The Great Storm of 1975

Malachi Hinds

                       The Great Storm of 1975

This storm occurred from January 9th-12th 1975. It is also known as  “The Storm of the Century.”
In other parts of the country, it was called, “Super Bowl Blizzard,” (Vikings were playing Pittsburgh Steelers in New Orleans) or “The Great Storm of 1975.”The storm system originated over the Pacific Ocean on January 8. It crossed the Rocky Mountains and collided with both arctic air from Canada and warm tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico. Resulted in record low barometric pressure readings in the Midwest. This low-pressure system resulted in 42 tornadoes (Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, and Mississippi). Simultaneously,a powerful snowstorm gripped much of the Midwest
The storm also brought wind gusts of up to 90 mph and producing snowdrifts up to 20 feet high. The storm resulted in major damage to mainly Alabama and Mississippi. The storm costed a total of $63 million.

Hurricane Matthew and Haiti

Hurricane Matthew was known as the third most powerful storm to hit U.S main land. But the real destruction happen in the Caribbean and especially Haiti. When Matthew first formed it was a category 5 but weakened to a category 4 when it hit Haiti. Even though it was a category 4 it still did massive damage. The storm hit east to southeast of Haiti. The winds of this storm went up to 140 MPH and the rain fall was 20 to 40 inches. The winds and water caused flooding, mudslides and great damage to structures  such as main roads. After the storm 175,000 people needed to take shelter in refuge. Matthew affected 2.1 million people which is 20% of the population and the total cost of damage was $2.1 billion dollars.

Meteorology Careers

Meteorology is a branch of science that studies the atmosphere and it focuses on weather processes and forecasting. Meteorologist use scientific principles to explain, understand, observe, or forecast the earth's atmospheric phenomena and/or how the atmosphere affects the earth and life on the planet.

“Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology or Atmospheric Sciences”
Mean Starting Salary - $90,000

Jobs with Degree in Meteorology
- Broadcast Sector
- Research & Education
- Government (National Weather Service / Intellicast
- Private Sector

The Great 1993 Flood

         The Great Flood of 1993 was put down as one of the most dangerous floods to have hit the United States. Having hit 9 states and lasting for 6 months the flood had left a total of $15 billion dolllars worth of damage. The flood had started back in 1992 with an abnormal amounts of rain in the Fall followed by high amounts to snow in the Winter. Then once the Spring had come and melted all the left over snow away, it left the groumd saturated and highly prone for flooding. Followed by thunderstorms in repeated areas during the timenof summer in 1993. This led to high amounts of rain showers that led to the flood of the Mississippi river. With some cites reciving 12+ inches of rain and led to the failure of numerous levees and left transportations outnof service for months to come.  Soon after the flooding had past new laws and regulations had been made to lower the property damage cost and lessen the chances of another event happening like this again .

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Katrina formed about 200 miles southeast of the Bahamas as a tropical depression. A band of storm clouds wrapped around the north side of the storm creating winds about 40 mph, turning it into a tropical storm. It hit Florida as a Category 1 hurricane and although it caused some flooding and casualties during its first hit, Katrina appeared to be just another hurricane in a hurricane season. It weakened after it hit Florida, but strengthened over the water in the Gulf of Mexico and re-intensified into a Category Five storm. As hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi with a large storm surge of about 28 feet it punished coastal areas in Mississippi and in Louisiana. An estimated 80% of New Orleans was left underwater and all the levees built by the U.S Army corps were destroyed.  The hurricane was so devastating that it required rescue missions from the national guards and other military units and left thousands of people homeless. Hurricane Katrina caused $81 billion in property damages, but it is estimated that the total impact in Louisiana and Mississippi may have exceeded $150 billion. The final death toll was 1,836 and almost 1,600 of these deaths were in Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina affected over 15 million people in different ways, from having to evacuate their homes, rising gas prices, and the economy suffering. In New Orleans, there are almost twice as many restaurants and shops open than there were before Katrina hit, but on the other hand, the police force is still about 25% smaller than it was the week before Katrina hit. So overall cities like New Orleans are trying their best to get back to where they were but its gonna take a lot of work. 

