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This is conversations Live.

Good evening, I'm Anne Danahy.

It's hard to think of something that affects all of us more than the weather.

From record breaking summer heat to beautiful and dry fall days in Pennsylvania.

And it's Penn State weather meteorologist who are tracking and forecasting what's happening and sharing that information with all of us.

Tonight, we're joined by two of those weather experts.

They'll share their insights into the weather and answer your questions.

Jon Niese is a teaching professor of meteorology at Penn State and a Weather World feature writer.

He also oversees the undergraduate program in meteorology and atmospheric science.

Rob Lydick is a meteorologist and the executive producer of Weather World.

He's also an assistant teaching professor at Penn State.

Jon Niese and Rob Lydick, thank you so much for joining us on Conversations Live.

Ann, thank you so much for having us.

Excited to be here.

Ann.

Well, Weather World has been bringing Pennsylvanians forecasts, insights, expertise into meteorology for more than 40 years.

And part of that over the years has been working directly with you.

We wanted to take a moment to acknowledge tonight that PSU is slated to shut down by July of next year.

And I wonder, Jon, we'll start with you.

I wonder what your thoughts were on working with PSU, that partnership, and also just the importance of getting that weather information out to people across the state.

Well, when I think of the partnership, I think about how residents of central Pennsylvania for decades have had access, personal access on a daily basis to the expertise of one of the best, if not the best, meteorology and atmospheric science programs in the country.

I mean, Rob and I are constantly getting emails from viewers asking us questions, making suggestions, and that kind of personal interaction every weekday is something you just don't find very often.

Yeah, that's so important to be able to to get that, to have that direct contact.

Rob, what are your thoughts on that?

Just what you've been able to do and this is how important it is.

I think what we are able to do every weekday for Weather World really wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the partnership with PSU.

The technical support that.

It's really like a family, the crew that comes over and helps us with camera adjustments, microphone situations, the renovation that we recently completed this spring, that technical expertise has been invaluable, not to mention just working with a great bunch of folks here at PSU.

Okay, so for people who are Weather World fans and there's a lot of them and they're concerned maybe they watch it on PSU, that's how they catch it.

They'll still be able to continue watching it right.

Will they watch it on PC and how will that work?

Yeah, our partners at the Pennsylvania Cable Network are committed to continuing to air Weather World.

You can go to our website weather.edu.

We put links to all of our segments, but also the full show and PCN along with PSU stream our show on a daily basis and PCN has multiple episodes available too.

Okay, so it's not going away anytime, anytime soon you'll be celebrating another 40th anniversary.

We hope so.

We're fortunate to have great support from our department and the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences as well.

Okay, good to know.

Well, I want to shift gears and go to a weather question.

We are seeing really dry weather in August into September.

I mean, it's been beautiful weather, but it is just so dry.

I know I'm out, like checking on my plants and trying to water things all the time.

Is this typical, John, for this time of year that what we're seeing or is this unusual?

September and October, in the absence of tropical systems, are actually two of the drier months in Pennsylvania.

But this has been extreme.

I mean, the period since August 1st at many places in Pennsylvania ranks as the driest such period on record.

The drought Monitor product which came out.

This is the update, right, Rob, from this morning.

That's as much coverage as we've seen in Pennsylvania for quite a long time, the yellow being just abnormally dry and some severe drought showing up just west of Pittsburgh.

So and I think despite the blotchiness too of the yellow, everyone really has been abnormally dry for sure.

This is the percent of normal precipitation.

So we're talking about the last 30 days.

And with the Reds kind of highlighted here, indicating where many places have seen less than 25% of the precipitation they should have had during this 30 day period.

John mentioned that this is the driest such stretch in many sites.

We have another graphic actually, that highlights some of those totals.

For State College in particular, we've only had just over an inch of rain since August 1st.

Wow.

So it's really unusual, even though it is typically a dry time of September and October tend to be relatively dry months.

I mean, there are the numbers.

The numbers in red indicate places.

That's the total amount since August 1st.

And those three locations, that's the least amount of precipitation that's fallen on record from the period August 1st through September 18th.

But the averages there are in yellow.

That is the average amount that should have fallen during that period.

And the numbers in orange are what's actually fallen.

So and you know what goes on with dryness is it kind of begets other dryness.

Because then when weather systems come along, they often pick up moisture from the ground.

And when the ground is dry, all of a sudden there's less moisture to pick up and contribute to the next weather system.

Oh, interesting.

So it actually kind of continues itself in that way.

And are we going to see more of this?

When is this going to end?

When am I going to have to stop watering my plants?

We were actually just talking kind of amongst the other team members today.

And it actually may take the influence of a tropical system to really do put a dent, maybe in some of the recent drought.

We can hope that we get some relief here.

Going into October, we made a forecast for Climate Watch, our segment that we do once a month on Wednesdays on the show, and we were looking at the hopeful potential for more frequent storm systems with some moisture available going into October.

But the rest of September does lean dry.

Okay, so we have to hold on for a few more months, it sounds like.

Well, I don't know about a few more months.

Few more weeks.

I'm sorry.

I do think, though, Rob makes a good point.

This time of year, sometimes you just depend on the tropics to deliver a storm that maybe dumps a couple inches of rain.

And I think more so than in recent years, we could really use that.

We don't want anything extreme.

We don't want four inches of rain in one day, but it certainly would help to get some sort of a tropical system coming this way.

And I wondered if this is evidence or an example of some of the extreme weather that we're seeing, or if this is, again, like you were saying, some of it seems typical.

