When one thinks about the weather in 2006, several things come to mind. The very un-Ithaca like winter, the scorching summer temperatures, and the wettest summer on record in the state of New York are such events that stick out. What though, was last year’s weather like from a historical perspective? 2006 certainly continued the trend of warming, as it was the 5th warmest year globally, when con-sidering land and ocean and the 4th warmest year globally, when considering just land; the global average temperature was 55 F. In addition, it was the 2nd warmest year in the Northern Hemisphere, and the warmest year on record in the United States, breaking the previous record set in 1998 by 0.07 F. If you thought it rained a lot last year, you were right! It was the 15th wet-test fall in the United States, especially the Northeast region. As previously men-tioned, New York experienced its wettest June, July and August, as well as a wet fall. The wet weather impacted the Northeast region by causing severe flooding. However, the first half of the year was drier than average for the United States as a whole; which combined with warm temperatures, caused drought conditions across the Central Plains and Southeast. Dry conditions also contributed to many wildfires; there were over 96,000 wildfires in the United States. While this number is not particularly high, the num- bers of acres burned set a new record. The National Interagency Fire Center estimates that almost 10 million acres were burned. Flooding, drought, and wild fires are three examples of the impacts of last years weather. Severe weather also impact the country; the 2006 Tornado Season was about average, but had several instances of high activity. (continued on page 2…)

2006 Weather in Review by Allison Wing ‘08 Inside this issue:

87th AMS Annual Meeting Review

3-4

Student Volunteer Experi-ence

4

Also including

Weather & Sports 5-6

Student Activities and Research Topics

6-8

Cornell Meteorology and Newswatch-16

8-9

Weather Trivia 10

A Warm Start to Winter 9

Cornell Chapter of the American Meteorological Society Newsletter

Volume 9, Issue 2 February 2007

Source: National Climatic Data Center http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/ann/events.html

THE Ithacation

2006 Tornado Season:

There were 1333 tornados in 2006, which is a little below av-erage, and 177 tornado days, which is typical. Of the 1333 tornados, 25 were killer tornados, and 2 were F4’s. (The last F5 experienced in the United States was in 1999). However, this ‘average’ tornado season claimed the lives of 66 peo-ple. 2006 featured a minimum of activity during the normal tornado season, but an early, fast start and a strong finish. Tornado activity be-gan on January 2, and there was much activity in March and April. One notable event is the outbreak of over 100 reported tornados in five states on March 10-13, killing 10. Another outbreak with 86 torna-dos and an estimated 23 deaths oc-curred on April 2, across Iowa, Illi-nois, Missouri, Arkansas, Ken-tucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. Se-vere thunderstorms also produced 4 tornados in Florida on Christmas

Day, causing considerable damage.

2005-2006 Winter Weather:

Last winter was character-ized with a very cold start, followed by record warmth, yielding the 11th warmest winter overall. The first three weeks of December were very cold, followed by an incredibly warm January, in fact the warmest January ever nationwide, followed by a return to more seasonal tem-peratures in February. Nationally, there was mostly below average snowfall, but there was heavy early season snowfall in October. The Pacific Northwest experienced a wet winter, but the Southwest and South-Central regions had dry con-ditions (especially dry conditions caused a drought from Texas to Oklahoma). There were two signifi-cant Northeast snowstorms. The snowstorm on February 11-12, dropped 26.9” of snow on New York City over 24 hours, breaking

the all time storm total set during the Dec 26-27, 1947 snowstorm. Finally, March 2006 featured a cold conditions in the Western United States and moderate conditions in the Easter United States.

