Welcome to Weathered Questions, where we answer the questions on your radar.
Welcome into Weathered Questions, the podcast where we answer the meteorology questions on your radar.
I am meteorologist Kai O'Mara, alongside meteorologist Jan Ryherd, and we're already going well into November.
And I'll tell you what, we're getting more and more questions coming in here for the podcast, Jan.
So we're going to just jump right in here.
This comes from Samantha in Cedar Rapids.
And this is kind of an open-ended question, definitely a good one for discussion.
And I will raise my right hand and say that Jan and I did not discuss this ahead of time, Samantha.
So you're going to get some really organic answers here.
In your opinion, what is the biggest technological advance related to weather?
Jan, you go
first.
So I love this question, Samantha.
I pitched it to me earlier today, but we have not talked about it.
He just gave me a four warning so I could kind of think about it.
And I have been thinking about it all day.
And I don't know if I have one true specific answer yet, just because there's a couple of ways that I feel like we could approach this in terms of the biggest technological advancement in the history of weather and meteorology or the biggest technological advancements.
you know right now um and and so I feel like the the biggest thing I think in terms of just like people getting excited meteorologists being excited about what's new what's next um I think my answer for that is probably phased array radar um but I don't think that's my personal answer um I I just don't think so I think honestly right now in my
time as a meteorologist, it's going to be maybe not the most groundbreaking technology that you might think of, but the biggest technological advancement for us in weather is crowdsource technology.
So I would say like people having a phone in their hand and being able to send us
pictures and video of a tornado when it's happening of having those real time snowfall reports of having all the videos and the pictures and everything that people are sending and sharing what's actually happening and being able to have all of that real time data.
I think that for me as a meteorologist is the biggest kind of from when I, you know,
went to college to when I wrapped up my broadcast career even just in that short time span I think that is the thing that I kind of got to witness changing the most is is that kind of a citizen meteorologist will call it role kind of breaking out and so while maybe that wasn't the answer you thought you might get in terms of technological advancement like I said not groundbreaking perhaps but in terms of meteorology
That has been a pivotal thing and continues to be for us as we continue to move forward into the next era and that kind of digital era.
I'm curious what your answer is, though, Kai.
I love that answer that you gave.
And I love the fact that it's not my answer.
And I think I know why it's not my answer.
So without divulging any ages on this podcast.
I was a guest speaker in one of Jan's college courses.
Yes.
That gives you an indication of at least between the two of us.
There's a bit of a gap, not too far.
Not a big gap, but there's a gap.
And so for me, I used to roll into the studio and there was only one real graphic that we would spend some time rendering because it took so long to do.
And by render, what we mean is we take all these images, you know, 300 images and we make it into a movie.
And that movie plays back and that becomes an animation on your TV screen.
And so for us, when you
see like the cold front and the big blue H move across the screen, that's what Kai's
talking
about here is like individual snapshots of all of that going together.
So, you know, the long roundabout answer here is my answer is computing power.
That's my answer because what we've been able to do is Used to get in there and you had to you had to budget at least 16 minutes for this thing to render So you'd make sure your keys are in the right place and you'd hit go and then you'd go to the coffee Coffee bar and you just hang out you'd go talk to your anchors you'd say hey, you know It looks like kind of an active day today or maybe not so much of an active day today
And it takes all your computing resources at that point.
You can literally do nothing else with your on-air machine at that point.
And over time, it became an on-the-fly render system.
And right now, anybody who works in television, I mean, they know what rendering is, but for those that are just starting, they have no idea.
All they do is hit A and B, and it's a play button right in front of them.
And you can actually roll in.
And you could have a show ready in less than five minutes.
An entire show start to finish.
It takes longer to load the rundown than it does to make the graphics.
So technologically from a display setting, that's one.
But then technologically from a model data perspective, there are entire buildings that house these super computers and structures that help to run these models, which when I was in college, you had, you're talking.
Really blocky resolution like 25 kilometer blocks and even 40 kilometer blocks So ultimately trying to resolve a thunderstorm in that environment.
It's just it's pretty boxy looking.
It's not great and Now we're down to three kilometer in some cases even down to one kilometer depending on who you're talking about One kilometer you can actually see
And it's not much longer than a couple of city blocks sometimes, depending on where you live.
And if you can get the modeling down to that granular of level, and it can come at you every single hour, that's a huge advantage.
So for me, computing power is one of the biggest advances in weather.
And I understand the crowdsource aspect, because I'll also tell you how it used to be back in 2007, before any sort of social media was around, really.
Or if it was, it was in its infancy and people weren't really doing much with it.
You had to get a picture of damage on the air.
That had to happen.
Otherwise, the phone was ringing in severe weather coverage until you got some sort of visual to stop the phone calls and complaints.