There's drier periods and wetter periods.

So we saw flooding last year, especially in the northern part of the state.

We're seeing this really dry weather right now.

Rob, is this something that's typical, or are these extreme weather events becoming more common?

Extremes in precipitation, that is one of the fingerprints of of climate change and that usually the dry get drier, the wet get wetter.

Whenever we're talking with some of our students, it's kind of one of those things where I always like to use that feast or famine kind of analogy when it comes to precipitation, where sometimes you just don't get enough at all, and then other times you get way too much of of a good thing.

That is one of the fingerprints of a changing climate.

Yeah.

I mean, the research that's been done on this does show that those events, the heaviest rain events, are becoming heavier.

That is one of the research results.

And I think the question you asked about extreme weather.

I think when we talk about any relationship to climate change, we have to be careful lumping all weather into one bin.

There's lots of different kinds of weather, and the one place that climate change is showing up is in the temperature.

I mean, in terms of number of warm days, we just had the third warmest June through August period on record for the globe.

The ten warmest June through August periods globally have all occurred since 2015.

So the fingerprint is largely on temperature, and I don't think we should lump all weather into one bin.

Okay.

All right.

Because I know it can be difficult sometimes.

I'm thinking about the spring when we had that torrential heavy rain, and then we always try to explain the difference between weather and climate, you know, so climate is is what you expect.

Those are the averages, you know, over maybe a 30 year period versus weather is kind of what you get.

And so that would be the day to day variation.

So we're always key with our students and the messaging that we have with some of the features on Weather World to make sure that they're not attributing individual events necessarily to to climate change.

Okay.

So Weather World has a lot of fans, and you've mentioned working with the students a couple of times.

Rob, can you just tell us a little bit about what Weather World is for people who may have heard of it, but who may not be familiar with all the different things that you do?

Yeah.

So it's a it's a weekday 15 minute weather and climate magazine show where faculty and students in the Penn State Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science are working together to produce forecasts for the state of Pennsylvania to talk about some of the research that we're doing in our in our program, to talk about what's making weather headlines across the world.

We've got a variety of different segments, but we're all working together to produce the show every day, continuing the long time legacy of of Paul Knight and Fred Gadomski, two names that those who watch Weather World or have been watching Weather World since even before it was called Weather World, probably recognize we've got this long legacy of weather communications in our program.

And so these students, whether or not they choose to go into broadcasting, they're kind of honing in on a skill set that can be applicable no matter what area of meteorology they go into.

So broadcasting for sure, but maybe it's presenting their research, maybe it's giving a forecast briefing to a group of folks or or talking about how weather may impact the insurance industry.

And we were just getting a few snapshots there, a historic look.

And then also, what can you tell us about this map?

What are we looking at here, John?

Well, many of our students, I mean, I think there's the perception in the public that most people, most students who study meteorology at a university go into TV.

They don't.

But we we we generally place between 15 and 20% of our students in television.

And if a student wants to do TV, we have 100, basically 100% placement rate getting that first job and that chart that was there.

We keep that on the sixth floor of Walker Building outside of the Weather Center, and it simply shows where Penn State graduates in meteorology are working these days.

Wow.

Okay, okay.

That's great that they get 100% job placement.

It looks like we have a call from Mary and we're going to go to that.

Hi, Mary.

Did you have a question or comment?

And we might have lost Mary.

So I just want to go back to that.

What you were saying, John.

So you said not all meteorology students go into television, right?

Like, I think that probably would have been my assumption.

What else do they do?

Well, we've sampled we've surveyed our graduates.

The private sector also generally takes the largest percentage of our students.

And this is a I think some of the the more common private sector names locally is AccuWeather, for example.

But there are dozens literally of private sector, some small some larger companies.

They'll grab one of our students a year perhaps, and a lot of our students actually get into the weather risk area, which combines weather, business and finance.

There are a lot of companies that will hire our students because of their quantitative skills of being able to work with weather and numbers.

That's that's a great field for them to be able to to go into.

And now both of you know that you wanted to go into meteorology when you were young.

Is that something that you just knew was in your blood, John, or.

I'm sorry.

I think both of us can certainly talk to that.

And that's one of the commonalities I think about.

The field of meteorology is the bug usually bites you when you're young.

There's some sort of an event, maybe, or maybe a person that kind of inspired you or triggered you to be more interested in weather.

So of course, there's there's me at a young age, I really like dressing up.

Believe it or not, I actually didn't have any interest in going into broadcasting.

I just wanted to be kind of a forecaster.

But it was my my grandpap actually watching the Weather Channel a lot with me while I was growing up.

He was really fascinated by incoming fronts and storms and and I remember actually, it was an event whenever I was in fourth grade seeking shelter in the basement because of a tornado nearby.

I grew up in Blairsville, Pennsylvania, and that event kind of stuck with me.

And it started off as a fear, but then kind of transformed into a fascination.

And we see that a lot with many of our students.

Oh, interesting.

So it's kind of a combination of factors.

So you had your grandfather, he's interested in the weather, and then you have this weather event and it kind of brought you to it.

John, how about you?

When did you know that you wanted to go into meteorology, into studying the weather?

I think it was elementary school for me.

I remember distinctly back in the day where there were no remotes for the television.

My father was a high school baseball coach, and he would invite me to go to all the games and keep score.

And of course, you don't want the game to be rained out, right?

That would be terrible.

So I would spend the evening before.

Yeah, that's me turning the dial between channel two, four and 11 in Pittsburgh.

And there were my favorite meteorologists.

And so then and then for me, there was an event, I think it was hurricane.