2006 Hurricane Season:

There were 78 named cy-clones globally in the 2006 tropical cyclone season, which is below av-erage. The Atlantic basin in particu-lar was much quieter than in recent years. There were 10 tropical storms, 5 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes, which is the fewest since 2002. Many of the storms formed in the central Atlantic and curved out to see. There were only three tropical storm US landfalls, which is the first time since 2001 that there were no hurricane land-falls. There was no activity after October 2, which is the 3rd earliest end to the hurricane season, which officially extends through the end of November. (continued on pg. 3)

Page 2

2006 Weather in Review, ctd...

Source: National Climatic Data Center http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/

Overview of the 87th AMS Annual Meeting by Allison Wing ‘08 From January 13-18, 2006, twelve Cornell Meteorology stu-dents attended the 87th AMS An-nual Meeting in San Antonio, TX. The AMS Meeting was a terrific opportunity for the meteorology students to learn about the many different areas within the broad field of Atmospheric Science, meet meteorology students from many other universities, and network with professionals in the field. Several Cornell students presented their own research at the AMS Meeting;

Natasha Hodas ‘07 presented a poster about her research on lake effect snow, Allison Wing ‘08 pre-sented a poster titled “The relation-ship between the potential and ac-tual intensities of tropical cyclones on interannual time scales”, and Owen Shieh ‘07 gave a talk titled “Local minimum of tropical cyc-logenesis in the eastern Caribbean Sea.” There was a large variety of presentations to choose from, and students spent the week attending

talks on subjects that interested them. The overall theme of the meeting was “Bridging the Studies of Weather and Climate” so many of the talks were geared towards this. One of the most popular pres-entations was the series on 2006 Impacts. This included a panel dis-cussion on weather impacts on sports and entertainment venues and talks by hurricane experts, se-vere weather experts, and winter weather experts on notable U.S. weather during 2006. (ctd. on pg 4)

Page 3

87th AMS Annual Meeting

Cornell Meteorology majors at the AMS Awards Banquet, while attending the 87th AMS Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX.

2006 Weather in Review, continued…

One notable storm was Hurricane Gordon, which was the first hurricane to affect the Azores since 1991. Why was the 2006 hurricane season so quiet? Despite the 2nd warmest sea surface temperatures and gener-ally low vertical wind shear, there was a rapid onset of El Nino conditions near the peak of the hurricane sea-son, which suppressed tropical storm development. Anomalous sinking in the Western Atlantic basin in September, October, and November, general stable

conditions, and dryer than normal air also contributed.

Sources:

• The climate of 2006 in historical perspective. Karin Gleason, NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC and R. Heim and D. Levinson and S. Stephens and C. Tankersley, presented at 87th AMS Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX 14-18 January 2007.

• U.S. Hurricane Season. James L. Franklin, NOAA/NWS/NCEP/TPC, presented at 87th AMS Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX 14-18 January 2007.

• U.S. Tornado Season. Joseph T. Schaefer, NOAA/NWS/NCEP/SPC, presented at 87th AMS Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX 14-18 January 2007.

• U.S. Winter Weather. Paul J. Kocin, presented at 87th AMS Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX 14-18 January 2007.

In the week before the start of spring semester, I attended the AMS annual conference in San An-tonio. While I thought I was leaving the wintry gloom of Maine for the warmth of Texas, I was met with cold temperatures, an ice storm, and responsibilities. I attended the con-ference as a student assistant, help-ing to run A/V equipment during presentations. In exchange for about half of my time during the conference, AMS covered my con-ference fee, hotel accommodations, and paid a stipend to cover meals,

saving me close to $500. The job itself was not difficult, and it gave me the opportunity to attend pres-entations that I would have other-wise overlooked, including talks on mesoscale modeling, data assimila-tion, and climate change. While as-sisting at one talk, I had the oppor-tunity to meet the Director of the National Weather Service, Director of NOAA, and the Deputy Secre-tary of Commerce, of which only the head of NWS showed any per-sonality. I recommend that any stu-dent who wants to attend the con-

ference next year apply for the as-sistantship. It provides a great op-portunity to meet meteorology stu-dents and to keep up on advance-ments in our field. One of the topics I found most interesting, for exam-ple, was the impact of weather on sports, including the dangers of se-vere weather at athletic events. The presentations from private sector meteorologists who provide on-site forecasting and consulting inspired the new CCAMS project of fore-casting for Cornell Athletics events.

The Student Volunteer Experience by Pat Meyers ‘08

Page 4

87th AMS Annual Meeting, ctd...