Now, shoot, you go to a Facebook page, there's 900 pictures on a very small hail event.
And it's not just...
broadcast that uses that stuff.
You know, there's other outlets too.
The Weather Service will use it.
The Forensic Field also uses it.
So it's good stuff to have.
So that's another great advancement.
That's my two cents here.
Yeah.
And I'll agree with the CAMs, the convective allowing models, and those smaller grid models really, really helping in terms of supercomputing and advancing things for us immensely.
You know we we there's So much of meteorology is technology.
I feel like we could obviously the question We're not gonna spend all day on it.
The question is what is the single biggest right like in your opinion?
But I think you could
drag that on for so long.
Well, we have better radar technology.
We have better this.
We have better that.
And again, what is the next big thing, I think, is also a big question.
Do you have a different next big thing, Kai, than phased array?
There was this concept of worn-on forecasting.
And I'm not sure if that's still a thing or not.
I honestly don't know.
I thought it was something else.
I think
they're still working on that.
Which is basically a probabilistic tornado forecast as you go within the warning box So you're really getting down to a pretty granular level at that point Otherwise, you know radar is just really big modeling
I mean, modeling has jumped into the AI world, so there's that.
And some of the artificial intelligence modeling has done really well.
Google DeepMind is one that comes to mind for me, especially for hurricanes.
It's done a great job with the tropics in the Atlantic, at least.
I've heard it's a little bit shakier elsewhere in the world, but at least in Atlantic, it's really good.
Yeah, it could go on.
You know what's interesting?
What might be, sometimes you get too much of a good thing, right?
Sometimes it's better off to just if you have to rely on a model for your for your work and and anybody who forecasts weather has to have some sort of reliance there Find a model you like and learn it Yeah, because sometimes there is this concept that oh, let's keep writing new models Let's keep doing all this and then eventually you've got 20 or 30 voices in the room
And sometimes I've felt this overwhelming feeling for a while until I realized to act with it.
It's not gonna change my forecast, but I can understand how a new graduate could get extremely overwhelmed and say, well, this model has this and this one has this and this one has this.
And it's like, okay, well, none of those models even existed three years ago.
So let's not worry about it.
Where's the cold front at?
Will it generate a storm?
What do you think?
Do your best and move on.
There's nothing more to worry about.
So I think sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
That's a really good point, especially when you bring up the AI modeling and stuff.
And we all have heard so much about AI and how we're moving more towards an AI world.
And there's no doubt about that, I think, but that the human aspect of meteorology
Will always be an important component that that you will always need that that meteorologist kind of dissecting what is actually going on with all of those super computer models and AI models and everything else somebody who knows.
the microclimate of the area that is being forecasted for and can make those adaptations and can make those modifications as needed.
Because we're just not there yet in terms of meteorology as a science to have the machines do it all.
We
still
absolutely need that human component.
Right.
Right.
Oh, I agree.
I agree.
That's a great question.
And like I said, we could ramble on this for
So tell you what Samantha we have a bonfire because I know Samantha I think this would be a great talk around the fire sometime it would be so but hopefully you got our two answers and you can you can appreciate both of them and You know share it with your students.
So yeah, good one
well speaking of Bonfires cooler weather and Nothing gets more human than a foggy windshield in the cool weather months
So let's talk about it because that is something also that we are still trying to battle, right?
So this question comes in from Lisa in Johnston and she asks, as it's getting colder, why does fog on my windshield become such a problem and how do I fix it?
Well, it's a good question.
You know, a lot of it's going to depend on the temperature difference.
And sometimes it forms on the inside of your windshield.
Sometimes it forms on the outside.
So the defrost function is definitely your friend.
You want to try and bring that temperature up a little bit and keep the air moving as much as you possibly can in there but I will tell you one thing that happens and This would happen to me on my way to work because the very last thing I would do in the middle of the night I'd get showered up.
I'd get in my suit and then I'd go out in the truck and The truck would be parked in the garage.
So I didn't it's cooler in there, but it's not as cold as what it was outside Yeah, then what's going on is the the glass of my vehicle
actually starts getting colder, right?
Now I've moved out, and so the glass of my vehicle is getting colder.
And all of a sudden, I still had just enough moisture in my hair, somehow, to just raise that dew point a few degrees, and I would get fog inside my car.
Not outside, but inside.
Yep.
And so I'm going, all right, now this is maddeningly frustrating, because you get the windshield wipers going like, do-do-do.
Nothing happens, so you know what's on the inside.
If it's on the outside, well, that could be a totally different issue.
That could be now your heating source is on the inside, you're condensing on the outside, and if it's below freezing, now you're really hosed because now it's frosting on you.
Now
it's frosting, yeah.