It was Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

Of course, the vacation at Grandma Niece's in Pittsburgh was the highlight of the summer.

And that particular summer I couldn't get home.

Oh my gosh.

Because the roads, the water was on the roads.

And so I spent a couple extra days at grandma's.

I remember we played a lot of cards on the porch during that vacation.

Right?

I bet, and it's interesting.

Is that what you hear from your students, too, Rob, that there was something you were saying that caught the weather bug?

Yeah.

Well, I've actually heard some of our students in the Joel and Myers Weather Center on the sixth floor of the Walker building, talking about their origin story for what got them into weather.

And maybe it was watching a movie.

You know, we just had twisters that came out last summer.

So maybe that inspires a new generation of meteorologists.

But then you also have events like Katrina or Sandy, some of these kind of bigger events that really is making headlines no matter where you turn.

And that may be enough to kind of inspire someone to pursue this for, for a career.

Yeah.

And is that is that what you see too?

Well, in fact, as as the person who oversees the undergraduate program at Penn State and meteorology and atmospheric science, I look at the numbers, incoming students, our biggest incoming class in the last 20 years was in the fall of 2006.

And if you think that far back 2004 and 2005 were big hurricane years.

So you had a lot of high school students inspired to become meteorologists by those hurricane seasons.

And I wonder to you both have been covering weather for quite a while.

John, are there any particular weather events that really stand out to you aside from your childhood ones?

Well, I think for me, I actually got my start on television on Weather World.

I owe a lot to the Penn State Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science and this show.

And I was the forecaster the Friday before the March 1993 blizzard, which I don't know if that was from that night, but time period.

I remember distinctly being on that Friday.

And so there was an event at that time where I was forecasting it.

And then when I was at the Weather Channel in 2003, 2004 and 2005, just a lot of hurricanes.

I remember Isabel, I remember Ivan in 2004, which brought a lot of rain.

Hurricane Ivan still holds the record for the most rain in one day in State College, Pennsylvania.

Wow.

And Rob, we're going to come back to you, but it looks like we have a call.

So we're going to see if Mary from State College is on the line.

Hi, Mary, are you there?

Hi.

Do you have a question or a comment about the weather?

I do, I have a question about climate change or the climate warming.

I've heard I've been told that the trees or some trees that grow in Center County or in the middle of Pennsylvania are no longer flourishing or thriving because the heat is too high for them.

And so they're moving north, northward, northbound so they can survive.

So I was just hoping your guest could.

Is this true?

And what trees and how do they know when it's too hot and they have to get out?

That's a great question, Mary.

Thank you.

I don't know which one of you wants to to field that.

What is climate change?

Do we know what it's doing to the trees?

Well, I'll be honest.

I don't know what it's doing locally, so I don't think I can answer the the specifics of Mary's question, but the folks who do that research have noted that with time, species are migrating to climates that are more favorable for their growth.

But I don't know specifically about any trees here in Center County.

Okay, I do know it seems like just this is a total layperson perspective, that it seems like they're under a lot of stress.

I don't know if that's what Mary is seeing that too.

I'm just because it gets so dry right now, or it gets so hot and it seems like it causes a lot.

Not to mention with those stretches of very wet weather too.

So there is a lot of stress that's ongoing, whether or not that's necessarily related to climate change or just day to day weather occurrences.

I'm not sure myself either, to be honest.

Mary, that would be something to ask.

Maybe somebody in plant sciences here at Penn State, there's a lot of research going on.

I know in different fields here at the university with regards to how weather and climate change are playing a role in respective fields.

Right.

Okay.

So we're going back to weather memories or things that really stood out in your memory.

Rob were there any ones for you aside from those childhood ones?

Yeah.

So after coming to Penn State for meteorology, also made my debut on Weather World.

So I tell my students, my career kind of came full circle because I started off in the same studio where I'm doing the show every day now.

But I worked in Bangor, Maine for two years, had some memorable blizzards that I covered up there, but actually the weather event that really sticks with me was when I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

I worked as an on air meteorologist at Wane-tv for five years, and there was a tornado outbreak, and it was in August of 2016, and we had several storms that kind of came through.

I was on the air nonstop with a team for about five hours.

That was my photo before I decided to grow facial hair, by the way.

And it was it was really remarkable because it was unexpected.

The Storm Prediction Center had only had a marginal risk.

The ingredients really weren't looking like they were kind of line up.

And then we saw just off to the west of our area, a Starbucks had been leveled by a tornado.

And so it was kind of an all hands on deck situation.

Five hours later, we were kind of assessing the damage.

And, you know, there were some really strong tornadoes that moved through damaged homes and being able to kind of cover the before the event.

During the event, and after talking to folks who lost their homes or maybe their structures, it was really remarkable to kind of see that story come through, but also see how the community really helped with rebuilding and kind of making sure that they got on their feet.

I'll never forget that, especially whenever you talk to the meteorologists who were doing the storm surveys and how they kind of rated that damage by saying, hey, we saw debarking of trees, we saw the roadbed being lifted.

You know, this was a very strong EF3, maybe an EF4.

And just seeing that perspective, that visual, I think that's something a lot of folks don't get.

Yeah, it's definitely memorable.

I can imagine for you, we are just going to take a moment here to remind people that if you're just joining us, I'm Anne Danahy, and this is Suze conversations live weather world.

We're talking with two Penn State meteorologists, and we'd love to hear from you with questions about weather and weather world.

Our toll free number is one 800 543 8252 or email us at connect at.