Other popular talks included those given by Christopher Landsea from the National Hurricane Center and Kerry Emanuel from MIT, who hold opposing views on the topic of climate change and tropical cy-clones. Many Cornell students also attended a talk by Cornell professor Dr. Art DeGaetano, on the subject of “Modeling the development and population density of West Nile vec-tors using climate data.” In addi-tion, several Cornell students at-tended the 35th Conference on Broadcast Meteorology. Students also attended the 6th Annual Stu-dent Conference, where they learned about different job opportu-nities and graduate programs in At-mospheric Science. They were also able to meet professionals; several students had the chance to meet David Johnson, the director of the National Weather Service, when he

sat down at their dinner table and held an impromptu quiz on the im-portance of understanding space weather! In addition to attending scholarly talks, the contingent of Cornellians had a great deal of fun exploring San Antonio, including visiting the Alamo, taking in the view from the top of the Tower of the Americas, and enjoying the many restaurants on the San Anto-nio Riverwalk. One night, many of the current and former Cornellians

in San Antonio for the meeting gathered at the dinner (see inset picture). Making matters more excit-ing was the fact that that week, San Antonio experienced unusually cold temperatures and rainy/icy condi-tions. Apparently, bad weather fol-lows the AMS Meeting wherever it goes, as there has been unpleasant weather many times at the AMS Meeting! Many Texans were unpre-pared for the sleet and freezing rain, including the staff at Amerisuites Hotel, who scattered table salt on the ground to prevent slipping, much to the amusement of the Cor-nellians who are certainly seasoned to winter weather! All in all it was a very en-joyable and educational week, and everyone looks forward to attend-ing the 88th AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans next year!

The impact of weather on sports is somewhat of a hot topic recently; there was an entire panel discussion on the topic at the recent AMS Annual Meeting. At the meet-ing, much of the focus was on the dangers of lightning and how the proper authorities can prepare for handling severe weather at events with large crowds. However, I am writing specifically about the im-pact that weather can have on events such as outdoor football games. The impact stretches from the players and coaches on the field and the fans in the stands having to deal with the elements to the enjoy-ment of those watching on televi-sion. Who doesn’t love to see a football game played outdoors in the mud or snow like it was meant to be? While weather will always be affecting such games, even if it’s just the glare of the sun in a players eyes, it’s the severe weather ele-ments in the biggest games that make the most memories. This year’s Super Bowl is a good exam-ple as rainy conditions likely con-tributed to six fumbles during the game. However, there is probably no better example than the 1967 NFL Championship game between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay

Packers.

The game, commonly known as “The Ice Bowl,” was played on December 31, 1967 on the “frozen tundra” in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It was said” that the frigid temperatures recorded on that day were not predicted as the tem-perature the day before reached a comparatively pleasant 20°F. How-ever, the passage of an arctic cold front late on the 30th changed eve-rything. There was no snow re-corded in Green Bay with the front, but temperatures began to plum-met. After that high of 20°F, tem-peratures dropped to 6°F by mid-night and kept dropping through the day on the 31st to a low of -19°F. The temperature at game time was reported to be -13°F. That frigid temperature combined with a NW wind at 15 mph produced an incredible wind chill (according to the latest NWS chart) that neared –40°F! However, the sun was shin-ing as the area of arctic high pres-sure was sitting just to the west of Wisconsin at game time. While that may have helped to brighten moods, it did not help to ward off frostbite and other unpleasantness caused by the bitter cold. Some of the players, including Packers quar-

terback Bart Starr, suffered frost-bite, and some of the band members of the group scheduled to perform had to be treated for hypother-mia. The band never even got to perform due to instruments freezing up and mouthpieces sticking to the lips of the players.

Of course, the game is not only memorable for the extreme weather, but also for it’s exciting outcome which may have been af-fected by the conditions. The cold weather Packers prevailed over the Cowboys as Starr snuck into the end zone on one of the games final plays. Green Bay won 21-17 and would go on to defeat the Oakland Raiders 33-14 in Super Bowl II. The players were fortunate enough to play that game in Miami.

