Weather Geeks

Guests : Sarah Dillingham, Jason Disharoon, Josh Vexler & Brian Kucinski As 2021 comes to a close, the Weather Geeks team takes a look at the biggest weather moments and stories from 2021 and what we’ve learned from them to take into the new year.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Guest:  Steve Conney & Luke Stone, Powderchasers When you were a kid, you would fall asleep on a winter night dreaming of waking up to a snow day, though children that lived in the southern tier of the U.S. had a dream a little bit harder. You didn’t have to go to school and you could play in the snow all day! Well my guests today spend their days playing in the snow and have ma...

Guest: Dr. Rick Spinrad Introduction: Earlier this year in June there was a change in leadership at the top of NOAA. Appointed by President Joe Biden, our next guest has spent decades in atmospheric sciences. Today we are joined by the 11th, and current, NOAA Administrator Dr. Rick Spinrad. Dr. Spinrad is going to share with us how his first few months on the job have gone as well as goals for the...

Guest: Dr. Craig McLean Introduction: When we think of NOAA, a multitude of things can come to mind from our planet’s oceans and atmosphere. The research in these fields has yielded us scientific advancements in weather forecasting, oceanography, and atmospheric chemistry just to name a few. But what is the process for conducting this research and allocating the resources across such a broad spect...

Dr. Marty Ralph Introduction: You can’t row a boat in an atmospheric river, but it is a powerful force of nature that transports massive volumes of water vapor. The director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps Institution of Oceanography Dr. Marty Ralph is a pioneer in the study of atmospheric rivers affecting the Western US and has been leading the development of a cat...

Al Roker has been giving forecasts for ‘your neck of the woods’ for over 20 years...He is America’s Weatherman, appearing on the TODAY show, Nightly News and a host of other television and news shows over the years. He has a knack for channeling his on-air charisma into many different media platforms, including penning a New York Times best seller, dishing out award-winning cookbooks, and lending...

Guest:  Eric Fisher, Author of Mighty Storms of New England Meteorologist Eric Fisher says there are few places on earth that produce weather like New England.  It offers the challenges of blockbuster snowstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, frigid cold snaps and dramatic seasonal shifts. Eric just penned a book:  “The Mighty Storms of New England - The Hurricanes, Tornadoes,...

Guest: Ryan Lanclos Introduction:     When disasters strike, emergency responders and government agencies must act quickly, but large-scale events make it difficult to determine where resources should be allocated first.  Technological advances in Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, have helped improve disaster responses across the globe and become an invaluable way to proc...

Guest:  Dr. Scott Braun After a record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and this season’s forecast to be above average, it might be a good time to get a grip on the tropics. In this case: GRIP is an acronym for Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes and is the name of a NASA field experiment that was designed to understand how tropical systems form and develop into major hurricane...

Guest: Tom Di Liberto It’s baaack!! The NOAA Climate Prediction Center recently announced that La Nina has returned and will likely remain with us throughout the 2021-2022 winter season. But what exactly does that mean for us? For the globe? Luckily, we have someone who can help shed some light on its potential impacts. Tom Di Liberto is a meteorologist at Collabralink Technologies, and throughout...

Guest:  Dr. Jeremy Porter When we talk about weather disasters, our minds often go towards tornadoes, hurricanes, and severe weather. But flooding is the most common, and most expensive, natural disaster in the United States. First Street Foundation, a science and technology nonprofit, has released a new study evaluating the flood risk to our nation’s critical infrastructure. The study e...

Introduction: Technology is advancing at an amazing pace, creating products and services that were only dreams a decade ago. One of those long lasting dreams, and has been for decades, is an automobile that drives itself. We’re just now getting to the point where that technology is not only possible but available, and part of that process is for a vehicle to be able to sense conditions on the road...

Guest:  Chris Vagasky Introduction: The joy that fills sports fans' hearts as they loudly sing, “Take me out to the ballgame…” is almost palpable, but one thing that may not come to their mind is the threat lightning poses. We’ve seen the images of lighting bolts racing across the sky as fans hunker down in their seats, and this reminds us how deadly this phenomenon can be. Meteorologist Chri...

