Well, it's been a thrilling three weeks since I arrived back in Norman after a short break from a summer in Norman. After a few relative worry-free days, I reentered the good ole academic lifestyle with this semester's daunting schedule. Mondays and Wednesdays feature a morning math double feature of Physical Math I (aka Ordinary Differential Equations plus other stuff) followed by Discrete Math. They're both straightforward lecture classes just like every other math class I've had since Algebra I, but I enjoy learning the concepts they throw at me. Some of it I've already seen a few times, but the new stuff is finally starting to creep in with a vengeance.
My afternoons feature a 2 hour and 45 minute extra long double block of Data Structures and Generational Politics in America. With Data Structures we're learning C++, or Java with all the wrinkles that Java was designed to iron out. My professor in there is very animated and promotes class participation by commanding us to "Say yes!" to the questions he poses. I'm in the midst of the first programming project in there at the moment, and it's been giving me a few headaches although today I finally blew through one of them with the professor's help. My final class of the day comes with Generational Politics in America, an Honors Perspectives course. In it we are discussing the differences in the political and social climate among three important generations in recent history: The Greatest Generation of the 40s and 50s, the 60's Generation, and my generation, which hasn't officially received a name yet although we've been called everything from Gen Y to Gen Me to Gen D to the Millennials. We have had many long and in depth discussions on the political, social, and racial climates of those times. Currently we're focusing on the Greatest Generation and comparing the views of two books written about it: The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw and Coming of Age by Studs Terkel. Brokaw paints the picture of them that we are most familiar with: the hard working humble heroes who overcame crushing odds to defeat the worst evil the world has ever seen and then go on to live long, prosperous, fulfilling lives. Terkel's book on the other hand, takes on a broader perspective of the generation by sharing the stories of a vast spectrum of people and focusing more on their accomplishments here than what if anything they did during the war. Combined they give a good survey of the Greatest Generation, as I have to discuss in depth in a paper I am writing this weekend.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days at the Weather Center. I begin bright and early for 8:30 AM Honors Intro to Meteorology I, where we learn about the meteorology. It's a very small class made up entirely of my friends, so we generally have a good time in it. We're still in the early material so I think it will take a little longer for it to take off into the more interesting and difficult stuff. In addition to the lecture class we have a lab where we are learning meteorology programs and contouring weather maps, among other things. Following the morning meteorology I shift gears and buildings for my part time research job over in Stephenson. Right now I am working on extracting attributes about various thunderstorm features from the computer models of them. So far I have gotten the updraft, downdraft, and pressure perturbation done, and the rest should also be finished soon. Fridays is more math in the morning then job in the afternoon.
As for the weekends, the dominant event is, of course, football. Last week we dealt the University of North Texas a whopping 79-10 defeat in our first game of the season. UNT is a pretty bad team, so the score only has some significance, although the almost mistake-free performance of the players bodes well for us. This Saturday at 12 PM EDT/11 AM CDT on ABC we will be facing the University of Miami in what will be one of our biggest tests of the season. My friends and I are making shirts for the game reading "Hey U! We're going to leave you tropically depressed!" We're hoping to get on TV like my friend who wore a Schooner Hat did last week. It will definitely be an exciting matchup so don't miss it.
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.
After a two week break at home, my dad and I left Birmingham Friday afternoon on a long drive to Norman. We crossed through Mississippi and Memphis into Little Rock, where we spent the night at the Hampton Inn there. The next day we completed the journey into Norman with me at the wheel most of the way. Saturday night we spent unloading my storage room into my new apartment. The program gave me a place at Traditions Square West: a lovely new fully furnished 4 bedroom 2 bath apartment with full size kitchen and living room with large TV and DVD player plus weekly maid service. Compared to the dorms, it is palatial. Sunday Dad went back home on the plane after getting lunch and a hat from me for his birthday. That evening Ted came over to hang out and welcome me back. Monday the rest of the REU people showed up, and we went out on a Wal-Mart run together. Tuesday, my job started. For the whole week we did not do much actual work but instead went on multiple tours of the Weather Center and North Campus and the radars. Two of the more special events came Tuesday and Thursday evening. Tuesday we went up to downtown OKC for dinner and to see the memorial. Thursday evening I went over to the Weather Center for the whole evening with a couple other REU students. We watched storms move into Kansas and Oklahoma on the radar with Les Lemon, one of the pioneers of severe weather forecasting.
Friday afternoon, after a morning of work, we formed a convoy of three cars to storm chase in west of Wichita Falls, TX. The first storm we intercepted had gone tornadic earlier but had weakened by the time we did arrive. After grabbing a quick dinner at Quiznos, we punched the core of a cell moving through the city, forcing me to drive 35 mph on the interstate in order to see through the rain and lightning. After making it through the core, we saw a beautiful double rainbow with little fluffy swirling clouds. The weekend was mostly uneventful with Ted and Cliff spending the evening here Saturday night and church Sunday. This week promises to be full of hard work as I dig deep into my project. More next week!