Okay, so one really popular weather event that's been getting a lot more attention lately is Aurora borealis, the Northern Lights.

And I know I used to think of it as something like, oh, that's in Alaska or, I don't know, Sweden maybe.

But now it seems like it's on social media.

We're seeing it everywhere around here.

John, can you just talk about that a little bit first, for people who might not know exactly what it is, what is the Northern lights and are we seeing more of it or is it just more on social media?

Well, I think there's a little bit of that and that filters down into all weather types.

But the the aurora, the northern lights are caused by the interaction of particles from the sun interacting with the Earth's atmosphere.

And to see to see the northern lights, you need to be in as far away as you can from artificial light.

NASA tells us that solar activity in general on a on a year to year basis is generally increasing right now, which may help explain in part, why there do seem to be more opportunities to see the Northern Lights.

But I also think that part of it is simply awareness that there are more sources of information you can get.

Social media people are talking about it, and the prevalence of cell phones, to be honest, you know, these pictures which which I took on my cell phone, it did not look that vivid to the naked eye.

But if you use your cell phone to take the photograph, it looks a lot more vivid.

So I do think it's a combination of increased awareness, better technology, and perhaps a little bit that the sun is becoming a little bit more active with time.

Okay.

And we were watching that video that was from Pennsylvania too.

I mean, Rob, I imagine that students like, love this stuff because it's like the perfect type of thing, right?

For your phone, for social media.

Yeah.

The students are really excited about, you know, kind of posting what they see.

Many of them that we work with are not from central Pennsylvania, so they're kind of doing their own chasing of whatever kind of exciting weather or whatever is going on in the atmosphere.

Last year, for example, of course, we had the solar eclipse, so that was really big.

And in the same year, I remember that fall being able to kind of do some Aurora chasing myself in State College, trying to find a spot, maybe Joe Haze, Vista or over towards like Black Moshannon with very limited light pollution to see what I could see with my phone's long exposure.

And so I think that's kind of a neat opportunity for a lot of folks who might be kind of trying to see a little bit more of the atmosphere.

Right.

I remember there was one time, I think it was last year, and I went out trying to catch them, and there were just people everywhere.

It was crazy.

Everybody had the same idea.

I mean, yeah, it was a lot of fun to to be able to go out and see them.

And for some of those students, you know, it is kind of the the chasing factor too, because maybe there's some interference of cloud cover.

So they're trying to best position themselves to be able to to see that.

I know we did that when it came to the eclipse.

I was positioned in northwest Pennsylvania kind of waiting to see what the what the visible satellite was going to show us.

Where could we best position ourselves to see it in totality happen to be in Ohio.

And so I went over to Ohio, and it was it was stunning, actually.

It was Fred Gadomski after the 2017 eclipse, who said to many of us in the Weather and Climate Communications group, if you can see a total solar eclipse, you have to make that a priority.

So we did.

Worth doing.

Absolutely worth the drive to Ohio.

Okay, so you're talking about students.

I wondered if we could just talk a little bit more about that, about how you include students in In Weather World.

Rob, we'll start with you on that.

So you're doing the forecast.

How do you incorporate students into all those productions that you do?

Yeah.

So sometimes students get involved with the show from their very first semester.

They come and they just be part of the live studio audience.

And so they're kind of watching, you know, their peers.

Maybe they're watching some of their fellow faculty members who are actually presenting the forecast, maybe hosting the show, hosting different segments and learning hopefully a little bit along the way.

And then we get them involved behind the scenes.

So they're making some weather graphics.

Maybe they're learning how to use some of the technology because we actually produce the show ourselves.

You know, when the show started back in the days of SCE, it was it was held in a live studio, but now we actually do all of the production in the Walker building team of meteorologists, students and faculty alike, pushing buttons, taking video sources, editing content, you name it.

So we get them involved behind the scenes to do that production.

And then we want to make sure we don't have any divas on TV too, so they need that behind the scenes experience.

And then if they're if they're ready and they have some experience, maybe with our weather communication classes or, or other different, you know, campus weather service as a club they can get involved in.

So some on camera experience, then we get them on as a host.

And if they take our forecasting classes, we get them on as forecasters.

Well, that's great for them that they get a total, well-rounded, firsthand working experience, too.

John, we're going to come back to you with a question about that in just a minute.

But it looks like we have a call.

And this is from Mitchell in Kersey.

Hi, Mitchell.

Are you on the air and do you have a question or comment?

Yes.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yeah.

Hi.

I'm a huge fan of Weather World.

I'm an engineer by trade, electrical engineering graduate from Penn State, and I love the global satellite imagery we get to see every day.

And something I've noticed is that winds above the eastern US up in Canada, they tend to flow in a southeastern direction.

Or at least maybe I'm biased.

That's what I've seen.

And I wondered if the Hudson Bay is impacting weather, much like the Great Lakes do in the snow Belt.

What's the interaction with the Hudson Bay?

With the climate of, like, North America and the jet stream and such?

That's a great question.

Who wants to field that one?

Well, Hudson Bay, being a body of water, will behave just like the Great Lakes do for producing lake effect snow, as long as it's not frozen over, Hudson Bay freezes over relatively quickly during the winter.

I'm not aware that it has a major impact on the position of the jet stream, but it certainly anything that a large body of water can do to affect the climate, whether it be lake effect snow, whether it be during the summer, if you live right on a large body of water, the body of water hasn't warmed up as fast as the land, so you can get cooling breezes that will come off of the large body of water.

So anything that a great lake can do, Hudson Bay can do as well.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mitchell, for that question.

