Weather Geeks

Guest: Joseph Trujillo Falcón Bilingual communities across the country are at a disadvantage when weather warnings are issued because the current infrastructure does not adequately translate the weather terminology into Spanish. Some progress has been made in recent years, but there is still a long way to go. Our next guest on Weather Geeks, Joseph Trujillo Falcón, is working to bridge the ga...

Guest: Dr. Jim Kossin The 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons were both above average based on the number of named storms. The changing climate and its impact on the strength and frequency of tropical cyclones is constantly being studied. Our next guest has focused his studies on hurricanes and the impacts that the climate and climate change are having on these systems. With another active hurricane s...

Guest: Ali Van Fleet Introduction:   All-time record heat waves… mega-droughts & record large wildfires…flash floods from incredible rain… often come with a Climate Change fingerprint on them. Is there anything we can do?  Pattrn is a social and streaming media brand with a mission to explore, inform, and engage in Earth’s changing patterns.  Ali Van Fleet, meteorologist an...

Guest: Dr. Adam Houston It’s been more than 25 years since the movie Twister came out, depicting scientists trying to gather data from inside tornadoes by leaving instruments in their paths. As happens with time, technology improves and now it’s not just in the movies where scientists are attempting to get data from inside a tornado. One group of scientists are using drones to intercept tornadoes...

Guest: Dr. Phil Klotzbach Introduction:  “Is it going to be a busy hurricane season?” is one of the most commonly asked questions to meteorologists, especially this time of year. After two back-to-back seasons with a super-charged Atlantic basin, this year is indeed expected to be above average again.  What that means for impacts and how those predictions are made are just some of t...

Guest: Dr. Ed Kearns If you’ve been keeping tabs on the natural disasters impacting our country, you may have noticed that wildfires have become more intense, larger, and are occurring more frequently, scorching everything in their path. First Street Foundation, a science and technology nonprofit, has released a new study evaluating the wildfire risk to our nation’s critical infrastructure. B...

Guest: Dr. Andrew Grundstein Many of us have seen first-hand the impacts weather can have on our daily lives, and today we’re going to focus on the dangers associated with heat and thunderstorms. Heat related illnesses are often underrated and sadly, this can lead to many trips to the emergency room...or worse. Today’s guest, Dr. Andrew Grundstein of the University of Georgia, has been focusi...

Guests: Jen Carfagno, Kelly Cass, Felicia Combs, Paul Goodloe, Jacqui Jeras, Dr. Rick Knabb, Molly McCollum On May 2, 1982, The Weather Channel launched and changed the way we received weather information forever. Over these past 40 years, technology has changed not only the way we study meteorology, but also how we get life saving information out to the public, a core ten...

Guest: Dr. Craig Clements We saw a record number of acres of beautiful countryside go up in flames in 2020. In recent years, many across the West have seen some of the deadliest & most destructive wildfires that our country has ever experienced.  Whether they have been accelerated by climate change or extreme drought conditions, there is no denying that millions of lives have been changed...

Guest: Dr. Kevin Petty Introduction:  As technology has progressed over the past century, scientists and engineers have discovered ways to make technology smaller and smaller and still yield the same or even greater results. Satellite technology is no exception to this progress of miniaturization. Nanosatellites are satellites that have a mass between 1 and 10 kg and are populating low-level...

Guest: Dr. Kevin Petty Introduction:  As technology has progressed over the past century, scientists and engineers have discovered ways to make technology smaller and smaller and still yield the same or even greater results. Satellite technology is no exception to this progress of miniaturization. Nanosatellites are satellites that have a mass between 1 and 10 kg and are populating low-level...

Guest: Dr. Karen Kosiba When we assign a rating to a tornado, it’s based on the damage it’s left behind. But what happens when a powerful tornado roars through a field? Is the rating assigned accurate if there wasn’t a building there to damage? Dr. Karen Kosiba joins us to talk about the research she and her colleagues have done in this subject and we’ll get an inside look on what it’s like to exp...