After a long and action packed series of challenges and adventures, I have finally reached the end of the school year. This past semester had some great times with many events, including basketball games, my first storm chase in western Oklahoma, getting to see Al Gore, driving to Minnesota for the NAQT National Quiz Bowl tournament and placing 12th there, my second storm chase in the Texas Panhandle, all the times I've spent with my friends, and, of course, those classes that are the reason I'm out there in the first place. Grades came out last Friday; I had all A's again. For the past two weeks I've been in Alabama visiting friends and hanging around the house. Tomorrow I begin my drive back to Norman to start my internship at CASA where I will be creating an algorithm to automatically classify different types of thunderstorms based on radar data. It's going to last until August, and I will be working 9 to 5:30 every weekday during that time with freetime on the weekends to do whatever. I'm really excited about meeting the people in the program and working on my project. It should be a great learning experience. I will keep all of you informed on my progress as it moves along. Here's a couple recent pictures of me:
On Saturday, my friends and I drove west to Amarillo to chase some storms that were supposed to form there. SW of the city we encountered a few supercells that dropped some hail on us then at least 4 funnels and a possible tornado touchdown. Following that we headed down to Tulia but missed the big tornado that tore through the town. On the outskirts we were turned around at a roadblock and headed back north. As we were driving up the interstate we received a call from our friends to stop where we were at as a funnel was lowering to our north. We watched it move across the sky only with illumination from lightning. After that passed, we stopped by Waffle House and then headed home underneath a ton of lightning. I made a couple of videos of our action that day, which can be found below:
Storm Chasing in Amarillo during the Day
Storm Chasing at Night: The Night Funnel and Lightning
Yesterday, I left my physics class hurriedly in anticipation of seeing some great awesomeness in western Oklahoma. For the past week, my friends and I gazed constantly at computer models as they developed a potential outbreak of severe weather for Oklahoma on Friday and Saturday. At first we planned to make Saturday afternoon a time for heading out after some storms in the southeastern portion of the state, but a speedup in the models forced us to try for Friday afternoon in western Oklahoma. We originally planned to leave at 3 but classes and other delays kept us from leaving until 4. From there the group headed out in two vehicles along I-40. With nothing but stratus above us, we enjoyed the various sights of western Oklahoma. We passed Yukon (the home of Ted Swang and Garth Brooks, but only Garth got on the watertower) and Weatherford (home of astronaut Tom Stafford, SWOSU, and a huge wind farm) and a bunch of other small towns and farms on our way to our initial staging point in Elk City. We filled up on gas there and then proceeded to Erick, Oklahoma, 7 miles from the Texas border, where we met up with another car of OU freshmen chasers. The wind was really picking up when we got out of the car. From there we proceeded through downtown Erick (home of the Roger Miller Museum, dedicated to the singer of "King of the Road" and "Dang Me") out into the country. We parked on a dirt road in preparation for an intercept. Even out in the middle of nowhere we weren't alone. Along with the three cars with us, we encountered a girl from my calc class and her boyfriend (I'm assuming). Before the storm got there, they pulled out some lightsabers and had a little duel with lightning in the background. We also saw a chaser for Channel 5 who apparently got some video of us out there. While we were standing out there the wind was blowing harder than I've ever felt, lightning flashed all around, and then we started getting pelted with downpours. At that point we moved a little further south to escape the rain and found that everything had stopped other than the wind. While standing around some more, we spotted a line of cars flying north up the road, which could only be storm chasers. We eventually followed and ran back into the downpours and a litle hail, driving through streets that were getting covered with water until we reached a gas station where we parked until the rain slowed. Then we stopped at another gas station to get our bearings and talk to other area chasers. As we stood and chatted, a group of local Texas and OSU fans came in and we had a little back-and-forth showing support for our respective schools. Mike flashed an upside down longhorn hand gesture and an old guy in a cowboy hat and he asked Mike if that was a gang symbol. Another guy put on two OSU hats in front of us.
The group was hungry, and the storms had died down for the moment, so we decided to seek civilization in search of internet and food (FOOD! FOOOOD!). That led us back up the interstate to Elk City again, this time in the parking lot of a Best Western. We looked at radar and asked the lady at the front desk where some decent eatery could be found. A Denny's was nearby and she directed us to it. After making a few turnarounds, we finally found it. It being Friday, Mike and I had fish and chips and most of the group chowed down on breakfast food and hamburgers as we discussed our experiences so far. Alex's study of the system and rumor of Wi-Fi pointed us further east to Clinton where we embarked.
We stopped for a short time in Clinton when a severe thunderstorm warning went out. It was just to the southwest of us, so we decided to try to punch the core, or drive right through it. As we cruised down the highway south of Clinton, however, Josh's car started slowing down, then overheating, then smoking, so we pulled to a stop. As we tried to pick through the problems in his engine, the storm passed near us to the west, delivering a brilliant show of lightning and wind. After replacing the coolant and oil in his car, it still did not run far, so we ended up calling AAA for a tow. The rest of the convoy headed home, tired after a long day and night of chasing.