And glad you're a fan of the of the show.

And we really try to showcase the truly incredible things you can see with the satellite imagery available to us.

We have a a break that we are on the show, but we also try to pinpoint some of those smaller scale details that we can see now with higher resolution imagery than ever before on our show every week.

That's awesome.

So, John, I want to go back to the impact of how you incorporate students into everything that's going on in the Department of Meteorology with Weather World, how that works from your point of view?

Well, for me personally, I work with one student every semester who helps with the graphics for the educational features that I do on most Wednesdays called weather wise.

So we will meet on Monday.

I will throw out some ideas, ask them to draw me some graphics, and that all has to be done in a pretty short time scale because the the features.

I do air on air on Wednesdays, but I mean, one of my roles overseeing the undergraduate program is to work with each and every student and to, for example, help them find jobs to help them make connections with alumni.

And, you know, we have quite a few success stories coming out of our department in terms of television meteorology.

I mean, Rob certainly is one.

And now he's back with us.

One student that comes to mind, a young man from Philadelphia that I actually met when he was in middle school, Robert Johnson.

He ended up matriculating at Penn State, and Robert got his degree in meteorology, went to work in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is now a television meteorologist in Philadelphia.

You know, a very talented young man who's going to be a superstar.

And I think both Rob and I take great pride in staying in touch him him more with the broadcasting folks, me with all of our undergraduates in tracking what they do in their time after Penn State.

Yeah.

And it is worth noting, too, that it's not just undergrads as well.

We also have graduate students who who do Weather World, and they may not have any interest in pursuing careers in broadcasting, but I was talking with one of them today.

Quinn Mulhern has been a forecaster on the show for a couple of years now, and he really attributes his level of comfort in presenting his research at professional conferences to the work that he's done on Weather World, he says that helped him kind of think about his presentation style, of the pacing, timing of it all, to get it in within those time constraints that you might have at a professional meeting, and comfort just being in front of an audience and talking about something that is maybe not that audience's area of expertise, but you need to communicate that in a way that makes sense to them.

Oh, that's so interesting.

The science communications as a method for learning other things too, right?

And Rob may have mentioned this earlier, but not all of the students you see on Weather World will end up being forecasters.

Many of them will just host the show.

But I mean, you have to be on your toes.

You have to be up to speed with what the weather is doing.

You have to be able to have a conversation with the person who's standing next to you.

You have to be able to open the show as you did today.

You have to be able to close the show, and those are skills under pressure that will come in handy down the road.

One of our students who was a host, Alicea Srinivasan, she's now a forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Fairbanks, Alaska.

But that communication skill set really helps her with, you know, doing some decision support services for that local office and talking with folks about how incoming storm systems may impact emergency management or other areas.

Well, it looks like we have an email question, and I'm just going to wait a moment and see, okay, here we go.

And this is from Gary.

And Gary writes of all weather related items, fronts, pressure, air currents, etc.

how would you rate their relationship to one another in weather?

So can one of you talk about that?

How these different goings on fronts, air pressure, air currents, how do they relate to one another?

Yeah, well, the generic answer to this question would be it's all related.

But let me give you a more serious answer.

And that is I think if you ask most meteorologists which weather variable they would like to know about in terms of being able to forecast the weather, it's going to be pressure.

It's going to be pressure, because if you know the pressure pattern, you can estimate the wind.

And if you know the way pressure is changing, if you have a map that shows whether the pressure is rising or falling, you can compute all kinds of other quantities about the atmosphere.

So they're all interrelated with the underlying theory.

Gary mentioned fronts.

If you give me a map of air pressure, I can find the fronts.

I can, I can to good certainty figure out where those cold fronts and warm fronts are just from the map of pressure.

Oh, that's so interesting, Rob.

Anything else to add on that.

Yeah, we always like to.

You can use other variables to help find boundaries between air masses.

And so we always play the find the front game with our temperature map every day on on weather world, sometimes you have a pretty stark contrast between, you know, ahead of the approaching cold front where it might be in the 80s behind the cold front, depending on the time of year, maybe it's all the way down to the 30s.

So a really a gradient, big gradient in terms of temperature, dew point is another one.

So very maybe moist ahead of the incoming boundary, but behind it's very dry.

In fact, we've got a a cold front that's going to be sinking southward through the state tomorrow.

We'll see some of those changes in temperature and dew point with that.

Okay.

Interesting.

Well we are going to take a look at the history of Weather World here in a minute.

But first I want to just remind people that if you're just joining us, I'm Anne Danahy and this is sous Conversations live weather World.

We're talking with two Penn State meteorologists.

And we'd love to hear from you with questions about the weather.

Our toll free number is one 800 543 8242 or email us at connect at org.

And now we have a few milestone moments in the history of Weather World that we're just going to go over.

And then I want to get your thoughts on it.

So in 1957, Doctor Charles Hosler delivered the first television weather broadcast from Penn State on commercial TV station TV.

1974 state of the weather.

Shape of the world was featured as a six minute weather cast, followed by interviews and a video packages, and in 1983 a new show, 15 minutes All Weather Program premiered on Sdw, as it was known at the time, and the hosts were Paul Knight and Fred Gadomski, the first undergraduate student broadcasters premiered on Weather World in 1998, and on September 5th, 2023, cast and crew returned to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first episode.

This summer, the band, Family Studios and Walker Building got another technology renovation with support from the PSU Engineering and Operations team.

So a lot of highlights.

And most recently, earlier this month, Penn State announced that at the beginning of the wind down process for Weather World's original producing partner, PSU.

