Brian Colle

Professor; Division Head, Division of Atmospheric Sciences, SoMAS

       Personal Page   CV 

I have been at Stony Brook University since 1999. I received my B.S. at Ohio University (1991), M.S., Ph.D., and post-doc training at the University of Washington (1991-1999). I have an extensive background in various mesoscale processes (orographic flow and precipitation, convective storms, coastal flows, tropical cyclones, etc…), synoptic meteorology, and numerical weather prediction. I have participated in numerous field studies, such as NASA IMPACTS along the U.S. East Coast studying precipitation bands within winter storms from Jan-Feb 2020-2020, orographic precipitation during the OLYMPEX project over the Olympics Mountains of Washington State in December 2015, IMPOWR around Nantucket Island (summers 2013-2014), and the Doppler Radar for Education And Mesoscale Studies (DREAMS) in June 2013 on Long Island. I particularly enjoy research that bridges the gap between research and operational weather forecasting through a multi-year CSTAR collaboration with the National Weather Service and other NCEP operational centers. More recently, I have been interested in regional climate issues for future changes in East Coast winter storms, severe convective storms, and coastal storms and flash flooding. I served as a member of the New York City Panel for Climate Change (2015-2018) as well as Editor for the AMS journal “Weather and Forecasting” from 2005 to 2011. When I am not working, you can find me on a Long Island beach surf fishing or enjoying time with family.

Nicholas Leonardo

Postdoctoral Associate

  CV   

I joined COMAP as a Ph.D. student in the fall of 2014, after completing my M.S. in Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook.  My Ph.D. research involved the predictability of North Atlantic tropical cyclones, focusing on cases in which ensemble systems, such as the ECMWF and GEFS, poorly forecast the track.  More specifically, I analyzed any systematic model biases potentially contributing to these different forecast “busts”. 

I graduated in the summer of 2019 and am now a post-doc at Stony Brook.  As part of the IMPACTS project, my work involved analyzing the development of snow bands in idealized simulations, with the goal of understanding what mechanisms and environmental parameters cause convection in the comma-head region to organize into elongated bands.

My current work uses a recent fire weather model called QUIC-Fire, demonstrating its capabilities to reproduce the prescribed burns of the Konza Campaign of 2023/2024.

Phillip Yeh

Ph.D. Graduate Student

  CV    

I joined COMAP in the fall of 2019, after completing my M.S. in Atmospheric Science at Rutgers University, New Jersey. My current research focuses on mesoscale snowbands and other precipitation structures in the cyclone comma head, and will include IMPACTS field measurements taken during the winters of 2019-20, 2021-22, and 2022-23. Through both observations and modeling, my research goal is to develop an updated conceptual model of precipitation structures in a cyclone-relative frame, and to better understand the underlying dynamics involved in the occurrence, structure, and predictability of these features, in winter storms in the Northeast U.S. My research includes the use of a new algorithm to identify and isolate these precipitation structures in radar reflectivity.

Erin Leghart

Ph.D. Graduate Student

  CV 

I joined COMAP in the Fall of 2020 after earning a B.S. in Atmospheric Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. My research interests include winter weather, ice microphysics, radar meteorology, and airborne atmospheric research. My current research utilizes data from the Ka-Band Scanning Radar (KASPR) located at the Stony Brook Radar Observatory on campus. During winter storms KASPR often observes horizontal layers of enhanced spectrum width, which we hypothesize are generated by wind shear and/or microphysical processes. My goal is to investigate the processes which lead to the development of these layers, what storm environments the layers occur most frequently, and if they have any relation to snow band development and evolution. My research is supported by the NASA Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS) campaign.

Josef Moses

M. S. Graduate Student

  CV

I joined COMAP in Fall 2021 in my Junior year of undergrad at Stony Brook, working on my B.S. in Atmospheric Sciences. I furthered my involvement when I moved into my accelerated B.S./M.S. program in 2022. My research focuses on the human aspects of the weather, namely how people understand and perceive extreme weather risks and whether they decide to take action. We are exploring the use of 2 unique but complementary tools to understand how they influence risk perceptions: storm surge flooding visualizations and and ethics-based discussion tool called the Ethical Matrix. We hypothesize that the visualizations support making weather risks “feelable” and more concrete and that the Ethical Matrix supports more inclusive group decision making. The goal of my research is to investigate these tools to see if they are useful for encouraging productive worry about risk and increase intentions to take protective actions from storms. I am also part of a CSTAR project focusing on understanding how vulnerable communities in New York City receive and understand weather information.

Jackson Parker

Ph.D. Graduate Student

  CV

I joined COMAP in the Fall of 2023 after completing a B.S. in Geosciences from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. While completing my undergraduate degree I was a research intern at the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies where I studied global trends in lightning frequency using a ground based network. Additionally, I have completed research projects in microclimates and case studies of severe convective events. 

My current research interests are tropical cyclone induced hazards such as storm surge, wind, and inland flooding and their connections to climate change. Specifically my work uses an approach which couples climate and circulation models to produce future estimates of hurricane induced storm surges. Additionally, I am interested in mesoscale extreme precipitation events with tropical and subtropical systems, machine learning approaches to improve precipitation and storm surge forecasts, and understanding in-season gaps of tropical cyclone activity. When I’m not working, you may find me fly fishing Long Island or playing guitar in one of the on-campus musical groups. 

Joshua J. Carter

Postdoctoral Associate

  CV

I joined COMAP in the spring of 2024 as a postdoctoral associate. My path toward research began at the University of Leeds, UK, where I completed my B.S. and M.S. in Theoretical Physics. In 2023 I gained a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK on the topic of mixed-phase ice particle growth mechanisms in numerical simulations. My doctoral research examined how mathematical descriptions of hydrometeors and their interactions can affect precipitation development within mesoscale bands. These structures are often poorly captured by numerical models, leading to inaccurate forecasts of severe snow distribution and intensity. Contributing sources of uncertainty are mixed-phase processes, whose rates depend on particle features that are often omitted from microphysics schemes entirely. My work investigated novel parameterizations of these important dependencies, including ice-habit, capacitance, and density, that will be key to representing the riming and deposition processes in future operational models.

My current research investigates the development of cloud top generating cells (GC), which are frequently observed in the vertical radar reflectivity profiles of U.S. winter storms. Fall-streaks of precipitation are observed to emanate from the base of GC, potentially contributing to the formation of mid-level mesoscale bands where streaks merge and intensify. However, the character of GC, methods of genesis, and relative importance of fall streaks remain unclear. This work aims to understand the development of GC from a microphysical perspective, using high resolution LES numerical modeling to assess the significance of fine scale precipitation growth on the broader cloud reflectivity profile. This work utilizes data from the NASA IMPACTS campaign, including airborne cloud radar measurements.

My professional interests include numerical modeling of physical processes, severe winter-weather forecasting, ice crystal development and parameterization. Outside the office, find me in Manhattan photographing the architecture, or in the pub watching Newcastle United.