Guest: Dr. Stephen Strader Introduction:  Severe weather comes in many forms, and tornadoes are amongst the deadliest on a yearly basis. When severe weather strikes, many people feel as if the safest place to be is their home, but is that the case for all types of homes? Our next guest has studied the vulnerability of humans that live in mobile and manufactured homes during severe weather eve...

Guest: Tony Lyza When you think of tornadoes, you probably think of a big supercell in Tornado Alley in Texas or Oklahoma or Kansas. However, the idea of a “tornado alley” can be misleading.  Tornadoes in the Deep South are just as likely to occur and perhaps more deadly than in the Great Plains.  Today’s guest is part of one of the largest and most comprehensive severe storm field campa...

Guest: Kevin Cooley When life-threatening weather is occurring, the National Weather Service not only monitors the threat, but also puts out products through a variety of sources in order to convey the severity and timing of the threat. But how exactly do they accomplish this? In the age of technology where a tweet can be seen just as widely as a bulletin on television, how does the NWS balance th...

Guest: Harrison Prieto Student athletes at the collegiate level have to balance a plethora of responsibilities, both academic and athletic. For one of those student athletes, meteorology plays a huge role on the academic side of things: Harrison Preito is a student at Florida State University and also pursuing his Masters in Meteorology. We’re sitting down today to talk about that balance, how wea...

GUEST: David Hondula INTRODUCTION: Weather is an awe-inspiring phenomenon that captures the attention of everyone at some point in their lives, but it’s also powerful and can be deadly as well. When we think of life threatening weather, hurricanes, severe storms, and flooding come to mind first, but did you know extreme heat is one of the leading killers when it comes to weather-related fatal...

Guest: Steve Bowen Looking back to last year, 2021 continued the trend of increasing damage from weather-related disasters with 20 Billion-dollar events. While there weren’t as many events as the record year of 2020, the actual damage amount was higher, giving another data point to the trendline demonstrating the heightened costliness and severity of these events. Steve Bowen, meteorologist a...

Guest: Dr. Katherine Calvin Dr. Katherine Calvin has been an Earth Scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Joint Global Change Research Institute since 2008.  Just recently, Dr. Calvin was appointed as NASA’s Chief Scientist AND Senior Climate Advisor.  She’s here today to talk about that new dual role at NASA and share how NASA observations, measurements, and...

Guest: Dr. Michael Farrar Introduction:  A man of many meteorological backgrounds, our next guest is taking on a new journey as he steps into the role as the new director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, commonly referred to as “NCEP.” In today’s episode we will be joined by Dr. Michael Farrar where we will discuss his expectations for the future of NCEP as well as h...

Guest: Art delaCruz When disaster strikes, help may not arrive wearing a cape, but it very well may be wearing a Grey shirt. The men and women wearing grey shirts that make up Team Rubicon descend on areas hit by a weather disaster or humanitarian crisis. Team Rubicon is a disaster relief organization, founded by veterans, that mobilizes veterans, first responders and civilians to serve commu...

Guest:  Bob Henson Introduction:  On December 30, 2021, The Marshall Fire ripped through suburban neighborhoods in the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area - spread by high winds and fueled by months of drought. The wildfire left two people presumed dead, burned more than 6000 acres and destroyed more than 1000 homes.  Bob Henson is one of several atmospheric scientists who call that ar...

Dr. Keith Seitter The American Meteorological Society has been a collective of meteorologists and a fixture in the professional community since its foundation in 1919. Since then, numerous achievements in the field have taken us through the discovery of the radar, the satellite era, and the constant advancement in atmospheric modeling. The AMS has been there throughout this technological journey....

Guest:  Dr Amy McGovern Introduction: Artificial intelligence continues to make advances in leaps and bounds across the scientific spectrum. Our guest today is looking to apply this growing technological field to high-impact weather phenomena, including: tornadoes, hail, flooding, drought, turbulence and more. Dr. Amy McGovern leads the NSF AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weath...

Guest:  Dr. Lisa Graumlich Introduction: From a young child who witnessed the Cuyahoga River burning... to a pioneer in connecting tree-ring data to climate change, Dr. Lisa Graumlich has become a powerful voice in climate change communication, adaptation and solutions.  She will take us through what we learned at COP26 and from the latest IPCC report, and give us a preview of what's to...