Across the Sky

As 2022 comes to an end the team came together one last time to look ahead to 2023 with a list of resolutions for the upcoming year for the field of meteorology. The group touches on getting more people interested in entering the field, helping students understand all the career options for meteorologists, and ways forecast accuracy can be improved. About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weat...

It was a busy meteorological year across the United States, with blizzards, tornadoes, floods and hurricanes. With so much going on, we asked an outside expert to help summarize the most notable events of the year. Our guest this week is Greg Carbin, chief of the NOAA Weather Prediction Center’s forecast operations branch in suburban Washington, DC. Before his position at the WPC, he worked at the...

Yes, there is a lot of snow in Alaska. But can you build a snowman? Does anyone have a swimming pool or play golf? And what weather does it take for schools to close? Our guest this week is Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist working for the National Weather Service in Anchorage, Alaska. He is famous in weather circles for his social media presence (Twitter: @Climatologist49 ) and the weather ma...

We have a good understanding of hurricane seasons that took place over the past 100 years. But how many hurricanes were there hundreds or even thousands of years ago? Where did they strike? By analyzing sediment on the ocean floor, we're learning more about hurricane history than ever before. Tyler Winkler, a postdoctoral researcher in oceanography for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is our...

There are a lot of great songs that touch on the weather, but which ones are the best? For this week's episode, we had some fun and voted on our 10 favorite weather-related songs of all time. Since this is a podcast about weather and climate, we tried to stick to songs that are actually about the weather as opposed to love songs that use weather as a metaphor. (Sorry "Purple Rain," "Rainy Day Wome...

We're in the final days of the 2022 tropical storm and hurricane season (it official ends on Nov. 30), so it seemed like an appropriate time for closure.  Nick Underwood, an aerospace engineer and hurricane hunter at NOAA, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, joined the hosts to talk about hurricane hunting, his experiences and his lifelong goal of becoming an astronaut.  About t...

Winter is approaching and before you know it, snow will start to blanket parts of the country. Dave Robinson, who runs the Rutgers Global Snow Lab , is an expert in measuring snow. He talks with the Lee Weather team about who uses this immense database of historic snow cover, how climate change has impacted snowfall and the best way to measure this finnicky precipitation. About the Across the Sky...

We put aside predictions from woolly caterpillars and the almanacs and look at the science to get a sense for how this winter will play out across the United States. This is the second of two episodes focused on the upcoming 2022-2023 winter season. Judah Cohen, Director of Seasonal Forecasting at AER (Atmospheric and Environmental Research), is a climatologist who focuses on long-range forecasts...

We put aside predictions from woolly caterpillars and the almanacs and look at the science to get a sense for how this winter will play out across the United States. This is the first of two episodes focused on the upcoming 2022-2023 winter season. Judah Cohen, Director of Seasonal Forecasting at AER (Atmospheric and Environmental Research), is a climatologist who focuses on long-range forecasts a...

October marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, the 4th-costliest hurricane on record for the United States, causing phenomenal damage along the coasts of New Jersey and New York. For this week's episode,  Gary Szatkowski , a meteorologist working for the National Weather Service in South Jersey when Sandy hit, joins the Lee meteorologists for a look back at the system that became known as...

Dr. Amanda Gallinat at Colby College in Maine studies the impacts of environmental conditions on fall foliage. She joins the team to talk about what conditions are best for bright fall colors, what is out there this season, and how the warming climate may impact the timing and brilliance of the colors in the future. About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotatio...

By 2060, nearly 1 in 3 Americans will be able to speak Spanish. Previous National Weather Service assessments have linked casualties and fatalities to faulty communication in Spanish. Joseph Trujillo Falcón, a research scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Cooperative Institute with the National Severe Storm Labatory in Norman, Oklahoma, and a meteorologist for MyRada...

The meteorologists from the Lee Weather Team talk about the strengths of the large-scale forecasts, the challenges of conveying the storm's finer-scale impacts, and how people reacted to those forecasts from Tampa Bay to Fort Myers and beyond. About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt Holiner  of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group...

The second half of hurricane season has exploded, making up for its slow start. Purdue University's Jhordanne Jones, a native of Jamaica whose research focuses on seasonal hurricane forecasting, joins us to talk about why the season started slowly, why it's picking up so rapidly now. About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt H...

Grab a bucket of popcorn and get comfortable. If you like weather and movies, you have to listen to this! Weather plays a role in lots of films, but in some it has a starring role. With the help of Bruce Miller , from Lee Enterprises' TV, streaming and movie podcast Streamed & Screened , the Lee Weather Team takes a look at the best weather movies ever made. Listen along as the gang counts dow...

September brings us the start of meteorological fall, and the month is also National Preparedness Month. Our guest for this week is Ashley Morris , emergency management planner in Baltimore County, Maryland. She formulates and maintains emergency plans for the county, works on education and outreach, and coordinates with other planners. Morris talks about her role and how she prepares to respond t...

How is the digital weather space changing? We talked with the team of meteorologists at WeatherBrains , the long-running video and audio podcast based in Birmingham, Alabama. We discussed how our careers brought us to this point and how we envisioned digital weather content for local audiences in the years to come.  How do we compete with a new generation of social media influencers, and how do we...

The last month has seen numerous flash flooding events across the country including Dallas, St. Louis, eastern Kentucky and even Death Valley. As the planet warms, flooding events like these are becoming more common and extreme.  Dr. Rosimar Rios-Berrios, a research meteorologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, joins the Lee Weather Team on this week's episode to discuss the scien...

Valerie Sanders of WeatherCall Services talks with us about the automated weather emergency alerts that you get on your phone — and why they often miss their mark. Different than the push notifications you get from weather apps, the Wireless Emergency Alerts are not distributed consistently by all mobile providers, leading to further confusion when people receive them.  About the Across the Sky po...

Our guest today is Warren Madden, who leads the Air Force's Chief Aerial Recon Coordination of All Hurricanes (aka CAR-CAH) at NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami. Madden was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Air Force in 1985, worked on the air as a meteorologist in Dayton, Ohio, in the 1990s, and joined the Hurricane Hunters of the Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron...

Our guest today is Warren Madden, who leads the Air Force's Chief Aerial Recon Coordination of All Hurricanes (aka CAR-CAH) at NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami. Warren was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Air Force in 1985, worked on the air as a meteorologist in Dayton, Ohio, in the 1990s, and joined the Hurricane Hunters of the Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron...

When weather events devastate a community, there is more work to do beyond rebuilding homes and businesses. There is also a need to repair damage to the ecosystem, specifically lost trees. Grady McGahan is the director of RETREET at Keep America Beautiful, an organization that focuses on environmental rehabilitation following damage caused by severe storms by replanting lost trees.​ He graduated f...

Intense heat this year from England to Oklahoma has set records that are nearly unprecedented. North Carolina climatologist Kathie Dello talks with us about the climate change connections to extreme heat, what can be done, and why we should not give in to doomism. About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt Holiner  of Lee Enter...

Having insight into weather and how it relates to supply and demand is an important aspect of meteorology, particularly with long-range forecasts.   Our guest this week is Shunondo Basu, a meteorologist in the field of commodities, energy and finance and he helps explain his role in the field. We talk about weather, energy and money, including what’s up with that Texas electricity grid and how cry...

It's a special crossover episode this week! The Lee Weather Team hopped on the Utterly Moderate Podcast  with host Lawrence Eppard to discuss all things weather. They especially focused on what people often get wrong, including tornadoes, humidity, heat lightning, interpreting a weather report, and more. Get the facts in this episode! Be sure to check out the Utterly Moderate Podcast to hear more...