Joanne Simpson

       
 Joanne Simpson or Joanne Gerould (her birth name)was born on March 23, 1923. She was the first woman in the United States to get a PHD in Meteorology, her father was a sailor therefore took her sailing on a catboat off Cape rod which led her to be fascinated by clouds, when she attended the University of Chicago Simpson fell inlove with it. Joanne contributed to many areas of the atmospheric sciences, particularly in the field of  Tropical Meteorology. She has researched hot towers, hurricanes, the trade winds, and helped develop the TRMM which stands for Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission. The TRMM is important even in todays environment becuase it helpds predict weather and climate. In 1958 she collaborated wth Herbert Reihl which was considered the father of Tropical Meteorology and calculated the average static moist energy and how it varied vertically theoughout the atmosphere. It goes without saying that Joanne Simpson was a very influential and intelligent person but woman really admired her work. Due to the fact that Simpson was the first American woman to receive a PHD in Meteorology this helped other female scientists persue there dreams and also actually give them a chance to work on the scientific field. Around 1966 she became NASA's lead weather researcher also was the director of Project Stormfury while bieng chief of the Environment Satellite Services Administration's Institute for Atmospheric Sciences.

George Hadley

George Hadley

      George Hadley's Hadley Cell Theory was one of the most revolutionary scientific discoveries in toady's modern science. The Hadley Cell explain how atmospheric motions occurs in our atmosphere. Following the law of Convection Currents,  the radiation from the Sun warming up the water by the equator, the warmer water then rises up to the stratosphere and flows upward to the poles. There, the formerly warm water cools down and sinks down and eventually makes its way back to the equator to repeat this process. This is the basic fundamentals of what makes the Hadley Cells work and create our understanding of atmospheric circulation that has now fully developed into what it used today by modern scientist.

Johnstwon Flood 1977

 This flood was catastrophic because 130 million gallons of water flooded the streets of Pennsylvania. The waters carved their own paths through office buildings, factories and apartments. This happened because there were 12 inches of rain in 10 hours, and this means that there were storms back to back. This caused dams to overflow and eventually break. The people of Pennsylvania were extremely mad because the dams have daily checks and inspections and they all came black clean. After the flooding there was $300 million in damage and 84 deaths. This might've been avoided if the inspectors did a better job, but because 5 dams broke this led to better reinforcements on the bottom of the dams all around Pennsylvania. 100's of people were left homeless and they no longer had jobs. It took Pennsylvania years to get Cambria County back to its original state.

Super Outbreak April 3-4 1974

On April 3-4 of 1974 in just 18 hours 148 struck 13 states. This included 23 F4  and 7 F5 tornadoes. What caused these storms to produce so much damage was the low pressure moving from the west towards the east. The warm moist air moving north from the Gulf of Mexico got met the low pressure in the lower Mid West. The states impacted from this cluster of storms were states in the Mississippi Valley, the Southeast, and the Midwest. This tornado outbreak was an unprecedented event and unique in its destruction. These tornadoes caused over 3.5 $billion in damage, which claimed 310 lives and left nearly 5,500 people injured. This event was such a devastation to the impact impacted was because of the lack of information given to the people to prepare. This was simply because the technology was not were it is today. People found out a couple minutes before impact which had a minimal effect on their safety. This event forced meteorologist to advance their technology to prevent this horrid event from ever happening again.

