of the road, and another that was
further up the road is
a different semi
laid across the road. Traffic was backed up for miles."
-
John J. correctly points out that
"the sun must be behind the photographer" in
this picture.
Good work! (04/13/06)
-
Jonathan D. sent in four nice
pictures of a dust storm (1
2
3
4). I seem to
think that I've seen these before--I'm pretty sure that they
are from Iraq. (04/13/06)
-
Ellen sent in three nice pictures
of clouds she spotted from her dorm room window (1
2
3) and she asks,
"What kinds of clouds are these?" I'll add 1 point to
the most recent test of anyone who can correctly identify
the clouds. (04/13/06)
-
After having taught this
course for about 12 semesters, I think that I could be
forgiven for sometimes thinking I've seen it all. But
I have to admit that I have never seen pictures quite like
these taken by Katy G. (1
2
3) I'm pretty
sure that they were taken through a window screen, which is
what accounts for the strange visual effect. Very very
cool. Also, the third picture sort of looks like a
funnel cloud, but it's not. (04/12/06)
-
Katy F. sent in this great
picture of a tornado in
Kansas. She also sent in this
classic picture of a
tornado--this must be one of the top hits on "Google
Image Search"! Good work! (04/12/06)
-
Megan M. sent in some pictures
from Thursday's storm, too. The pictures are a little
dark, but you can see some small hail in the images:
1
2
3. (04/10/09)
-
Derrick D. took three nice
pictures of Thursday's storm:
1
2
3. Thanks for
sending them in! (04/10/06)
-
Christina B. was curious about
microbursts, so she found some great pictures of them
online: 1
2
3. Great
stuff! (04/10/06)
- Kyle B. took these three
pictures (1
2
3) during the
thunderstorm on Thursday at 132nd and Blondo.
(04/09/06)
- I don't know
whether to be proud or alarmed that Meagan D. didn't take
cover during the latest tornado warning in Omaha.
Instead she took a number of dramatic pictures of the sky (1
2
3). In principle, of
course, I should be discouraging this conduct, but I love
the pictures! (04/09/06)
-
Christina B. sent in these 11
pictures taken by an ATS major at Creighton.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11.
(04/09/06)
- A friend of
my family sent me this link to some spectacular examples of
mammatus clouds. (04/09/06)
-
Julie McN wrote that she asked a
friend in California to send her some pictures of clouds and
the ocean. Here are five of them--they are very nice!
1
2
3
4
5
(04/09/06)
- As most of you know, my Mom
and her husband live right on the Louisiana/Texas border,
right near the Gulf of Mexico. Last fall, Hurricane
Rita came ashore right where they live. For the last
few months, they have been very busy cleaning up the
extensive damage on their own property, but a few days ago
they went for a ride in the car to see how others were
doing. Here are some samples of what they found.
The quotes are from my Mom's email messages about this:
- "Just look what the
Hurricane did to this pickup."
- Here is a
bulldozer that was
overturned by the storm.
- "Here is the
Catholic church in Hackbury,
LA 6 months after hurricane Rita."
- "These
boats were blown up on
land during the storm."
- "This is a street on
Holly Beach. The
electric lines are all new. Everything else has blown
away. This was a street lined with houses all up on
stilts.... Much of the stuff that was there...refridgerators,
stoves walls, cars and so on is twisted and broken and in
the marsh miles and miles from there."
- "Here is a
car so typical of others we
saw there. All the electrical posts are new here as you
can see."
- "This is a shot of a few
FEMA trailers where
residents are living while clean up is underway."
- "We spent some time on
Saturday driving around south and east of here and
here is one house we
saw....many are worse or not even there at all! Just the
cement slab remains sometimes! This is SIX months after
the hurricane! They are working but they need more big
equipment to clear all that mess up!"
- "This is the
school there 6 months
after the hurricane!!!!"
- "Here is
a gas station in a hurricane
area....new tanks are delivered and set on top of the
ground and you just pull up to the
tank and fill up".
- Julie McK. did some searching
on the internet for pictures of the various structures
associated with air mass thunderstorms, and this is what she
found: anvils, two
pictures of mammatus clouds (1
2), and a
nice picture of a thunderstorm in the
cumulus stage of
development. (03/30/06)
- Katie F. sends us "a
really cool picture of my back yard in an ice storm
about 4 years ago. This ice storm was huge- if you cant
tell! everything was covered in ice and we lost a ton of
trees..." (03/30/06)
- Liz B. took these great
pictures of stratocumulus clouds near sunset (1
2) from her dorm
room. Great stuff! (03/30/06)
- Tim writes: "This
is a photo that my Grandpa sent me that was taken
somewhere up in the North Pole. It is what a sunset in the
North Pole looks like." I don't know what to make of
this photo-- it sure looks "fake" or computer-generated to
me. In particular, I have no idea what the big arc in
the sky is supposed to be. Anyone who can send me more
information about this picture and its origin will get three
points added to their most recent exam. (03/29/06)
- Liz B's roommate was in
Switzerland for Spring Break, and took some amazing pictures
of clouds in the Alps: 1
2
3
4. The third
picture features "crepuscular rays", which we'll learn about
in the fifth unit of the course. Great stuff!
There is also a picture of
stratocumulus clouds over Paris. (03/27/06)
- Julie McK. sent in
this nice picture
that she found on The Weather Channel's website. The
picture is allegedly of Huntington Beach. You can see
lots of interesting types of clouds in this picture.
