Synoptic and Mesoscale Meteorology


Participating faculty: ChangColle, French

Synoptic-mesoscale research in the department focuses on improving our understanding of the meteorology around the coastal margins of North America and the atmospheric predictability in these regions. Many near-shore phenomena such as coastal fronts, land/sea breeze circulations, marine clouds/fog, and cyclonic storms interacting with coastal terrain are frequently difficult to forecast. This difficulty arises because of inadequate understanding of the physical mechanisms, deficiencies in model physics, relatively coarse resolution in operational model ensembles, and relatively sparse observations over the oceans. Using conventional data, field observations, and mesoscale models (Penn State-NCAR MM5 and Weather Research and Forecasting model), this research has explored many types of coastal atmospheric circulations and precipitation structures over both the West and East coasts of the U.S.

 

Regional Climate