So we got to take a look back in.

Yeah, a lot of ground covered there.

Yeah, the condensed version.

There was a lot that we had to leave out to be able to kind of highlight it, but there's so much that has happened.

I don't know Rob.

What does that how does that speak to you.

Just that rich history of there are so many different departments out there that really look to what Penn State has done with Weather World as kind of the benchmark for what they aspire to to be.

I know of many different folks I speak to at conferences that they are, you know, in another school and they're looking at Weather World.

They're watching this show because of the legacy and the history that it has.

And we're really thankful for that partnership with PSU through the years to provide that to as a service, really as part of the land grant mission of this university, and to have the history of the different folks that have been movers and shakers in meteorology over these 40 plus years.

Yeah.

And, John, what does it say to you about just the success of the program?

Well, when I look at those memories, I do think back to Charlie Hosler, who was one of my mentors, who did that first television weather cast from Penn State.

He really helped put Penn State meteorology on the map.

Charlie had friends in high places.

He was good friends with former Penn State President Milton Eisenhower, who happened to have a famous brother who was the president of the United States.

And that relationship, in many ways helped put our department on the map at that time.

And Charlie trained a lot of the forecasters who would get who would go on to be on Weather World, including yours truly.

I can remember him standing in the back of a class I was taking in the 1980s and offering strong suggestions on how that weather discussion could be better.

Interesting.

Well, when I was doing a little research and reading about this, I came across this quote that I thought was kind of a gem, and it was about Charlie Hassler's weather forecast were so popular back in the day that farmers coined the phrase, you could make hay with hosler.

So he's kind of an institution in his own right.

It sounds like I was combing through the interviews with Charlie through the years.

Charlie passed away just a few years ago at 99.

What a what a legacy he left behind.

And in some of the interviews he was talking about, really, it all started with seeing different newspapers that were just making up the weather forecast.

And he said, why are you just making it up?

And they're like, nobody reads that anyway.

And he said, we can do better.

And we have as fine a program as there is out there.

And I think that we can educate Pennsylvanians along the way.

And that was really kind of the beginnings of what became Weather World.

And John, nowadays everybody can just get the weather.

They can make it up as they did back then, or they might still do they might do that, or they could just get it on their phone.

They can get it anywhere.

How do you think Weather World has been able to, I guess, evolve with those technological changes and continue to thrive, even as it has become so common to be able to get the weather?

Well, you know, Fred and Paul used to always say that on Weather World, the weather is the star.

And I think we keep that focus that you can tap into the expertise of a, of a research institution with a great meteorology and atmospheric science program every night.

And you know what?

I think as the technology has evolved, the bells and whistles have gotten better.

But I think we stick with that core mission.

The weather is the star.

We just try to find unique ways to talk about it.

And and I think one of the, one of the reasons Weather World is different is that when you watch us present a forecast, we acknowledge that a 5 to 7 day weather forecast should be treated differently than a 1 to 3 day weather forecast, and that looking out eight, 8 to 14 days, you need to treat that differently than you would a 5 to 7 day forecast.

And so our segments recognize that the science is different at those extended periods.

And so our presentation of the forecasts, it's just not an icon with a number and a and a smiley sun or a raindrop.

We present each one of those different forecast periods in a different way.

And people appreciate that honesty that you're not giving like a 14 day forecast.

And as you said, saying it's just as good as a two day, right.

Communicating the uncertainty when we're really not sure.

Just say that, you know, here's here's what I'm seeing and here's my from everything that I've looked at, here's my forecast.

But then also not sensationalizing things either.

I think that's very easy for people to do for various reasons.

You know, maybe they're getting encouraged from, you know, their bosses or executives who are trying to get eyes on their product.

We're just there to communicate the weather forecast and have that be the star of the show.

And one related question to this is when meteorologists get grief from people, when you forecast rain and it's like, oh, there's no rain, I'm sure you know what?

I'm what I'm talking about here.

John, how do you respond to that idea that the grief I'm sure you get from time to time about forecasting it is an occupational hazard.

But I think holistically, if you would compare weather forecasts with the forecasts, other forecasts you depend on routinely, whether they be economic forecasts or sports forecasts or other forecasts of unpredictable things, we stand up pretty well.

Okay, Rob, we're going to get your thoughts on that in a moment.

And first we have a phone call.

And this is from Jim in State College.

Hi Jim.

Thanks for calling.

And do you have a question or comment.

Yeah I do actually I'm interested in microclimates.

So for example, up in the Finger Lakes, New York, they claim that there's microclimates because of the glaciers and that that allows the the wineries to thrive up in that region are microclimate.

Is that real?

Okay.

That's a great question Jim.

Thank you.

Yeah, I've heard about this too.

Who wants to field the microclimates question?

Well, I think the best example of a microclimate here in central Pennsylvania is a place called the Barrens, which is not all that far from the center of State College, but it's an area where cold air tends to gather on winter nights, and it could be 25 degrees colder there at night than it is in the middle of State College.

So microclimates are absolutely real, and a place near a lake is going to have a slightly different.

The lake will impact a narrow strip of land relatively close to the lake.

I mean, when you look at where the the vineyards are here in central Pennsylvania, where you see where they plant the grapes, it's not on top of the mountains or the ridges, and it's not in the valleys.

It's on the hillside because you're, you know, the cold air, coldest air on those nights will drain into the valleys.

And you don't want to be in the valley.

You want to be slightly up the incline.

So I don't know a lot about the microclimates of the Finger Lakes.

But once again, if you're close to a body of water, it's going to have an extraordinary impact on the day to day variations in temperature.