  

Jim Cantore

Jim Cantore

Jim Cantore is one of the most successful and influential Meteorologist in todays society. Jim was born in Connecticut but raised in Vermont. He attended Lyndon Sate College in Vermont and studied meteorology. As soon as he graduated college, The Weather Channel offered him an internship in 1986. He started his career there developing the Fall Foliage. After some years he started to do live reports of the weather. He would report the weather for severe hurricanes such as Katrina, Irene, and Sandy. He also reported the weather before many main events such as PGA Tournaments, NFL games, the Olympics, and The Winter X-Games. He also narrates the series Storm Stories and the Local On the 8s. Throughout his long and successful career, he became a member of the National Weather Association and he also became a member of the American Meteorological Society. Jim Cantore has received the NOAA award in 2002 for his excellence in using satellite technology. Jim was mostly known for his skill of translating hard to understand weather information into everyday spoken language. He is a legend in live broadcasting. Jim's most viral video was when he was attacked during a live report and he just kneed him away. The most impressive part is that Jim didn't even take a pause in his sentences. Jim Cantore is still to this day a great live reporter and he will be to the day he stops working.

Luke Howard's Life And His Contribution To Meteorology

Luke Howard was born on November 28,2018 in London England. His father was Robert Howard and his mother
Elizabeth nee Leatham. His wife was Mariabella Eliot and his children Robert Howard and John Eliot. Luke Howard attended a Quaker Grammar School in Burford, Oxfordshire, where he developed his Latin which later aided him in naming the categories of clouds. Luke Howard became a pharmacist by profession, leading to him setting up his own pharmacy. His interests in clouds later on led him to becoming an amateur meteorologist. Luke Howard proposed that there were three types of clouds; cumulus, cirrus and stratus. Howard named these based on there visual representation and latin words to fit there description. Howard then discovered how these clouds work and how they constantly change due to rising and falling from convectional rays and gravity. Luke Howard's work became known worldwide due to authors, poets and artists placing his information in their work, making everyone aware of Howard's work. Although not the first to name the clouds, as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck previously did this, but Luke Howard's work was more acceptable and understood throughout the world due to the more versatile language it was used in. Luke Howard died in Tottenham, England on March 21, 1864, but lives on as 'The Father Of Meteorology' and 'The Godfather Of Clouds'.

  Vilhelm Bjerknes

Vilhelm Bjerknes was born in March 14, 1862 in Oslo Norway. His Father was Carl Anton Bjerknes and his mother name was Aletta Koren. His father was a teacher and was teaching mathematics, but later on he left his job to go and study Hydrodynamics. Vilhelm completed his education in the University of  Kristiania where he learned physics and mathematics. Later on in 1887 he studied Hydrodynamic. After getting a masters in Science he found out that it is best to study atmospheric motion when you combine thermodynamics and hydrodynamics. Doing this helped read the motion of the atmosphere and making long term predictions more reliable. After realizing the potential of his work he went to the United States to get funding. After getting funding he studied until 1941 when WWII started. At this point money and resources was low. After the war Bjerknes and his group continue their studies until the government decided to make the Western Bergen Weather Service. The group's accuracy of forecast got better to the point where they was able to do it for the public.

Symposium

Hailstorm May 8th,2017
          On May 8th, 2017, a intense hailstorm hit Denver, Colorado and surrounding areas. Colorado is one of the three state east of the Rockies dubbed “hail alley” because of the frequent hailstorms that they encounter. This hailstorm was depicted as the worst hailstorm to ever hit that area amounting to about 2.3 billion dollars in property damage and crops according to Eagle Insurance Company. This surpasses the Hailstorms on July 11, 1990 and June 20, 2003 by at least 1.2 billion dollars. The hailstones were at about the size of a golf ball measured at an average of 2.75 inches in diameter. Hailstones at this size on average reach about 100 mph and are enough to put holes in windshields and windows and have the power to tear the outlays of houses.
           This hailstorm lead to the destruction of countless windshields, the closing of 14 school districts for a week, and the flooding of many houses and buildings.