Sources:

http://www.weather.gov/os/windchill/index.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Championship_Game,_1967

Northeast Regional Climate Center: CLI-MOD Data: http://www.nrcc.cornell.edu

Surface Map Analysis from day of the “Ice Bowl” on page 6 =>

Weather and Sports by Erik Thorgersen ‘08

Page 5

Weather Impacts

When someone hears the word "hurricane," names such as Katrina, Andrew, and Floyd immediately come to mind. These storms regularly cause billions of dollars of devastation to the United States, yet the inner workings of such storms still puzzle many scientists, even with the most sophisticated supercomputers that crunch through the many physical equations that govern motion in the atmosphere.

After completing my studies at Cornell this semester, I hope to enter the field of hurricane research and forecasting. I grew up in Flor-ida and witnessed the ferocity and mystery of these storms first-hand. During high school, as I followed the development of Atlantic hurri-

canes during several active hurri-cane seasons, I noticed that there was a region in the eastern Carib-bean Sea - in the middle of the theoretical hurricane breeding zones of the tropical ocean basin - where these storms failed to de-velop. This small area of the ocean, bounded by Venezuela to the south, Leeward Islands to the east, and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to the north, seemed to be unfavor-able for hurricane development. I noticed that clusters of thunder-storms that would otherwise give birth to a hurricane, seemed to weaken as it crossed this area of the ocean. This area had long been de-scribed by the National Hurricane Center colloquially as a "hurricane graveyard," but nobody really knew

why that was so. A quick look at average sea surface temperatures shows no differences in that region. What could be causing this mini-mum in hurricane development fre-quency? I decided to investigate further. Since my sophomore year at Cornell, I have been developing this research project with my advi-sor, Dr. Steve Colucci, through the course EAS 499 - Undergraduate Research in Atmospheric Science.

After two years of research, I have discovered that due to sev-eral atmospheric and geographic factors, the surface winds over the eastern Caribbean Sea tend to ac-celerate as they travel through the region of study. (continued on page 7…)

The Hurricane Graveyard by Owen Shieh ‘07

Page 6

Weather and Sports, ctd…

1 AM on December 31, 1967 (the day of the Ice Bowl). From NOAA’s U.S. Daily Weather Maps Pro-ject.

The Ithacation, Volume 9, Issue 2, February 2007

Internship at National Severe Storms Laboratory by Owen Shieh ‘07 During the spring of my sophomore year, I applied to the first annual NOAA Ernest F. Holl-ings Undergraduate Scholarship program, not thinking I had the slightest chance of winning. But, as luck would have it, I received the acceptance letter in the mail late that summer. Roughly 100 students from all NOAA-supported fields were awarded this scholarship, which gives monthly stipends for the junior and senior years of un-dergraduate study. In addition, they give the awardees an opportunity to work at a NOAA laboratory or fa-cility that relates to his/her area of study during the summer before senior year. My top choice was the National Hurricane Center, but un-fortunately, they did not take any students for a summer internship. I was told that they preferred to only take on student interns – usually grad students – who can spend a

year working on a project with them. A few weeks later, I was of-fered a summer internship at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma. I had never lived in the Midwest or the Great Plains for any extended period of time, so I was really ex-cited to have received this opportu-nity to explore the unfamiliar world within the context of weather.

At the NSSL, I was assigned to work on the Coastal and Inland Flooding Observation and Warning project of the Hydrometeorology Group, under the supervision of Dr. Suzanne Van Cooten. This was not related to hurricanes, but I decided it was good to branch out a little and to learn about research in other fields. I did a case study on the east coast flood event that occurred dur-ing the latter part of June that sum-mer. It was interesting to learn

about the different methods of pre-cipitation estimation that was being developed by the NSSL and to par-ticipate in government research conference calls. It can get quite hectic at a government laboratory!

There were 5 other NOAA Hollings Scholars who interned at the NSSL and the co-located Storm Prediction Center (SPC). The summer turned out to be a lot of fun, as the six of us explored Oklahoma and the Great Plains together. NSSL even gave us a day off to go storm chas-ing on our own in the Texas pan-handle. There was nothing better than learning about severe weather by actually forecasting on your own while out in the field. Seeing a line of cumulus form along a dryline that you successfully forecasted earlier in the day gives you a sense of accomplishment.

