Evolution of a Tornado

The Anderson-Frey Research Group

Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle

Studying convective storms at the limits of when, where and how they typically occur, in order to develop and refine tools, methods, and theories as those limits shift in a changing climate.

Research Group News

January 2024: Welcome undergraduate research assistants Leo Luo and Kyra Schlezinger to the group! Leo will be working with Prof. Anderson-Frey and researchers in Oklahoma on a new database of supercell thunderstorms, and Kyra will be working with Prof. Anderson-Frey and Prof. Lynn McMurdie on a study of high-latitude severe thunderstorms.

The undergraduate ATM S 451 class deployed four weather stations on the roof of ATG, as well as one elsewhere in Seattle! They will be measuring a variety of environmental properties for the rest of the quarter, then writing up and sharing their results.

December 2023: PhD student Zhanxiang Hua traveled to San Francisco, CA for the AGU Annual Meeting to present his poster entitled "Understanding the clustering of proximity sounding profiles and sounding-derived parameters for near-storm environments". Prof. Anderson-Frey remotely presented her poster entitled "Where'd That Come From? A Deeper Dive into Marginal U.S. Tornado Environments".

November 2023: Prof. Anderson-Frey traveled to the University of Oklahoma to visit with students, federal scientists, and faculty and presented some of her work on tornadoes in unusual environments at a colloquium at the National Weather Center.

September 2023: Welcome new MSc student Miles Epstein to the group! Miles will be working with Prof. Anderson-Frey and collaborators at Central Michigan University on a project using machine learning techniques to track the time evolution of near-storm environments! Welcome also to new undergraduate research assistant Paige Klobucnik, who will be working with Prof. Anderson-Frey and Prof. Lynn McMurdie to create a case study of a major thunderstorm outbreak in the Canadian Arctic! Prof. Anderson-Frey traveled to Iowa State University to meet with professors and students, and gave a seminar featuring work on tornadoes in unusual environments. She also was in attendance at the UCAR Members' Meeting in Boulder, CO.

Summer 2023: PhD student Zhanxiang Hua participated in two highly competitive research internships: the CORE Institute internship at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and an internship at Descartes Lab in Santa Fe. Prof. Anderson-Frey was invited as a keynote speaker to the 11th European Conference on Severe Storms in Bucharest, Romania, and also gave an invited talk at Wageningen University in Wageningen, the Netherlands.