Oh, that's so interesting.

And I have a little bit of experience in the Finger Lakes.

I go to wineries up there like wine.

And we to echo John's point water is the great moderator.

And so in the case of the Finger Lakes, many of them like Seneca, they're very deep.

And so they don't freeze over in the winter time.

And so that will have a moderating impact on how that impacts the vines.

The same in the summertime as well.

And so I think that, yes, microclimates are certainly a real thing.

And that's why so many wineries have sprung up in those Finger Lakes, because it creates kind of the ideal growing conditions for the grapes.

That's not going to be so harsh for them in the winter months, but then also kind of moderates things a bit in the summer months.

Okay.

Interesting.

Is it possible to have a microclimate on even smaller scale?

I'm just thinking if somebody has a yard and like has a little pond or different or the Barrens, you mentioned that of different areas, is is that possible?

Certainly if the topography is conducive.

Yeah.

I mean every little yard will have little pockets where the temperature might get a little colder at night.

So if we want to take it down to that micro level, I'll go with.

Yes.

Okay.

Micro microclimate.

All right.

We have an email question.

And this one is from Errol.

And Errol writes.

My question is what is the difference between the European and American models with a forecast.

Yeah.

So we're talking about numerical weather prediction.

We share different forecast models on weather world.

So the GFS is an American forecast model.

The European by the ECM.

And they may have their own set of equations physics that try to kind of process what's going on with the atmosphere, taking initial conditions, running it through these equations to get an output that would kind of model how the weather may evolve with time.

And those equations differ.

It also depends on who is running the model.

So maybe this is the computing power that the GFS or the American model is using versus what the European models using, and also the products that they produce.

I think two other points to add to what Rob said.

The any time you run a computer model to try to forecast the weather, you have to feed the computer model all the numbers at the beginning.

You have to tell it what the atmosphere is like at the start of the forecast.

The Europeans methodology for doing that is slightly different than the model.

The way it's done with the American GFS model, and that's often cited as a reason that if you look at the statistics, on average, the European model is slightly better at forecasting the weather than the American model.

The differences are subtle.

You won't see them on a day to day basis, but if you look at the statistics, that's what you see.

That's interesting.

So is there a reason then the American meteorologists, forecasters wouldn't migrate over to the European method?

Well, well, again, the statistics are generally speaking.

Forecasters use all of the models.

And in fact, the best forecasts are often a blend of the forecasts from different computer models.

And so you wouldn't want to migrate.

Migrating to one computer model all the time is going to be problematic, because that model will be wrong at times.

All models are wrong.

Some models are good, some models are useful.

So the blend, a blend of all the computer models, is usually the best forecast.

Okay, that makes sense.

And Rob, I wanted to go back to that question I had about what do you say to people who who give you grief for meteorologists not being having a 100% record?

Yeah.

So to kind of piggyback on what John said, you know, it's it's an imperfect field.

You know, there have been great improvements, though, in our ability to forecast the weather, certainly in the short and medium range.

You know, one of the things that I like to do is take some time to own it.

Hey, I busted this forecast.

Let me explain why.

Maybe this is what this forecast model was showing.

Maybe I, I did not look at a particular product.

And so I think our viewers appreciate that.

If you if you miss a forecast, let's take some time to explain why.

And I think they also gain an appreciation for just how difficult it might be in certain situations.

Yeah, a better understanding of what goes into it.

Okay.

We have an email question and this one is from Jan and she writes the EAS system is important for weather and other emergencies.

How will the cuts to National Weather Service and NOAA, along with the loss of PSU, affect getting these alerts out?

And I want to focus too, just on the cuts to know in general, there's concern at the federal level.

There have already been some scaling back of some programs, if I understand correctly, but there's concern at the federal level that there could be more additional cuts to NOAA.

And what kind of impact will that have on what you all do?

Well, our department does a lot of research, and so if there are cuts to research programs that will affect our department, and in fact, to some extent it has already I know there has been some hopeful news.

However, out of I think, the congressional committees that considered the funding to the National Weather Service and NOAA have a very different idea of the importance of those organizations than perhaps the budget that the administration would like to push through.

So I think the next couple months are going to be critical as these negotiations go on within the halls of Congress and these committees that make those decisions.

Because one of the things I read is that one of the proposals would hinder some data collection.

And I imagine, Rob, that's very important for what you're doing to be able to look back in history and see what was happening and to feed some of those forecast models.

Certainly, you know, you don't want to be blind going into different weather situations.

That's why the radar network or satellite data, all of those different surface observations that we have, are so important to kind of feed those models and help us get a projection of how this is going to evolve with time.

It's worth noting that the cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service that we were talking about on our show just a few months ago, some of those have been rolled back.

They are now hiring some some forecasters again at the National Weather Service.

And so we're kind of in this holding pattern of waiting to see how things will actually shake out.

Okay, so as you were saying, the next few months are crucial to hopefully be able to continue to get that funding to support all the data and the science that's that's going on for sure.

To answer the EA's question, the emergency alert system.

Yeah, the emergency alert system question, the National Weather Service still has their their weather radio network out there.

I can't speak for PSU and how that goes out on the airwaves, but I do know that still that would be broadcast to phones for cases of severe and inclement weather.

Right.

That's that's a great fact to add.

Along with that, and speaking of emergencies, I wondered if you could just talk a little bit about what goes into forecasting a so-called weather event and how far ahead you can typically see that.

So if we're getting one of these extreme rain events or wind events, or even in some cases, tornadoes around here, John, how far ahead can you typically see that?