(continued on page 8…)

Page 7

Student Activities and Research Topics

The Hurricane Graveyard, ctd... This creates an area of surface "divergence," similar to cars exiting a toll booth. The air thereby creates a slight "vacuum," forcing air from the upper parts of the atmosphere to sink and fill the void. This general sinking motion is what I hypothe-size to be the primary reason for the suppression of thunderstorm activ-ity in the eastern Caribbean Sea,

which leads to lower frequencies of hurricane development in that part of the Atlantic Basin. Formalizing this as well as other hypotheses about development of hurricanes that part of the world is important because most if not all storms that develop in that region end up af-fecting land - including the United States.

I am in the process of fin-ishing up this project as a research

paper this semester. If all goes well, I hope to graduate in the CALS undergraduate research hon-ors program. This past January, I presented this research at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. I welcome any ideas, sug-gestions, or feedback as I begin to tie up loose ends!

Six years ago, my ninth-grade Earth Science teacher introduced a new unit called Meteorology to the class and drew a cold front on the board, and I got chills. That was when I knew that I wanted to combine my fascination with the weather with my love of per-forming in front of large groups of people and be a weatherman. Once I made this decision a strong broadcast program was an important factor in my col-lege decision. When I visited Cornell a senior meteor-ology student told me that Ithaca College uses Cornell meteorologists for NewsWatch-16, a full news pro-gram complete with anchors, teleprompters, and, of course, a green screen. I was immediately sold, and I knew that I would get involved with “ICTV” as soon as I arrived on the East Hill. Fast-forward three years and the unofficial broadcast meteorology program at Cornell has ex-

panded exponentially. Now as many as 15 Cornell me-teorology students are on-air or training to be on-air. Doing the weather for Newswatch-16 is about as good experience as a developing broadcast meteorologist can get. The meteorologist arrives about 2 hours be-fore show time and starts the shift by forecasting. Since ICTV is the only television media outlet in Tompkins County, the forecast serves as the only tele-vision weather forecast specifically for Ithaca and Tompkins County. Students use what they’ve learned in their meteorology classes and apply it to real-life forecasting, and then put it into terms anyone can un-derstand. After the forecast is complete, the meteor-ologist then creates graphics for the show using Adobe Photoshop. (continued on page 9..)

The Weather On The Other Hill: Cornell Meteorology on Newswatch-16 by Jordan Gremli ‘08

Page 8

The Ithacation, Volume 9, Issue 2, February 2007

NSSL Internship, ctd…

We didn’t end up seeing any tornadoes on our two chases, but we drove through a midnight MCS. I don’t think I have experienced anything that frighten-ing in my life. Softball sized hail was only miles away from us. It was also cool to sit in on SPC shifts to watch them issue tornado watches during outbreaks. We were even able to consult with some of their fore-casters before we headed out on our own chases.

Towards the end of the internship, NSSL/SPC had all the interns give a presentation to the scientists and forecasters who were on-site. Although it was daunting to have to give a presentation to high profile people like Dr. Joe Schaeffer (SPC Director), Dr. Du-san Zrnic (father of NEXRAD radar), and Dave Imy

(SPC Operations Branch Chief); it turned out to be a good way to practice giving a research presentation. Plus, we had to travel to Silver Spring, MD to NOAA headquarters to give our same presentation to other students and the staff of the NOAA Hollings program. Overall, this past summer was an extremely educa-tional experience. It was a lot of fun to work with the other interns. We got to know each other very well towards the end of the summer.

Newswatch-16, ctd... The graphics include tonight/tomorrow forecast boards, a “16 6-Day Forecast”, surface maps, and any other graphics that the meteorologist chooses to use to tell the story of the weather. At 8:00pm, it’s show time. The newscast is a complete half-hour broadcast, complete with a weather tease after the first segment and a full 3 minute weathercast, which includes work-ing in front of a green screen and ad-libbing with an-chors about the weather. ICTV has all the amenities of an actual televi-sion station, but without the pressure of an actual tele-vision station. Making connections and friendships with other people trying to break into the television industry has been one of the most rewarding experi-ences of my Cornell career. ICTV’s sole purpose is to

educate and allow students to practice, and it’s very fortunate that Cornell students interested in broadcast meteorology are able to participate in such a worth-while program. Newswatch-16 airs on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights at 8:00pm and is re-aired at 10:00pm that night.