Guest:  Dr. Allison Wing Introduction: We’ve got our heads in the clouds today on Weather Geeks! When you see clouds dotting the skyscape, you may only think about how picturesque they look, but they actually play very important roles in weather and climate. Today’s guest is Dr. Allison Wing who has been studying the presence and patterns of clouds in a warmer world and how they’re...

Guest: Dr. Rick Knabb Introduction: Hurricane Ida became a storm for the record books as it made landfall in Port Fourchon, LA on August 29th with sustained winds of 150 mph.  The devastation from Ida’s high-end category 4 hurricane winds, storm surge, and torrential rainfall were widespread across Louisiana, but the devastation didn’t end there. As Ida’s remnants tracked into the Northeast,...

Guest:  Dr. Robert Rohde Introduction: While the science of humans’ impact on climate change is now clear, there are still a lot of skeptics out there. One group of scientists was tasked with evaluating concerns of climate skeptics to disprove climate warming, but once they dug into and processed the data, their work only confirmed the warming. We’re talking with Dr. Robert Rohde, lead s...

Guest: Dr. Louis W. Uccellini After an incredible career that has spanned more than 50 years, the Director of the National Weather Service, Dr. Louis Uccellini, has announced he will be retiring on January 1, 2022.  As one of our most esteemed returning guests, we are honored to have this opportunity to speak with Dr. Uccellini and recollect the countless contributions he has made to the weat...

Guest: Aaron Tartakovsky Introduction: Water is one of our most precious natural resources. We can’t live without it and we have a finite supply of it.  That’s why it’s so important to not only manage how we use it, but also how we reuse it.  Today we’re joined by CEO and co-founder of Epic Cleantec, Aaron Tartakovsky, who’s company has been working to create more sustainable methods for...

Guest: Ken Graham Introduction: June 1st through November 30th, it’s a time many people, especially those who live along the U.S. coastline, are watching for what’s going on in the Atlantic Ocean. Following a record-setting 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, and a quick start to the 2021 season, many are wondering what may lie ahead. Today, we’re talking with the director of the National Hurricane Ce...

Guest:  Ran Korber & Paul Walsh Introduction: When it comes to keeping ourselves healthy, we know about eating right and keeping active, but there’s another thing we should keep an eye on as well: air quality. And it’s not just smog we’re talking about: it’s also things like wildfires and pollen that affect the air we breathe. Today’s guest started his business because he was looking for...

Guest:  Rear Admiral Timothy Gallaudet Introduction: When we think of weather, climate and oceanography, one of the main organizations that comes to mind in the United States is NOAA: the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. Today we want to dive into the ‘O’ in that acronym and look at the role NOAA plays with our planet’s oceans. Who better than the former Administrator of NOA...

Guest:  Dr. Chad Hanson 2020 was the worst year on record for wildfires in the state of California as more than four million acres were burned. Words like ‘apocalyptic’ were used to describe the aftermath. The loss of lives and property are devastating, but are we making the problem worse with misconceptions about the role wildfires play in the forest ecosystem? Fire ecologist Dr. Chad Benson...

Guest:  Dr. Tracy Fanara Today’s topic may sound like something you would see in a Sci-Fi movie…  We’re talking about Dead Zones!  No, it doesn’t have anything to do with zombies, but these dead zones can be very harmful and even deadly to aquatic life. Dr. Tracy Fanara is a scientist and engineer who has been studying these and other types of phenomena to help educate the public an...

Guest:  Dr. Andrew Grundstein Introduction: The summer season is upon us and with it the Olympic Games in Tokyo! Today we’re going to focus on how weather comes into play not only during the events themselves, but also how it factors into planning a large-scale international sports event. Today’s guest, Dr. Andrew Grundstein of the University of Georgia, is on the International Olympic Commit...

Guest:  Dr. Kathryn Sullivan Introduction: “To boldly go where no man has gone before” has a great ring to it and it started many a Star Trek episode and movie, but breaking the glass ceiling to boldly go where no woman has gone before can describe our guest today who was: the 1st woman to walk in space, the 1st woman to go to deepest point in space, and the 1st woman to dive to the Challenge...