Course Documents

Course Syllabus

Important Dates

February 28: Project Topic Due
March 16: Mid-Term (guidance)
May 11: Project Presentations
May 18: Final Exam

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Course Outline and Materials

Radar Principles and Analysis (31 Jan, 2 Feb): Read the course text’s Appendix. Review selected sections in the NOAA WDTD Radar and Applications course materials (Principles of Radar: Legacy and Super Resolution Base Data Generation; Velocity Interpretation: Large-Scale Doppler Velocity Patterns, Storm-Scale Doppler Velocity Patterns; Base and Derived Products: Base Reflectivity, Base Velocity & Storm-Relative Velocity Map, Correlation Coefficient, Differential Reflectivity, Specific Differential Phase). You may also find the NOAA WDTD Radar and Applications Course material titled Convective Storm Structure and Evolution to be of interest.

Sounding and Stability Analysis (7, 9 Feb): Read Sections 2.1 (Thermodynamics), 2.3.3 (Buoyancy), 2.6 (Thermodynamic Diagrams), 2.7 (Hodographs), and 3.1 (Static Instability) from the course text. You may also find the Air Force’s “The Use of the Skew T, Log P Diagram in Analysis and Forecasting” useful, particularly Chapters 4 and 5, but reading it is not required; it is meant only as a reference.

Quasi-Geostrophic Theory (14, 16 Feb): No formal text readings. If you have previously taken courses in synoptic and/or dynamic meteorology, you may find your notes from those classes helpful to refresh your memory. Otherwise, please see “The Quasi-Geostrophic Height Tendency Equation”, “The Quasi-Geostrophic Omega Equation,” and “The Q-Vector form of the Quasi-Geostrophic Omega Equation” lecture notes from Atm Sci 361.

Fronts and Frontogenesis (21, 23 Feb): Read Sections 5.1.1 (General Characteristics), 5.1.2 (Types of Fronts), 5.1.3 (Motion of Fronts), and 5.1.5 (Kinematics of Frontogenesis).

Drylines and Low-Level Jets (28 Feb, 2 Mar): Read Sections 4.7 (Low-Level Jets) and 5.2 (Drylines).

Sea-/Lake- and Land Breezes (7, 9 Mar): Read Section 5.4.1 (Sea- and Land-Breeze Fronts). Note errata for Eqn. (5.48): it should be a +, rather than a -, in front of R_d. Errata for pg. 153, upper left: 4.24 -> 4.23a, onshore -> offshore, offshore -> onshore. Reading Section 2.4.3 (Circulation Theorems) may also be helpful.

Planetary Boundary Layer (28, 30 Mar): Read Sections 4.1-4.4, paying particular attention to Sections 4.2-4.4.

Lake-Effect Precipitation (4, 6 Apr): Read Section 4.5.

Density Currents (11 Apr): Read Section 5.3. You will likely find material from Sections 2.3.3 through 2.4.2 helpful to place some of the math in this section into context.

Gravity Waves (13 Apr): Read Chapter 6. This chapter is mathematically-intensive and benefits from an understanding of atmospheric wave dynamics, which typically comes in a second-semester dynamical meteorology class. We will only consider a subset of the mathematics within this chapter and will focus mostly on Sections 6.1, 6.2, and 6.5.

Convection Initiation and Convection Types (18, 20 Apr): Read Chapter 7 and Sections 8.1-8.3.

Supercell Thunderstorm Dynamics (25, 27 Apr): Read Section 8.4. This is the most mathematically-intensive lecture of the semester, and I encourage you to read carefully through the course text and the posted notes before we discuss this material in class. The applications are so cool, though!

Mesoscale Convective Systems (2, 4 May): Read Chapter 9.

Assignments

  • Not currently available.

Resources