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Steve DavisMeteorologistSenior ForecasterNational Weather Service

Watch/Warning responsibility For 20 counties in southeast and south central Wisconsin.National Weather Service Forecast OfficeMilwaukee/Sullivan, WI

2The National Weather Service Forecast Office Milwaukee/Sullivan is a federal agency within the Department of Commerce. Within the DOC, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration houses the forecast offices all over the country.

Counties include: Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Fond Du Lac, Green, Green Lake, Iowa, Jefferson, Kenosha, Lafayette, Marquette, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Rock, Sauk, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha

The National Weather Service Forecast Office Milwaukee/Sullivan (KMKX) is located in Sullivan Township in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. The office is approximately 3 miles southeast of the town of Sullivan, 30 miles west of Milwaukee and 45 miles east of Madison. The Sullivan office has routine forecast and short-fused severe weather WARNING responsibility for southeast and south-central Wisconsin.

My First Job (1986)!

Cold Bay, AK

Cold Bay, Alaska!Who Are We?Federal Government AgencyThe National Weather Service has about 121 Weather Forecast Offices across the country.Offices are staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.Forecasters work rotating shifts to cover all hours of the day and night.

Our Duties

Public Forecasts

Marine Forecast For Lake Michigan

Aviation!

Fire!!

Warning Operations

Inside Our OfficeTornado & Severe ThunderstormWarnings Issued here!

Remember Those Layers?This is where it all happens!

Tropopause100 MPHOr More!Mother Nature Is Showing UsThe Tropopause! Any Guesses?When, where and how big was the largest hailstone found in the United States?

Aurora, NebraskaJune 22, 20037 Inches In Diameter!!

Thunderstorm Examples

What causes the weather onplanet earth?

The Sun! The sun heats the equatorial regionmore than the poles. The land and water heat (and cool) at different rates. Then throw in a spinning earth and all this leads to turbulent motions in the atmosphere.

How Does The Weather Work?So, How Do We ForecastThe Weather?First, we have to measure it.Then we plug these measurements into complex computer models, or simulations.We interpret these simulations and put together the best forecast possible. Forecaster experience very important.

Different Ways We Measure The AtmosphereRadar

Airplanes

Surface

Upper Air

Satellites

Sea surface temperatures measured from satellites. See how the equator iswarmer than the polar regions? What kind of big storms develop when the ocean gets really warm?

Weather Balloon Release

Atmosphere Reduced To Complex Mathematical Equations

Supercomputers Simulate The WeatherThey can perform 69 trillion calculations per second!How long would it take you to count to a billion?It can count to 1 billion, 69,000 times every second!!!Viewing Model Output

Precipitation

Temperatures

Air Pressure

Vorticity (Spin)

Satellite ImageryPulling It All TogetherThe Meteorologist will take all of this new information andput it into a Graphical Forecast Editor, creating a graphical representation of the forecast.

All 121 offices across the country will do this for their area. These are all merged into one big picture.

Theres No Place LikeThe United States For Weather!Why?

Air Masses: large volumes of air having a similartemperature, atmospheric pressure, and moisturecontent. Air masses cover many hundreds or thousands of square miles, and slowly change in accordance with the terrain they are over. Cool and MoistCool and MoistWarm and MoistWarm and MoistCold and DryFrontal Boundary22Coldest in Wisconsin was -55 at Couderay on Feb. 4, 1996

Cool and MoistLHWarm and MoistA Low pressure systemwill bring air massestogether. The contrast ofdifferent air masses can cause all kinds of weather.23Coldest in Wisconsin was -55 at Couderay on Feb. 4, 1996

Thunderstorms develop along cold fronts. This picture shows us where the heaviest rain is. This tells us little about the strengthof the wind!Doppler Radar!!

Big Wind!!Where Is The Tornado?

This one is called Pyrocumulus

This is Cumulonimbus Mammatus

The Best Of All: Cumulonimbus

How Lightning Works

The thunderstorm creates an imbalance between positive and negativeelectrons. The air is a good insulatorallowing the opposing charges tobuild. When a tall object comes in between the ground and the storm, the charges are encouraged to jump toward each other. Rule Of ThumbSound travels about 1 mile in 5 seconds.

If you see lightning, you can estimatehow far away it is by counting how long it takes the thunder to reach your ears.

Flash Bang: The lightning is too close!2 seconds: Less than mile away5 seconds: 1 mile away10 seconds: 2 miles away15 seconds: 3 miles away

So, you want to be a Meteorologist!You have to like (maybe love) math!You have to take a lot of science classes.You have to have good writing skills. You have to go to college for at least 4 years. Usually more. You will use lots of computers.

You can work on TV. You can work for the National Weather Service.You can work for companies that are affected by weather. For example Chocolate CompanyUtility CompaniesAirlines

Any questions?