William M. Gray - Hurricane Study

William M. Gray was a pioneer in the research of tropical cyclones and his work is praised by many scientists today in the field of hurricane study. William was born on October 9, 1929 in Detroit, Michigan. Upon finishing high school and undergrad, he worked in the United States Air Force as an overseas Weather Forecaster. After four years, he decided to come back to America and earn his masters and doctorate. He eventually started working at Colorado State University and taught Atmospheric Science. While at CSU, he started researching about tropical storms/cyclones and what factors drive them to become a full sized hurricane that ravages through countries.He discovered how hurricane activity is almost always associated with warm water. While doing further research he discovered how different factors influenced tropical storm activity. With all this research he also added how hurricanes are cyclical, and there is a season for which they occur. He released a hurricane seasonal forecast, and surprisingly he was right. He also studied tropical storm movement, structure, development, and intensity changes. After retiring from CSU in 2005, he became a controversial figure in climate change. His argument was how humans did not affect climate change, if so only a small portion, and that it is a natural process of the Earth. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 86. He left behind a remarkable legacy that was built on the study of hurricanes, which is still used today.

2011 North American Heat Wave

A Map of Higher and Lower than Average Temperatures Across the US

The 2011 North Americana Heat Wave was a massive ridge of hot and humid air that covered the Midwest and the East Coast. The Heat Wave, which is classified as a long period of high atmosphere-related heat stress which would have adverse effects on the affected people, affected about 141 million people and covered one million square miles.
This devastating heatwave was caused by a ridge in the jet stream that trapped the warm air from the Gulf of Mexico within the ridge, commonly known as a heat dome. This heatwave was associated with high humidity levels, levels in which the Dew Point reached 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and unusually hot night time temperatures that remained above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Another byproduct of this Heat Wave was the sheer amount of records that were broken or tied, over 26, 000 records. Some of these records broken were that Dallas, Texas broke its previous record of most days over 100 in a year (69 days) and beat it with a  new total of 70 days. Wichita falls, Texas broke its record of 42 days over 100 degrees Fahrenheit setting a new record of 52 days. In the east coast, Newark, New Jersey set a new record for highest temperature reached with 108 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking the precious record of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Another record broken was in Raleigh Durham, North Carolina, where the temperature reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for five days in a row breaking the previous record of four consecutive days. A more detailed chart on the records broken or tied can be found here http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/a-record-hot-summer-interactive-map.

Tetsuya Theodore Fujita - Tornado

Tetsuya Theodore Fujita a.k.a “Mr. Tornado” was born on October 23, 1920 in Kitakyūshū City, Japan. He was Japanese-born American meteorologist who created the Fujita Scale, or F-Scale, a system we use for classifying tornado intensity based on damage to structures and vegetation.
He also discovered macrobursts and microbursts, which are associated with severe thunderstorms also hazardous conditions.
The original F-Scale was used to estimate tornado intensity based on the severity of damage to buildings but was later revised as the Enhanced Fujita Scale to include wind (EF-Scale).

Tornados were classified into one of 6 categories:
EF0- Gale - (65-85 mph) - light damage, winds, branches broken off
EF1- Moderate - (86-110 mph) - hurricane wind speed, cars pushed, window glass break
EF2- Significant - (111-135 mph) - roofs torn off, mobile homes demolished, cars thrown & moved
EF3- Severe - (136-165 mph) - significant damage done to large buildings, homes destroyed
EF4- Devastating - (166-200 mph) - well constructed homes are leveled, building totaled
EF5- Incredible - (200> mph) - homes swept away, concrete structures critically damaged

January 22-24, 2016 Blizzard

The Blizzard of 2016, known as Snowzilla or Winter Storm Jonas, delivered many inches of snow in the Northeast United States and the Mid-Atlantic. Specifically,  Newark, NJ received about 2 feet of snow. Snowzilla caused more than 30 deaths, due to car accidents, hypothermia, heart attacks while shoveling snow, and carbon-monoxide poisoning from clogged exhaust pipes from snow. There was about $600 million to $300 billion worth of property damage and 630,000+ power outages for multiple days. Once the snow melted, the flooding was considered worse than Storm Sandy. The National Weather Service describes a blizzard by its duration, wind speeds, and the reduction in visibility. Another blizzard in 1996 was compared to the Snowzilla because of its similar damage costs, the death toll in NJ, snowfall, and impacted states.