And when it gets really cold out, like below zero, and then you try and wash it with your windshield wiper fluid, and then it actually freezes on there.
Yeah, don't do
that.
Don't do that.
How do you fix it?
Well, I guess we would need a little more information if she parks in a garage or not.
But I would say your best prevention is to hit defrost and hit it early.
If you park in a garage, you really can't warm your car up.
That's not a good idea.
But if you're outside, certainly you can to maybe help things out a bit.
Those are my ideas, is early and often on the defrost.
I think for me, the basics of this, because I feel like we get this question every year around this time, and it's something that even as somebody who understands the science of it very well, I still struggle with this every single year.
I'm like, is it hot?
Is it cold?
Is it high?
Is it low?
What setting am I supposed to use?
The thing that I always come back to is a lot of people are very familiar with the concept on a hot summer day of their pop can.
and the water that will condense onto the Popcan, right?
And we've explained that kind of concept before.
And I think if you take a pause and really think about it, you're like, okay, I have a really cold Popcan and I have really hot, humid air.
And so it's the change, the difference in that temperature and the extra moisture in the air that are causing that condensation to happen.
Same principle is happening here.
where you have cold air on the outside and that's what your windshield is touching.
And you have hot relatively air on the inside because of where your car was in the garage or the fact that you have warm bodies talking and breathing and maybe have moisture in their hair from their morning shower and stuff like that.
So you have extra moisture and extra warmth inside the car.
And so again,
very similar to that pop can situation, your warm moist breath is getting to that windshield and that's where you're getting that little bit of fog kind of created because of that temperature differential.
So ultimately to fix it, you have to decrease that temperature differential and or decrease the extra moisture in the air.
So
Sometimes just cracking your window if it's not you know negative 20 cracking your window open a little bit getting that extra moisture out will help a little bit Sometimes while it's maybe not the the comfortable solution but turning on your air conditioner to almost act as a dehumidifier of sorts And and to get some cooler air circulating inside so it's closer to the outside temperature that will also help but again when you're
Cold on a you know chilly fall or winter morning a lot of people don't like to turn on the air conditioner or it's not necessarily a great thing to do for other reasons but that's how you kind of help that fog situation on your windshield is you're trying to get the temperature difference Not as large and so sometimes with the defroster because of where those jets are aimed If you have
the air conditioner on just circulating through the car if that's helpful, or if you have the defroster on hot and you're warming the windshield.
So again, two counterintuitive things, it seems, because I just said, well, turn the cold air on and turn the hot air on.
But it depends where you have that air focused in trying to decrease that temperature differential that's really going to cause the difference in help.
Right.
And the simple cause of this is that there's some sort of difference between that glass and the environment.
It could be the environment outside, it could be the environment inside, or it could be both, depending on where we're at.
So I think with this one, there's enough that we've thrown at Lisa now to say, okay, I think I might understand, but I might not.
I think we need more information, and I think we need to figure out when is this happening, and do you park in a garage, and then we can give an even better answer.
But right now, there's so many different values.
I just say defrost the heck out of it and start there.
That's what I do.
And that's what I do.
Keep the air moving as best you can because moving air means that energy is also getting distributed.
And it means you can whisk that away and you can clear things up quickly.
Now, if we're trying to battle a frost layer, that's another thing.
And that's why everybody needs to have a frost scraper in their vehicle.
just because that takes time.
And you don't want to be driving around with a partially cleared windshield or window because you're not going to be able to see correctly.
So make sure you physically take care of that.
But I can get behind that.
It's fog in the windshield can be pretty frustrating sometimes.
Yeah,
absolutely.
All right.
Well, let's get to today's trivia question.
We've got multiple choice question for you here today.
And today's question is,
What do meteorologists call the boundary where two air masses of distinctly different temperatures and densities meet?
So we're looking for the name of a boundary where two air masses of distinctly different temperatures and densities meet.
Do you think it is a front, a ceiling, a polygon, or an anvil?
Kyle, be back with the answer here in just a few.
All righty, front, ceiling, polygon, or anvil.
And the answer is A, front, and we have warm fronts, and we've got cold fronts.
Those are the two main types.
We have two more if we need to get into one.
One is an occluded front, which is kind of, I have an analogy for that in a second.
And then another one is called a stationary front, where that front still divides those
air masses with different temperatures and densities just doesn't move very much.
Yep.
It's pretty much there.
Here's a great analogy for an occluded front.
That's basically when you've got cold air wrapping around the system and it actually catches up to the warm front ahead of it and it kind of just pinches the whole thing off.
Just imagine that you are the leader of a NASCAR race and you finally put a lap on a car.
You finally caught up with that last place vehicle and you're starting to put a lap on them now.
you're starting to become a lap ahead.
That's what an occluded front is.
