From Weather Gets the College Try by Olivia Winslow in Newsday on January 30, 2002
Brian Colle, an assistant professor at SUNY Stony Brook, looked between the blinds of his ground-floor window yesterday and smiled as the sun shone through, then pondered what he termed the “so-called January thaw phenomenon.”
“It’s not that unusual,” he said, alluding to yesterday’s record-breaking temperatures in the upper 60s, nearly 30 degrees above normal for this time of year. “We frequently see a week or two of various anomalous temperatures,” he said.
But predicting when these spring-like temperatures will occur–or conversely, when rain or snow will make their appearance, how much of it and for how long – is Colle’s focus as professor of advanced synoptic meteorology and weather forecasting, which he teaches to undergraduate and graduate students.
Colle is doing something new this year to help Stony Brook’s budding meteorologists use their knowledge of computer-generated models of atmospheric conditions, physics and mathematical concepts in real-world situations. He has entered a team of Stony Brook students in the National Collegiate Weather Forecasting Contest sponsored by Pennsylvania State University. It is the first time Stony Brook has participated in the contest.
About 1,000 students from 38 institutions are participating in the contest, which continues through April, said Fred Gadomski, a meteorology instructor at Penn State and co-chairman of the contest. This year has brought the most participants in the contest’s nearly three-decade history. Gadomski said, citing the “Weather Channel generation” as one reason for the growing interest in meteorology.
This is a time, Gadomski said, of a “technological revolution” in the field. “Computer technology and communications technology have essentially made a sea change in the way meteorology is practiced,” he said.
Meteorologists’ career choices have expanded as well.
Joe Olson, 28, a graduate student, is “leaning toward a career that uses weather analysis that is “economy related” – for example, using forecasting to aid farmers and businesses.
“Probably more meteorologists are hired by the private sector than the National Weather Service.” Colle said.
As part of the contest, Olson and the team must come up with a forecast for Caribou, Maine, one of the 13 cities in the national competition for which students must predict the weather.
Frosty Caribou, in northern Maine is one of those areas that pose a forecasting challenge. Olson said, citing hilly terrain that wreaks havoc on wind direction.
Now midway through the contest the 12-person Stony Brook team including Colle and three graduate students) ranked 11th last month, Gadomski said. “Our goal is to finish in the top half” or even better, Colle said “We’re hoping we’ll move up a few slots to seventh or eighth.