Lewis Fry Richardson

Lewis Fry Richardson

Lewis Fry Richardson was born on October 11 of the year 1881, to a quaker family in England. Both his parents, Catherine Fry and David Richardson, partook in the field of business. His parent's circumstances allowed Lewis to attend some of the most prestigious schools; this includes Newcastle Preparatory, Bootham School, Durham College of Science, and King's College, Cambridge. His influences in these various schools allowed Lewis to acquire a strong foundation in numerous fields of science. One influence in particular gave Lewis the drive to learn about meteorology; an encounter with a man named J Edmund Clark, due to his expertise in meteorology. 

Lewis was not a man of single focus, for he has knowledge in many subjects. In fact, Lewis is a mathematician and a physicist. Having the experience in these fields allowed him to construct a goal: making weather forecast predictions based on mathematical algorithms. There, however, was one factor that quelled his process to proceed with his idea and that was the first World War, where he served as an ambulance driver in Europe.

This did not stop him, after his service he returned back to the lab to hand write equations based on the data he collected with his experiments. At Benson he looked at clouds and rain by using thermodynamics and radiation. He wrote a book on his finds that included every algorithm he solved. Another scientist disagreed with his work, but later on in 1993 a scientist named Lynch showed that Lewis's calculations had few errors and stated that it was "impressive" since he did everything by hand. He later had an idea to create a company that would be able to produce weather predictions around the clock. This was called the Forecast Factory, which included 65,000 people, each focusing on a section of the globe and figuring out the weather in that area. This was equivalent to using 100,000 super computers with powerful processing units.

(Random Data Base Center)





                                      (Lewis Fry Richardson)

  

Guy Stewart Callendar, born February 8, 1898 in Montreal, is the reason that climate change is at the forefront of science research today. While he most contributed towards civilian and military advancements as a steam engineer and and inventor, he is also accredited for coming up with the "Calendar Effect"/"Greenhouse Effect". Callendar, through intense data analysis, found a direct correlation between the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and and the rising temperatures of Earth's surface. This rather simplistic discovery would eventually lead to all of global warming research. In 1938, Callendar published his works but as novice Meteorologist his findings were completely ignored. It wasn't for a few decades until scientists started to seriously look at the "Callendar Effect".  Charles David Keeling verified the work in 1958 putting climate change research to the forefront. Today approximately $30 Billion are spent every year on climate change research and global warming prevention programs. We have come a long way since the work of Guy Stewart Callendar and still have a ways to go before solving the issue.

Delta Flight 191

Delta flight 191 can/should be considered one of the most devastating crashes of all time because this crash resulted in 137 people dying and leaving 28 more injured. The plane was on its way to Dallas-Fort Worth airport from Fort Lauderdale airport before it crashed. The plane crashed because as it was flying through a dark cloud it was pushed by a microburst (an intense small-scale downdraft produced by a thunderstorm or rain shower) and thrown off it's intended flight path. The plane then ended up crashing into a car on a highway in Texas and also crashed into two water tanks. The plane started to burn and began to split apart near the runway at Dallas-Fort Worth airport. 

This all happened because the two pilots of the aircraft decided to fly through a storm instead of just delaying or even canceling the flight. The plane was also unable to detect the microburst because the radar equipment was broken. The F.A.A has now made a law stating that no flights are allowed to takeoff or land if there is a storm so that nothing like this ever happens again. In Conclusion Delta Flight 191 was a devastating event but because of it the Aviation industry has now taken a more serious approach on the safeness of the aircraft as well as the people inside of the aircraft and this will help make flying safe again.