In this issue

• FEATURE: Looking to the Future of Forecasting

• New COMET MetEd Lessons

• COMET News

• Latest Articles

• COMET Staff Spotlight

• New Faces at COMET

• Job Postings

FEATURE: Looking to the Future of Forecasting

The days of providing weather forecasts based solely on Deterministic Prediction Systems (DPSs) are numbered. Weather services are pivoting to decision-support services and impact-based forecasting, and weather forecasters need to advance to keep up with these changes. Our COMET meteorologists and educational designers developed the Applied NWP Course to help you develop the skills you’ll need to thrive in this shifting weather forecasting landscape. . . Read more. 

New COMET MetEd Lessons

Here are the latest (free!) COMET MetEd lessons and resources from this quarter for your weather, water, and climate education & training needs.

• Applied NWP Course

• Evaluating the Temporal Evolution of Weather Risk

• Freezing Spray Communication

• Mesoanalysis Challenge: Monitoring Atmospheric Stability

• Monitoring Water Levels with the NOAA Coastal Inundation Dashboard

• Monitoring Harmful Algal Blooms and Sargassum with Satellite Products

• Math for Weather and Climate: Interactive Tool for Divergence and Vorticity

Recent French translations:

• Cours appliqué en PNT : Les scénarios météorologiques probabilities

• Cours appliqué en PNT : Les caractéristiques de la distribution

• Cours appliqué en PNT : Le post-traitement

• Cours appliqué en PNT : La paramétrisation

• Cours appliqué en PNT : La résolubilité

Sign up for your free COMET MetEd account for access to 1,085+ free weather, water, and climate lessons and educational resources. Happy learning!

COMET News

COMET leads the WMO NHC course in Miami. From April 15-19, COMET team members Tsvet Ross-Lazarov, Kathryn Payne, and James Russell led the annual World Meteorological Organization-funded National Hurricane Center course. This international course prepared meteorologists across the United States, the Caribbean, Central America, Canada, Portugal, Spain, and Cabo Verde.

COMET helps the Caribbean PREPARE. COMET assisted Dr. Wassila Thiaw and the NWS Climate Prediction Center in conducting the PREPARE: Heat-Health Early Warning for the Caribbean Workshop in Kingston, Jamaica. The workshop brought together over 80 stakeholders from around the Caribbean to discuss early warning initiatives for heat and health-related threats. The workshop featured remarks from NOAA Chief Scientist Dr. Sarah Kapnick and U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, His Excellency N. Nickolas Perry.

COMET and the National Hurricane Center team up in Barbados. COMET International Capacity Development Program Assistant Director Paul Kucera and COMET Business Shared Services member Carol Bellfi, along with members from the National Hurricane Center, led a Storm Surge Workshop in Barbados, in which the Barbados Meteorological Service’s 3D-PAWS fabrication laboratory was featured. BMS is a leader in implementing COMET’s 3D-PAWS initiative and has over 90 stations deployed around the island to provide weather observation and early warning.

COMET co-leads NSF-funded workshop in Arizona. COMET scientist Andrea Smith co-led the Community Climate Intervention Strategies (CCIS) NSF GCR-funded workshop at Arizona State University on April 10-12, titled Co-Creating Useful and Usable Climate Intervention Simulations.

COMET boosts 3D-PAWS connectivity in Kenya. In April, COMET International Capacity Development team members Rebecca Zieber and Martin Steinson installed the LORAWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) gateways near several 3D-PAWS stations in Kenya.

COMET partners with Girls Who Chase on the 2024 GWC Spring Training event. COMET teamed up with Girls Who Chase in March to support the organization’s virtual training event for storm chasers and weather enthusiasts alike. The record-breaking event saw 570 participants from 16 countries and covered topics such as storm structure identification, chase positioning, how to read radar, case studies, lightning photography and more.

Learn more about this annual event here. Purchase the recorded package here.

Latest Articles

Check out our latest blog posts and features!

• Building Expertise to Chase Storms: COMET & Girls Who Chase

• New and Improved Education & Training Catalog

• Checking Our Rivers’ Vitals: Hydrologic Technicians and Streamgages

COMET Staff Spotlight

Meghan Neuhaus: Our Technical Project Manager

Meet Meghan Neuhaus, COMET's Technical Project Manager. Meghan brings a wealth of online learning project management experience to our team. Among other great projects, she is leading COMET through the migration efforts to our upcoming, brand-new learning management system (stay tuned for more about this LMS soon!). Learn more about her in this fun Q&A!

New Faces at COMET

We are thrilled to welcome several new faces to our growing team this Spring!

• Abby Dowd joined COMET in March as a full-time Educational Designer. Abby has a B.S. in Environmental Science and an M.Ed in Instructional Design, with 9 years of varied experience. She most recently was an instructional designer at the University of Utah Eccles Health Science Library.

• Lon Goldstein also joined COMET in March as a full-time Educational Designer. Lon worked for COMET previously (2003 - 2017) as an educational designer and has been a self-employed instructional media designer for the past 6 years. Lon has a B.A. in French Language Studies and a Certificate in Film Studies, an M.S. in Educational Software Design, and an M.A. in Instructional Systems Technology.

• Megan Jones Patterson joined COMET in March as a casual (think: on-call consultant) Educational Designer. Megan has 5 years of experience developing education and training resources on data-intensive topics. Megan has a B.S. in Wildlife Biology, an MSc in Post Secondary Science Teaching, and a Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolution.

• Liz Knapp joined COMET in March as a casual Educational Designer. Liz brings over 25 years of experience developing education and training resources. She has created both synchronous and asynchronous learning products on many complex scientific topics. She has a B.A. in Geology and an M.S. in Geochemistry.

• Emily Keener joined COMET in April as a casual Educational Designer. Emily is an experienced learning professional with 10 years of experience designing training materials & courses and has excellent skills in using Articulate Storyline. Emily has a B.A. in Communication & Mass Media and a MSEd in Instructional Design & Performance improvement.

• Corbin Jackson joined COMET in April as our new full-time Spanish Translator. He brings a strong educational background, holding a B.S. in International Business & Spanish, as well as an M.A. in Interpreting & Translation Studies. With a decade of experience in translation, he brings valuable expertise, including project management skills and proficiency in various software tools.

• William Nicewonger joined COMET in April as our new full-time Instrument Engineer. He previously worked at NSF NCAR’s Earth Observing Laboratory in the In Situ Sensing Facility (ISF). He holds a B.S. in Geography from San Diego State University. He is also a Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the Co-Chair of the UCAR Military & Veterans Employee Resource Group.

Job Postings

Want to help COMET build weather, water, and climate expertise? Join our team!

• COMET / CPC Associate Scientist