ARL Weekly News – January 24, 2025

Recent Events

HYSPLIT helping keep people safe

The Weather Forecasting Office (WFO) in Binghamton, NY supported the NY State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services during a propane tank crash on Friday, January 24. The crash resulted in a propane leak, for which the WFO completed a HYSPLIT run to assist emergency managers in determining that some nearby residents should be evacuated and others could be asked to shelter in place.

ARL HYSPLIT modeling group hosts scientists from the United Kingdom

Two scientists, Dr. Helen Webster and Mr. Isaac Jadav, from the United Kingdom Met Office  Atmospheric Dispersion and Air Quality (ADAQ) group visited the Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) in College Park from January 27th through 31st. They were hosted by the HYSPLIT modeling group at ARL. The visit was arranged through the Transatlantic Data Science Academy, a collaboration between the UK Met Office and NOAA to foster a skilled workforce capable of advancing data science in weather and related research. The academy strengthens ties between US and UK scientific communities, facilitating knowledge exchanges. A primary focus of this visit was “Fusing Simulations with Data Science.” During the visit a series of short presentations and discussions were hosted in the morning that were also attended remotely by additional members of the met office ADAQ group. These covered topics related to dispersion modeling for emergency response applications such as source determination using an inversion algorithm, probabilistic forecasting, and model parameterizations.

In the afternoon ARL and ADAQ scientists worked through some case studies and intercomparisons of modeling for a volcanic eruption and radiological release. 

Dr. Helen Webster gave a brown bag seminar to ARL on Wednesday which provided an overview of atmospheric dispersion work at the Met Office, UK.

 

Publications and Presentations

Published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

Tilden Meyers, Praveena Krishnan, Mark Heuer, John Kochendorfer, and Harold Diamond authored a paper titled: “The Impact of Wildfire on the Land Surface Parameters of a Semi-arid Grassland in the Southwestern U.S.” published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology.