Why Cyclone Center is the CrockPot of citizen science projects
Much like North Carolina-style barbecue , our project is slow-roasted and prepared for greatness. Read More…
Cyclone Center Paper published
A paper on Cyclone Center has been published in the American Meteorological Society’s Monthly Weather Review Journal. It will appear in print in the October issue and is also available online. This blog post is Read More…
New Paper Highlights Need for Cyclone Center Classifications
A paper just released online in the journal Nature Geoscience (Mei and Xie 2016) shows that typhoons in the northwestern Pacific Ocean have intensified by 12-15% over the last 37 years, including a dramatic increase in the proportion of category 4 and 5 storms. Previous studies on trends in typhoon intensity for the same region have been contradictory because of differences in the operational tropical cyclone wind speed datasets used. How can Cyclone Center help reconcile these differences?
Cyclone Center News and Updates
Hello Classifiers and Friends! There have been a number of recent developments in Cyclone Center world in recent weeks. Have a read and then head over to the Cyclone Center website and help us keep the classifying momentum!
New Cyclone Center Journal Article Accepted
CC scientist Dr. Ken Knapp from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) in Asheville, NC is the lead author on a new paper just recently accepted into the journal Monthly Weather Review. Titled “Identification of tropical cyclone ‘storm types’ Read More…
Trouble in Paradise: Hawaii and Tropical Cyclones
Hawaii – a tropical paradise, full of sun, fun, palm trees, beauty, mountains, volcanoes and more. But wait…have you ever thought about Hawaii and tropical cyclones? Although not frequent, tropical cyclones have battered the Hawaiian Islands several times in recent memory.
Do cyclones develop ‘off-season’ in the Atlantic?
Headquarters for the U.S. National Hurricane Center
In the Atlantic, the official dates for the hurricane season are 1 June – 30 November. This certainly doesn’t mean that cyclones only exist during this time frame, yet 97% of all cyclones that have developed have occurred during those months. While we really won’t know exactly how many cyclones have developed out of season prior to 20th century technological advances, there is evidence of off-season storms in the Atlantic dating back to May of 1771, and more recently tropical storm Beryl in May of 2012. Most cyclones that develop out of season do not typically impact the U.S., but there have been more than handful that have, giving us pause to think what a fickle planet our Earth can be.
CycloneCenter @ the AMS Tropical Meteorology Conference
CycloneCenter Principal investigator Dr. Chris Hennon of UNC-A presented some recent results at the American Meteorological Society Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology going on this week in San Diego, CA.
New Developments on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change
One of the goals of the Cyclone Center project is provide a more definitive answer on how tropical cyclones (TCs) have been responding to the dramatic changes that our climate is undergoing. It is difficult for meteorologists to determine how strong tropical cyclones are getting because we rarely observe them directly, relying primarily on satellite data to give us a decent estimate of the wind speeds. But as you can imagine, it is very hard to determine the maximum winds in a hurricane when you are in the hurricane itself, let alone flying more than 22,000 miles above it! Our record of tropical cyclones is by no means nailed down. Read More…
CycloneCenter presents at another conference: AMS Annual Meeting
While there are only some results to talk about, the CycloneCenter science team is still active in presenting at national conferences. Last month was the AGU annual meeting, and this month was the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Ken Knapp of NCDC presented an overall view about the science of CycloneCenter to a nearly packed group of tropical meteorologists. There was a lot of interest in the subject, including some chatter on the official AMS twitter account. This is a great example of how powerful social media can be.
Speaking of which, don’t forget that we have our own Twitter account, as well as a Facebook page. Make sure to like / follow us, as well as tell your friends and colleagues!
Tales from the road… AGU Fall Meeting
CycloneCenter.org was presented for the first time today at a major scientific meeting. This was the Fall Meeting for the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a gathering of over 20,000 scientists in San Francisco. The talk was in a session devoted to research by Citizen Scientists like you!
A lot of other scientists were excited about the potential this Cyclone Center has. Together we’ll be able to answer some important questions about the climatology of tropical cyclones. And along the way, we get to interact with you! We also got some great suggestions on how we, the Science Team, can make it easier for you to interact with us. So keep a lookout for some big things we’ll be trying in the coming weeks!
Thank you for all your hard work on Cyclone Center and keep it up!
Cyclone Center 