You've caught up to the tail end of the field and now you're going around a second time pretty much.
Occluded fronts can be an absolute nightmare in the wintertime.
You can get a little stationary band of snow that will sit there and produce more snow than you think.
And it's just like the air gets trapped aloft there because the cold and warm have caught up and now it's straight up in the atmosphere.
It doesn't really want to go anywhere.
So that can be a challenge sometimes, those occluded fronts, but
Warm fronts and cold fronts are kind of the two big ticket items that we teach a lot of school kids.
So I think if you have that in the back of your mind, you're doing just fine.
But what a lot of people don't maybe realize about frontal systems and low pressure systems in general is they will always fall in the same order.
A warm front and a cold front will always attach to a low pressure center.
There will never be fronts attached to a high pressure center.
on that low pressure center it will always be warm front first followed by a cold front and so your cold front is always behind but the cold front moves faster and so that's how it catches up to that warm front and that's when you start to get that that occlusion kind of connected to your low pressure center that's a that we could talk do a whole episode on that maybe we'll do a synoptic episode here coming up that sounds like a good one actually
that goes back to the the whole baseline and foundation of something called the norwegian cyclone model
which is fantastic to know, especially head
into winter here.
All right, well, we'll slate that for another
show
coming up.
Yeah.
Yes.
Before we wrap up this one, though, we are winding down on time, but we do still have a few minutes left and something very exciting in the weather world here as of recent that we want to talk a little bit about that National Weather Service offices across the country are going to be resuming their twice daily balloon launches.
Now, some offices have been doing this steady as she goes the whole time, but
I believe it was mainly during COVID that we kind of started backing off several of those, maybe even a little bit before that for some of them.
But this is really exciting news in the weather world, Kai.
Why is it so exciting?
It's so exciting because we're finally back to some stability again.
These forecast models are used to seeing data at 6 in the morning central time and at 6 p.m.
central time.
And if it's a really active day and they can get a bonus piece of data at noon, that's even better.
They'll do that with blizzards, they'll do that with severe weather.
But I think this also ties into the National Weather Service has sunset some of its legacy modeling.
And it's bringing in some brand new modeling they've been beta testing so not only are we getting some new modeling which puts us into a nice full circle of earlier at the top of this podcast with technological advances.
But we're seeing steady data now which is fantastic and.
It's not just.
in the forecast realm that this is important because then models can kind of learn what's going on and that's that's how this verification happens they actually have statistics on that they can find biases they can try and correct them but in the forensic world and in the analysis world where you have to go back and look at a look at a storm you know I recall working a storm event where we didn't have a single weather balloon within 200 miles of this storm
Yeah,
and the unfortunate part is you know, we had to do some interpolation There was some estimation done and we did have to put a quick footnote in and say look we tried to get the closest we could find Because of certain restrictions and certain policies.
We didn't have a weather balloon in the area And it's it's not fun But but that would happen and so it benefits you economically by the way to have more data because not only can we forecast it better But we can go back and reconstruct it better
when that happens.
So it's all around.
I think it was just maybe last episode, a couple episodes ago, where we were talking about, you know, improving forecasts over time, right?
And and how maybe a forecast in the 70s versus the 80s versus the 90s versus the 2000s, how how those compare and how we've gotten better.
But it's no surprise to any meteorologist, Kai, and myself, especially, right, is the
that we've all heard comments about, well, it used to be better.
It used to be better.
And I think part of that is maybe the idea that we have had been getting better and continue to get better in a consistent way for so long.
And then all of a sudden, it almost is like we went backward for a little bit or stagnant at least and weren't getting as good as fast.
And this is one of those reasons is the fact that we weren't getting in that same consistent data in the same way that our models have been trained on and to use.
And so we didn't have the data to give the good forecast that people had become so accustomed to.
So this is great news and really should have a very positive impact on weather forecasting.
Yep, and one quick analogy before we, before you can close us out here, Jan, is you can imagine, you know, when you got kids in elementary school and you get up at a certain time and, you know, they develop a routine and you develop a routine and all of a sudden middle school comes around and it all changes.
It doesn't mean school stopped.
It doesn't mean learning stopped.
But be honest, for the first couple of weeks, you're like, all right, this feels weird now.
That was how our industry felt.
when this happened, when we were looking at data that was 18 hours old for a forecast that should have been better.
And so I think that's a good analogy to kind of close on here is think about your own personal routine and then, you know, having it messed up for a while, it matters in our business for sure.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Well, some great questions coming in this week.
Thank you, Samantha.
Thank you, Lisa, for sending in your questions.
If you have a question, we would absolutely love to hear from you and get that answered for you here in an upcoming episode.
If you learned something today, let us know if you just want to drop us a line in chat.
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next week.