Weather Studies & Current Research
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| Headlines July 11, 2008 2:00 pm (EDT) 18:00 UTC |
- Hurricane Bertha, the second tropical storm of the season 2008 continues moving over the Atlantic waters, and it is approaching to Bermudas...Hurricane Bertha after a sudden strenghtening into a category 3 hurricane is category 1 at this moment...Large swells and high surf are affecting Bermuda...These conditions are expected to persist for the next few days.
- There are no threat areas to discuss in the tropical Atlantic. Three are four reliable computer models predicting that a tropical depression may form between Africa and the Lesser Antilles Islands 5-7 day from now. These models did a pretty good job forecasting the formation of Bertha this far in advance, so the potential of another Cape Verdes-type storm forming next week needs to be taken seriously.
- For questions and/or advises, you can write an email to the weather team in campus at: dquesada@stu.edu. Information about weather conditions around STU main campus may be seen in the Flash Application included in the main Meteorology page (click on Meteorology link above). For more weather information, just click on any of the links included within this Flash application.
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 John Toohey-Morales BS, CCM, Chief Meteorologist for Telemundo 51, the Hispanic TV-broadcasting station partnering with NBC-6, founder of Clima Data Corp., and an adjunct Professor with the Department of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science is teaching SCI 112 Introduction to Meteorology during Spring term 2007. Classes are running Tuesday and Thursday from 1:40 to 2:55 pm EDT (17:70 - 18:55 UTC), in Kennedy Hall K-207. In order to access to power point presentations, syllabus, and additional materials, Click on links included below. It allows you to download particular materials into your computer. <\td> |
COURSE MATERIALS
Introduction to Meteorology SCI - 112 Course Syllabus Fall 2006 Word file Pdf file
| Tentative Topics |
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| The Earth’s Atmosphere |
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| The Earth’s Atmosphere Review |
pps1-review |
| Warming the Earth and its Atmosphere |
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| Warming the Atmosphere Review |
pps2-review |
| Temperature |
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| Temperature Review |
pps3-review |
| Humidity and Condensation |
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| Humidity and Condensation Review |
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| Clouds |
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| Cloud development and precipitation |
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| Why does the wind blow? |
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| Review Chapters 4 - 7 |
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| Atmospheric Circulations |
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| Air masses, Fronts, and Storms |
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| Thunderstorms and Tornados |
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 Dr. David Quesada, Ph.D and an Assitant Professor with the Department of Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Computer Science will teach SCI 112 Introduction to Meteorology during Summer and Fall terms 2007. During the summer period S6, classes are schedulled for Tuesdays and Thursday from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. In the Fall term of 2007, SCI 112 will be offered Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:40 pm to 2:55 pm. Links included below will allows you to download particular materials into your computer.
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EDUCATION AND WEATHER
Forescasting the Weather - WeatherBug Studios - Maryland - Media file
A Hurricane motivated Mathematics course - pps file
Looking at Hurricane Wilma with WeatherBug Mesonet - pps file
Raindrop Math - Connections Newsletter - WeatherBug Achieve - Word document
COURSE MATERIALS
Introduction to Meteorology SCI - 112 Course Syllabus Fall 2006 Word file Pdf file
| Tentative Topics |
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| The Atmosphere: Structure and Composition |
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| Temperature, and Heating the atmosphere |
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| Humidity, Condensation, and Clouds |
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| Clouds, its development, and precipitation |
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| Air Pressure and Winds |
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| Atmospheric Circulations, Air masses, and fronts |
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| Storms, tornadoes, and lightning |
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| Hurricanes |
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| Air pollution and Health |
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| Global Climates |
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| Weather Studies at St. Thomas University - A brief history |
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| WeatherBug and WeatherBug Achieve at St. Thomas University |
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| AMS Weather studies and St. Thomas University weather studies |
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| Participation of St. Thomas University in GLOBE and AMBIENT programs |
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| Research interests in Weather and Climate at St. Thomas University |
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Both, Weather and Climate are closely related with our daily experiences. While Weather is defined as short term variations of physical conditions (outdoor temperature, humidity, wind speeds, barometric pressure, sea surface temperature, cloudiness) surrounding us, Climate is defined as long term averages of above variations (usually at least 30 years). Decision making in modern societies goes nowhere without considering Weather and Climate. For South Florida, in particular, the link of Meteorology with health conditions and urban planning and development is really important. Namely, along these lines, Bio-Meteorology and Hurricane Science are two fields of great interest.
Bio-Meteorology covers the understanding of mechanisms of interaction between the natural physical environment and living things embeded within it, without taking them in isolation or as separate units. There are many interesting subjects to study in this field; however for South Florida, the study of environmental triggers of allergic reactions, how they spread out through the atmosphere, the incidence of Asthma and allergic respiratory disorders within floridians, and how asthma and allergies are linked to weather and climate trends represent very important health issues. As a matter of fact, the incidence of Asthma increased notably in the last ten years, and Florida did not escape from this trend.
Hurricane science is trying to understand mechanisms controlling both, the genesis and further dynamical evolution of hurricanes. For coastal areas the answer to these questions is crucial. In order to accomplish this goal, scientists use sophisticated numerical models based on hydrodynamic equations known as Navier-Stoke, along with the conservation of mass and energy. The resulting system of equations is highly nonlinear and needs a large computational power to produce accurate results. Coarse-grained effective medium toy models constitute an alternative to above mentioned models. These toy models consist of systems of differential equations less complicated than the Navier-Stoke. The positive side of this approach it is the availability and the possibility to see results that may be qualitatively in agreement with more accurate models.
Even though; the above mentioned research topics may appear somehow diverging, they are very tighly related regarding methods of Mathematical Physics used in computing quantities of interest. In both cases, methods borrowed from Physics of Complex Systems, and Dynamical Systems are applied in conjunction with techniques from Computational Physics.
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Last update July 11, 2008
Weather Laboratory
Saint Thomas University
For comments and suggestions write to Atmospheric Physics Team
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