Three fall mornings.

The last three days have been quite nice on my morning walk to campus.

And College Game Day is on campus today and tomorrow for the big Utah vs. Washington game. Go Utes!!!

HRRR Land Use

For reference, here is the land use in the HRRR model:

Categories are based on the MODIS 21 Category data set as indicated below:
1 Evergreen Needleleaf Forest
2 Evergreen Broadleaf Forest
3 Deciduous Needleleaf Forest
4 Deciduous Broadleaf Forest
5 Mixed Forests
6 Closed Shrublands
7 Open Shrublands
8 Woody Savannas
9 Savannas
10 Grasslands
11 Permanent Wetlands
12 Croplands
13 Urban and Built-Up
14 Cropland/Natural Vegetation Mosaic
15 Snow and Ice
16 Barren or Sparsely Vegetated
17 Water
18 Wooded Tundra
19 Mixed Tundra
20 Barren Tundra
21 Lake

Can find other MODIS landuse products here: http://webmap.ornl.gov/ogcdown/dataset.jsp?ds_id=10004&startPos=0&maxRecords=100&orderBy=category_name&bAscend=false

Neato clouds in South Africa

My brother currently in South Africa sent me this picture of "Neat-o clouds"

The need for better Numerical Weather Prediction in the United States

There has been a lot of national attention on the weather community in the last few weeks due to Hurricane Mathew and the strong winds in the Pacific Northwest. Numerical weather prediction, the heart of our nations weather forecasting capabilities, provides invaluable information on weather that may disrupt economics, destroy property, and threaten human life.

There was a neat article on weather forecasting in the New York Times worth reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/magazine/why-isnt-the-us-better-at-predicting-extreme-weather.html

Cliff Mass has perhaps been the most outspoken individual on our countries forecasting capabilities. In summary, he says we can do much better. And that is something I believe, too. Seems to me we do a great job as it is, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

The evolution of numerical weather prediction, I think, is much like the evolution of Nintendos Super Mario video games.

The game from the 80s was a lot of fun to play. It's was a classic. But today's Mario has evolved into a high-definition character who can move in more ways than just up/down/left/right. I feel Numerical Weather Prediction is evolving in the same way, with increased resolution so that more features can be shown, and there are increasing capabilities in the models being explored. With continued development, our countries forecasting capabilities will turn from a "fun game" into an outstanding weather forecast system.

Hurricane Matthew: Buckets of Rain

Fayetteville, North Carolina, recorded nearly 15 inches of accumulated rain in a 24 hour hour period on October 8th. This large rain event was due to heavy rain from Hurricane Matthew. Below is the radar at 1620 UTC.

Volunteer weather rangers from the CoCoRaHS network shows the high rain totals in North Carolina, especially Cumberland County.

My dad was on a trip in North Carolina, and his plane home was canceled because of the hurricane.

Hurricane Matthew

Hurricane Force Winds on 6 October 2016 19:21 UTC

Meteorology for Chocolate

Good news article about why M&M/Mars employees a team of meteorologists.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-chocolate-hires-meteorologists-to-deal-with-climate-change-2016-9