Archived photos   All photos © IAS or as indicated.

photo of a gustnadophoto showing joined areasFrom gustnado to tornado...

Shawn Honomichl, MS-ATM 2011 graduate, went storm chasing near O'Neill, Nebraska on Memorial Day. He snapped the following photos, which show how a "gustnado" can turn into a "tornado".

There is a distinct division between the wall cloud  and the turbulence on the ground in the photo at left. On the right we see the two areas joining to form a funnel.

For more photos of this storm event, please follow this link:  More photos

All photos © Shawn Honomichl. Posted 6/3/2011
Prescribed Burns Near Spearfish, SD    

Darren Clabo, state wildfire meteorologist,  took some photos during a prescribed, or controlled burn, near Spearfish, SD in early May, 2011. Fire crews were conducting the burn to return fire (natural process) to the grassland ecosystem.

Different vegetation types can cause varying smoke colors due to their differing chemical compositions or moisture content. Phragmite and cattails tend to burn with a deep black smoke, while cheatgrass, brome, and grama varieties tend to burn with white smoke.

Photo ©Darren Clabo, IAS

For more photos, check this link: Prescribed burns
photo of a sundog

Lisa Phillips (M.S.-ATM 2010) received a first place award in the amateur division from the Black Hills Chapter of the American Meteorological Society for this snapshot she took of sundogs. A sundog, technically known as a parhelion, is a halo phenomenon consisting of either of two colored luminous spots that appear at points 22° on both sides of the sun and at the same elevation as the sun. It is caused by refraction of sunlight by ice crystals.

Posted 12/28/2010
SDSM&T Atmospheric Sciences Student presents at AMS Annual Meeting

Theresa Aguilar, ATM-MS student, presented "An Investigation into the Spatiotemporal Scale of Two Wind Ramp Events in Northeastern Colorado" at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, January 23-27, 2011 in Seattle, Washington. Also attending the meeting were Dr. Andy Detwiler and Dr. Paul Smith. Dr. Smith's presentation was on hail damage reduction activities.
Go To Mines Open House - April 2011

Frances Sewell, Dan D'Amico, Heather Caye, Patrick Ealy, and Ciara Breen represented the Atmospheric Sciences department at the annual open house event held on campus, Saturday, April 16, 2011. They are students of Atmospheric Sciences in either the BSIS or MS degree programs at the School of Mines and are also members of the newly-created SDSM&T Weather Association (see story this page). 

 

More storm photos from O'Neill, Nebraska on Memorial Day, 2011