You are browsing the archive for October 2011 - Page 2 of 2 - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.
17 October 2011
Tornadoes and Those Who Study Them
I did a quick presentation on Saturday at the National Weather Association’s public outreach day. The event was held at the McWane Science Center in downtown Birmingham. This coming week, is the annual NWA conference. This year it’s a joint meeting with the GOES Users Conference, and I’m presenting at the GUC on Thursday, along with being a co-chair of one session. There is no other science that fascinates the …
13 October 2011
The Kentucky Smudge Explained
While working on the forecast today, I called up this 1km resolution visible image from the GOES East (From NASA MSFC) and immediately spotted this weird-looking smudge. I knew pretty quickly what it was and how it happened, but the exact details took a little work and involve some very basic thermodynamics. My fellow meteorologist Brandon Chambers took a hard look at it while I worked on the forecast for …
11 October 2011
Dissapearing Ice At The Top of The World and The Roof of the World
The news that the Arctic sea ice approached very near the 2007 record is about a month old now, but the NSIDC has a rather amazing graph showing the trend since 1978. This is just one aspect of the ice and perhaps not the most important. The old ice in the Arctic has nearly disappeared in many areas now. Take a look at this video from NOAA and made by …
10 October 2011
The Next Generation Weather/Earth Science Satellite Is Two Weeks From Launch
It’s called NPP and it is part of NPOES but it’s definitely NOT GOES. It is however a big GO (once they fix some leaks on the Delta 2 Rocket), and it will head it into space from Vandenburg AFB in California late this month. Science loves its acronyms but here’s what it all means in plain language. NPOES is the National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System and it …
8 October 2011
Choking Smog/Haze Over China
The image above from the NASA Aqua satellite shows the thick industrial smoke/haze over China on Oct. 7th. These images show better than any written book or public speech the necessity of dealing with how we make and use energy. It’s a problem that affects every living being on the planet and this image illustrates well that it’s reached a crisis level. Despite the slick-looking adverts you see daily on …
4 October 2011
Well Deserved Nobel Prize Goes To Adam Riess
Last week I was chatting with my wife and somehow the mention of Nobel prizes came up. I offhandedly said the Nobel Prize in Physics will go to a guy named Adam Riess, but he will probably split it with two others. Fast forward to today and my wife Marian is painting the bedroom of our home here in Oklahoma City, and listening to BBC Radio 2. The 8 PM …
3 October 2011
Warmest October Day Ever in the UK Saturday
My Closet friend was at Salisbury Cathedral Saturday after a drive down from his home in Wales. His car thermometer registered 29° C. That’s 84 degrees Fahrenheit and by UK standards in October, that isn’t just unusual it’s nearly unbelievable! Just some high clouds covered Southern England on Saturday, while an approaching cool front from the Atlantic kept Scotland and North Wales a bit cooler. The 500 millibar chart (surface pressures …
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.