The strange low cloud might be part of a "gust front", which
we will learn about in the next lecture. (03/27/06)
- Kathryn W. took
this picture over
Spring Break and wants to know why you can see different
colors in the beams of light from the sun. I'm no
expert, but I'm pretty sure this has to do with the camera,
not the weather or the sunlight. I would guess that
there was something on the lens--either a coating applied by
the manufacturer to protect the lens, or maybe something as
humble as greasy fingerprints. Either way, the coating
split the sunlight into the individual colors, much as a
rainbow does. We'll actually learn a little bit about
refraction of different colors of light and rainbows in the
fifth unit of the course. (03/27/06)
- Ellen B. took her camera and
snapped a number of nice pictures (1
2
3) around town after
the snowstorm.
- Kathy R. found a picture from
Deglman Circle from
the snow day back in January of 2003. Nice!
(03/20/06)
- Katelyn C. sent in the first
of what I'm hoping will be a number of pictures of the
snowfall. This is the view of
Central High School's
football stadium from Kenefick Hall. (03/20/06)
- Meagan D. took a very nice
picture of some cumulus
clouds. I really like simple pictures like this!
(03/15/06)
- Tasha G. sent in a picture she
found of a triangular
cloud. I love pictures of clouds in strange
shapes, such as this picture I took a few years ago of
a cloud shaped like a Dorito.
(03/15/06)
- Isaac K. writes: "I took these
pictures over Christmas break while I was in Rome/Pompeii.
Three of them are from the top of Vesuvius (1
2
3), one from the
streets of Pompeii,
and one from the top of St. Peter's Basillica in the
Vatican."
That's awesome stuff. (03/15/06)
- Meagan D. sent in these
pictures of the sky from her vacation in Hilton Head (1
2). These
pictures were taken just before a severe storm rolled in.
Very cool. (03/15/06)
- Liz B. sent in three pictures
of the sky from her drive into Omaha (1
2
3). (03/15/06)
- Kristine H. was the only
person who took me up on my offer to try to catch a picture
of a sun dog on Friday morning. Her picture is
a great image of the
sky and the sun from that morning, but the sun dog isn't
visible. Just so you guys know what I was talking
about, here is a
picture of a sun dog that I found on the internet.
(02/21/06)
- So Katie F. sent in this
very nice picture of a
lake in Minnesota. Okay, so there isn't a lot of
weather going on in this picture, but I still like it--we'll
call it a picture of the "hydrosphere"! Thanks for
sending it in! (02/16/06)
- These are some amazing
pictures that Kyle B. sent in. He writes, "Here are a
couple of pictures that I took over winter break. These
were taken in Champoluc, an Italian ski village in the Alps
about an hour from Torino. A scenic fog would roll through
the valley at times." Here are the two pictures (1
2) and here they are
again in a slightly smaller format (1
2).
(02/13/06)
- Liz B. sent in this picture
that she took last weekend at
Lake Okaboji in Iowa.
You can see the lake and a heavy fog deck over the lake.
It's a little hard to make everything out in this picture,
because so much is gray, but this is an awesome photo.
Liz, is that ice on the lake in the foreground?
(02/10/06)
- Daniel F. wrote that he took
these pictures "back home" (where are you from, Daniel?) of
how the ocean transfers salt into the atmosphere.
Sounds educational and boring, right? Well, check out
the awesome pictures:
1,
2,
3. The
pictures are huge but totally worth the time to download.
(02/10/06)
- While she was at it, Danae
also sent along a picture of a sunset. The unusual
thing: this
picture was taken on Mars. Pretty cool.
(02/08/06)
- Danae found a satellite
picture from the internet that depicts several
strange-looking cloud types. She says that the caption
for the picture told her that this picture is from near
Amsterdam, but I have no way to know if that's right.
But there are all kinds of interesting clouds in this
picture, including a big deck of stratocumulus clouds and
some wave clouds that initiated over what appears to be a
small island. Great, great stuff! (02/08/06)
- Jason K. described these
pictures as "some sort of apocalyptic cloudcover" over his
home in St. Louis. Cool stuff. It's a little
hard to see what's going on in the picture, but it certainly
is dramatic stuff. (02/08/06)
- Alright! Now we're
talking! Here's a great picture sent in by Allison W.
of a storm coming in over downtown Omaha. Notice that
the picture was taken from Kenefick Hall. Nice.
(02/08/06)
- Joe sent in this picture of
himself and some friends with a
nice sunset in the
background. (02/08/06)
- Kathleen F. sent me a nice
picture of a snowstorm in
her backyard in Kansas City. This is a nice
example of the kinds of things that you guys can send in for
participation credit. (02/07/06)
- Meagan D. also sent me a set
of pictures that are allegedly of clouds during Hurricane
Katrina. Here they are: 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8. Okay,
well, those pictures are cool, but they have nothing to do
with Hurricane Katrina. These pictures reappear on the
internet whenever there has been a big weather story in the
news. The pictures are real, and they were taken by
Nebraskan meteorologist
Mike
Hollingshead, but they are from midwestern storm-chasing
trips in 2004. I appreciate Meagan for sending them
in. You can learn more about this particular email
hoax at
urbanlegends.about.com. (02/07/06)
- Meagan D. took a picture of
a cloud from her dorm room--a
cloud which she describes as "cool". And it is.
(02/07/09)
- Images of
colored lightning
such as this one are always faked. The image was
produced by exposing the film for a long time, placing colored gels in front of the lens at different
intervals.
- Here is a nice picture of
multiple waterspouts. Waterspouts are not a severe
weather phenomenon--they form under ordinary cumulus clouds
under the right conditions.
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