REU Over Halfway Through
As week 6 of the REU program comes to a close, the experience I've gained from the program has really become apparent. This week, after much toiling with MATLAB to make images of radar data, using k means clustering to pull the storm areas out of the radar data, pulling a boatload of statistics from those storm areas, and then finally plugging all that into another program, I finally have the main goal of my project: an algorithm that automatically classifies storms into cells and convective lines with great accuracy. It is a decision tree generated by a program called WEKA that some clever New Zealanders wrote to do various machine learning tasks. I even made a movie of the algorithm in action. It can pick out cells and lines correctly about 90% of the time although bow echoes are harder to come by. Now I will be spending time tweaking it and making some presentable visuals to go along with it. My workdays are split between programming on the computer and attending one meeting after another where we mainly listen to speakers talk about aspects of their jobs or give and listen to status reports from the fellow REUers. So far I've had to give four of those talks and have another one to do before our final presentation.Outside of work I have had little difficulty finding events to fill up my free time. Here's a few highlights from the past few weeks:
-The Tinker Air Show where I saw the Blue Angels zoom over my head as I drove up to the base, forcing me to stop and watch them from the intersection. I also got some great shots of the planes they had sitting around the tarmac. That was also the hottest day of the summer so far.
Air Show Photos Part 1
Air Show Photos Part 2
-The party at Daphne and Jim LaDue's house where I went canoing with another guy in the program and got some lovely Lake Thunderbird pictures before getting caught in some tough reeds before eventually finding our way back to the shore. Later we watched a bunch of exciting storm chasing videos.
Canoing on Lake Thunderbird
-When a squall line blew over the apartment, I filmed my roommate giving weather reports out in the thick of it. Here's the video:
-My mentor, Dr. McGovern, threw a party at her house for the REUers. We played bocce, swam around a bit, and when a storm showed up, we came inside for a round of Cranium, plus the building of a 7 to 8 foot tower of wooden blocks.
Dr. McGovern's Party
-A large contingent of the REUers drove down to Turner Falls in southern Oklahoma. There we waded around in the creek, scooted through- the rapids, and slid into their big pool of water at the end. I had some fun taking high speed shots of people on the diving board and slide.
Turner Falls
-The Academic Team held a trash (pop culture) tournament here last weekend. We had a decent number of teams show up from around the state, including a group of Ted's friends that Ted and I helped recruit to come. My team's questions were used for the championship round and turned out mostly well although our overall performance for the day wasn't amazing.
-I've gotten to see my fair share of movies while I've been here. All of them so far have been very enjoyable. Knocked Up was hilarious, Ratatouille was quite well done, and Live Free or Die Hard kicked a lot of butt. This upcoming weekend I'll most likely be seeing Transformers with the CS REU people.
-July 4th we all got off of work. I spent the day hopping from event to event. Firs t we held a barbecue at the apartment pool and played some volleyball. Then we headed over to Dave Schultz's house for a get together with some of the people who work at the Weather Center. Dr. Carr came by for a while, and I also got to talk with Dr. Chuck Doswell who is one of the granddaddies of severe weather research and has his name on a plethora of the major books and papers on severe storms. He is also one of the most outspoken members of the meteorological community, which I got to experience a bit of at the party. Later I joined the CS REU people for the Norman fireworks show, which we got a great view of from Reaves Park along with a few more mosquito bites.
Fourth of July
-I'm sure all of you have heard by now about the ridiculous amounts of rain we've been getting here. Norman is the greenest I've ever seen it. It is also the most mosquito ridden place I've visited in a long time. The streets and sidewalks around the apartment complex have flooded a couple times but nothing that has trapped us in here. It looks to be finally creeping out, and we got a break yesterday although some more storms rolled in today. What also bugs me is that they're rainstorms and not the more thrilling severe variety.
Flooding
-Another of my favorite parts of this experience has been all the wonderful people I've gotten to interact with through the course of the program. The REU kids have all been great to hang with, and through a mix of planned meetings, parties, and random encounters I've gotten to interact with many members of the Norman meteorological community from researchers working on the newest advances in radar and modeling to the forecasters at SPC and the Norman office to the veterans that literally wrote the books on the study of mesoscale meteorology. Their kindness, openness, and general joviality has only increased my love for this area and the field of meteorology.
We still have 4 more weeks to go in the program and a lot more to look forward to. I can't wait to experience it.
posted by DJ @ 6:59 PM
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