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Teaching
Facilities in the Department of Meteorology
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- Pennsylvania
State Climatologist Office
The Office of the Pennsylvania
State Climatologist is a service to the Commonwealth by the
Department of Meteorology through the College of Earth and Mineral
Sciences at Penn State. This office offers a wide variety of climatic
data to the people of Pennsylvania.
- Radio
Booth
Our state of the art radio booth provides clear and
professional quality broadcasts that our radio clients can disseminate
over their airwaves. For clients other than radio stations, we
can email forecasts to them and discuss specific issues that could
affect their business. The booth also provides for the needs of
our students by offering them a forum to practice their broadcasting
and forecasting skills. Click here for a photo of the radio
booth.
- TV
Studio
In the Fall of 1999, a television
studio was built on the fifth floor of Walker Building, allowing
students the chance to gain real studio
experience. In addition, six WeatherPro graphics machines
were also installed. These machines are the same as those used
by The Weather Channel and many television stations across the
country. Students, in their first year with CWS Video, work together
with 2-4 other students in the television studio to produce weather
graphics and record
a 3-minute weathercast. This presentation is used for an introductory
meteorology class for non-majors. The students show regional and
national observations, a look at the current surface map, a forecast
for the next three days, and any other imagery of special weather
phenomena going on elsewhere in the United States.
Students in the Campus Weather Service produce a 3 and
a half minute long weathercast showed on a government access channel
in the State College area. Students are responsible for the entire
show, including running the video equipment in the television
studio, writing the forecast, creating the graphics, and being
the on-air personality. This is an excellent way to gain on-air
experience and make a resume tape for students interested in becoming
broadcast meteorologists.
- Weather
Station
The Department of Meteorology maintains all the equipment
necessary for a modern
weather station. Standard equipment such as thermometers,
barometers,
psychrometers and anemometers are supplemented by a remote Automated
Surface Observing System (ASOS) to provide current weather
data.
Daily
observations are taken by several undergraduate students and
are added to the climatological
record for State College, Pennsylvania. Over 100 years of
data exist for this site, making State College a certified United
States Centennial Cooperative Weather
Station. State
College climatological data are now available on the World
Wide Web. We also have the facilities that enable us to launch
weather balloons from the roof
above the weather station.
Other equipment includes a Weather Services Incorporated Weather
Systems satellite imagery and weather graphics workstation, a
laser ceilometer that logs cloud base and percent cloudiness,
a 50-MHz wind profiler that provides hourly-averaged wind profiles
from 1 to 16 km above central Pennsylvania, and the GP-1
Lightning Locator System that bases display of the current
locations of lightning within 500 km of University Park on electromagnetic
signals received by an antenna on the roof of the Walker Building.
Real-time
weather information is available from both commercial (WSI,
Alden Electronics) and government (Unidata Internet Data Distribution
(IDD); GOES direct readout) sources. State-of-the-art Unix and
Windows NT computer systems are used for the collection, analysis
and display of data such as the National Weather Service (NWS)
Family of Services (public products, domestic, international and
numerical data), the traditional FAA 604 circuit, real-time high-resolution
cross-country NEXRAD, high-resolution GOES direct readout satellite
imagery, NLDN lightning data, and NWS difax charts. Weather analysis
packages available from the Unidata program provide a rich set
of analysis and display tools such as Garp, GEMPAK, McIDAS, and
WXP and are augmented locally by software developed at Penn State.
User-friendly menus provide access to display capabilities such
as horizontal mapping, soundings, cross sections, imagery, or
a combination of these, with movie looping capability of both
observed and calculated atmospheric variables and model data.
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- Numerical
Modeling
The principal models used for numerical research in the Department
of Meteorology are the Penn
State/NCAR mesoscale model (MM5) and a Cray-based large-eddy-simulation
(LES) code. Together these models enable a multi-scale numerical
approach for atmospheric studies of a variety of interdisciplinary
problems. The MM5 is routinely used in a variety of research projects
for studying the dynamics of mesoscale and synoptic-scale storms,
convection, air-quality issues, coastal and orographic flows and
a host of other processes. Development of improved parameterizations
of physical processes and data assimilation techniques are important
facets of MM5 research. A version of this model is also run in
real time from the Department for production of operational mesoscale
forecasts used for teaching, research and public service.
The LES code
is similar to a mesoscale model, in that it solves numerically
the Navier-Stokes equations for fluid flow on a three-dimensional
grid, but with much finer resolution, so that it can represent
the important turbulent motions, or eddies,
in the flow. LES has become an important tool for simulating the
detailed structure of turbulent flows such as the boundary layers
in the lower atmosphere and upper ocean. By using LES to study
in detail how these boundary layers transfer heat, momentum and
trace chemical constituents, for example, we are developing improved
tools to represent these processes in weather prediction and climate
models. When linked to mesoscale models, LES is being used to
study and predict the detailed electromagnetic refractivity properties
of the marine boundary layer that cause ducting of radar waves
and other effects on communications over the ocean.
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Last Updated:
July 26, 2004
©2003
The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Meteorology
A department in the College
of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
503 Walker Building, University Park, PA 16802
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