Or is it does it just vary widely?

I mean, it does vary from case to case, but often there's a signal in the computer models, perhaps as much as seven days ahead, that a big weather event may be on the horizon.

This could be a snowstorm.

In fact, there were a couple successes in the 1990s with forecasting the two biggest snowstorms of that decade here in the East one in March of 93, one in January of 96.

And those events showed up in the data many days ahead.

And so I think the really big events do start showing up in the models as much as a week ahead of time.

Not always.

I don't want to I don't want to give any false impressions.

Certainly with hurricanes, I mean, hurricanes are one of those dramas that you can literally sometimes follow a wave, a disturbance coming off of Africa, and you can watch it cross the Atlantic Ocean literally for ten days.

For 14 days.

You don't know exactly where it's going, but you know that something's moving westward.

Whether whether it ends up affecting the United States is not known that far ahead of time.

But, I mean, hurricanes of all the weather events, I think make for the best television in terms of being able to track them for literally sometimes two weeks, getting to see it that far ahead of time.

Rob, we'll come back to you for your thoughts on that.

But we are going to squeeze in one more phone call.

And this is from Kevin in Boswell.

Hi, Kevin, thank you for calling.

And do you have a question or comment?

Yes, I do have a question.

I work for the National Weather Service on as an observer at Laurel Summit in Somerset County, and I would like to know if you guys are seeing any trends for the upcoming winter.

That's a great question.

Thank you Kevin.

So any trends, things that you're keeping an eye on coming up?

Well, first, thank you, Kevin for making those observations.

Those are very valuable trends.

Well, if I knew what was going to happen this winter in terms of snowfall in Pennsylvania, I'd have my own company and I'd be selling those forecasts.

So anybody who's trying to tell you they know at this point is, is pulling your leg.

But I as I look at winter's, I mean, it's undeniable that recent winters in general have generally had less snowfall in Pennsylvania.

I mean, will that carry over into this winter?

We don't know yet, but I do know that there have been a number of times, say, in the last decade when we would talk about a storm, that.

Perhaps in some past time might have stayed all snow, and now we worry about it changing into sleet or freezing rain and reducing the snow amounts.

And we have seen a lot of sleet, particularly in central Pennsylvania in recent years.

And so if I was a betting man, I would not bet on the winter being particularly snowy, only because recent years have not been snowy.

Okay.

All right.

That's great.

Any other thoughts on that?

What you're looking at.

We'll be making our official winter outlook in a few months.

It's very early at this point, but we're always looking to see what's going on with the El Nino Southern Oscillation or Enso.

And so whether or not El Nino or La Nina may play an impact, that will be something that we're going to be watching for.

Okay, we have a couple minutes left, and I just wanted to end by getting both of your thoughts on what are the weather questions, big weather questions or weather events that keep you up at night?

Is there something that you are either fascinated with or concerned about?

Rob that maybe wakes you up at night?

I think making sure people have a reliable source of getting their information, that's one thing that I that I worry about.

I think that I see some concerning things about how science is devalued amongst some, some folks in our communities, and I really hope that they're seeking out a reliable source for getting their their scientific information, whether that be just a day to day forecast to help plan some of their events in their life or life saving, potentially life saving information.

Right, because weather is something that it's a science, but it's also something that everyday people can accept.

So it seems like yeah, like a good bridge between those two things.

Absolutely.

And cutting any kind of scientific research or the funding that makes this all possible, it would have such a such a huge effect on, on so many different industries, industries.

You wouldn't realize that a lot of these private companies, they use some of the information coming from NOAA and the National Weather Service to do what they do.

Forecasting for individual companies or how weather impacts the stock market, so to speak.

So it's important that that investment is still there.

Okay.

That's interesting.

The impact not just on what you're doing, but also on the private sector as well.

And John, anything that keeps you up at night or that you wake up thinking about, well, I would have made one point, just to reiterate, in terms of the value of science and its ability to transform lives, I mean, we're in a small we're in a nichey sort of part of the scientific enterprise.

But when you think about the impact science has had on our lives, cell phones, it's there.

And nobody argues about the importance or the well, we do argue about the value of cell phones sometimes, but you get my my drift.

But back to your original question.

I mean, I visit I visit the shore a couple times a year, a couple times a summer, and when I go there and I look at all of the structures along the shore, just the build up and knowing what I know about hurricanes and how many, you know, the allure of the shore is quite strong.

But there's there's a lot of dollars there at the shore, and hurricanes are going to be there every year.

This may be a down year for hurricanes.

We don't know that yet.

But hurricanes will come and they will impact the shore.

The reality of that, that's a great point.

And we have one more email comment.

We're just going to take a quick look at this.

And this is from Mary.

And she writes thanks to the weather guests for their great neckties and socks.

They and their great explanations.

Thank you.

So that is a great note to end on from you too.

Thank you so much for coming on.

And then it's just something that goes with being a meteorologist.

You've got like snazzy tastes in ties and socks.

Well, I try with the ties.

He's got the socks.

It's a team effort.

Okay.

Well thank you both so much for Giannis and Rob for coming in to talk with us.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah we've been talking with Giannis and Rob Lydig meteorologists who are part of the team behind Weather World I'm Anne Danahy.

And on behalf of all of us at PSU, I wanted to take a moment to thank you, our viewers, listeners and supporters for your continued support of OSU has made it possible for us to bring public media to central and northern Pennsylvania.

And for that, we thank you very much.

Please join us on the next episode of Conversations Live.

October 16th at 8 p.m.