Page 9

The Ithacation, Volume 9, Issue 2, February 2007

A Warm Beginning to Winter by Yolanda Roberts ‘07

The 2006 – 2007 winter season got off to what some would call a beautiful start with temperatures well above normal and sunny skies for most of the northeast. The beginning of the season was dotted with a couple weeks during which highs were around or below normal, but overall, temperatures were well above normal. According to NOAA, in January tem-peratures were 0.9°C above normal across the contigu-ous United States. One of the main things that had a significant influence on the anomalously warm winter was the presence of an El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event in the Pacific Ocean. The unusually warm start to this winter season may also be attributed to the slow but present climate change that has been occurring. ENSO is a phenomenon in which we see an increase in sea surface temperature over the eastern Pacific and cooler sea surface temperatures over the western Pacific. One of the effects that an ENSO

event has on weather patterns is pushing the jet stream further north. Of course the same wind pattern that gifted us with warmer, drier conditions, plagued the western half of the United States with cooler wetter conditions. Last month, the Midwest was paralyzed by nasty ice storms, contributing to a record-breaking wet season for part of that region. It seems that this is what happened earlier on in the winter season. After having our chance to bask in the sun and actually tan in what was supposed to be the dead of winter, we were “blessed” with a severe arctic blast that stayed with us for quite some time. This not only brought us tempera-tures much closer to normal, but we also finally re-ceived our first flurries of the season. I hope you en-joyed the warm break while it was with us because it appears to be a thing of the past...until July or so.

CCAMS Officers 2006-2007 Co-Presidents: Owen Shieh (ohs3), Yolanda Roberts (ylr2) Treasurer: Pat Meyers (pcm28) Secretary: Natasha Hodas (nh62) Apparel Chair: Caroline Newton (cmn35) Conference Chair: Dan Bader (dab82) Publicity Chair: Jordan Gremli (jdg46) Soda Fairy: Ethan Peck (edp25) Webmaster: Dean Fogarasi (daf38) Advisor: Mark Wysocki (mww3)

The Ithacation, Volume 9, Issue 2, February 2007

C. –57°F D. –62°F 3. What is the coldest temperature ever recorded in Ithaca? A.-31°F B.-35°F C.-39°F D.-43°F 4. How much snow was recorded in Ithaca last winter? (05-06) Hint: The sea-sonal average is 67.3” A. 43.3” B. 53.3”

In the spirit of our winter issue, this batch of trivia questions focuses on the cold and the snowy. 1. What is the coldest temperature re-corded in the Northern Hemisphere? A. –73°F B. –77°F C. –81°F D. –85°F 2.. What is the lowest temperature re-corded in New York State? A. –47°F B. –52°F

C. 63.3” D. 73.3” E. 83.3” 5. Which New York city received a whop-ping 81.5” from a single snowstorm in 2001? A. Syracuse B. Watertown C. Albany D. Buffalo E. Ithaca Answers: 1. C. -81.4°Fis the coldest officially recorded tem-perature in North America. It occurred February 3, 1947 in Snag of the Yukon Territory in Canada.

Weather Trivia Trivia Source: Extreme Weather, by Christopher C. Burt compiled by Erik Thorgersen ‘08 and The Ithaca Climate Page: http://www.nrcc.cornell.edu/climate/ithaca/

Call the Cornell WeatherPhone at 607-255-6567

for Ithaca forecasts updated daily!

Ithacation–October 2007 Co-Editors: Erik Thorgersen’08 (emt36) and Allison Wing ‘08(aaw28) Contributors: Yolanda Roberts ‘07, Owen Shieh ‘07, Jordan Gremli ‘08, Pat Meyers ‘08 Technical Support: Pam Vitale

Visit the CCAMS website! http://ccams.eas.cornell.edu

2. B. -52°F was recorded in Old Forge, NY on February 18, 1979. 3. B. -35°F 4. A. 43.3” of snow fell on Ithaca last winter. Each month of the season featured below average snowfall. 5. D. Buffalo. The lake effect snow event lasted from Dec. 24 through Dec. 28