Severe weather expert Adam Houston guest of UNK
KEARNEY – In the movie “Twister” dozens of tornadoes seem to continue to attack Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton over the span of a couple of days. Their research team is intent on placing a high-tech research unit “Dorothy” in its path to learn the mysteries of tornadic events.
Realistic or ridiculous?
A class at University of Nebraska at Kearney wants to find out and has invited a weather researcher to talk to them – and watch “Twister” and learn more about the latest Doppler mobile technology – at a free movie and lecture at 6:15 p.m. Monday (April 13).
Adam Houston, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will be on hand for the showing of “Twister” at The World Theatre, at the invitation of UNK geography professor Jeremy Dillon and a geography class called “Dynamic Planet – Hazards in the Environment.”
Houston will bring a Doppler on Wheels mobile radar system that will be parked near The World Theatre, with Houston and fellow researchers on-hand to demonstrate its capabilities starting at 5:45 p.m. The showing of the movie, a brief lecture by Houston and questions from the class and public will follow. All are welcome to attend the free movie/lecture.
Houston is part of the Unmanned Aircraft System and Severe Storms Research Group at UNL and University of Colorado. The researchers were the first to direct-sample a thunderstorm by an unmanned aircraft and first to intercept a super cell thunderstorm, with Houston often in the national news for his storm research.
“Dynamic Planet – Hazards in the Environment” is a freshman-level course at UNK that teaches the science behind natural hazards related to the solid earth and atmosphere, Dillon said, including earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and drought. This is a special section of the course for Thompson Scholars, a learning community for students awarded the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation Scholarship. The Buffett foundation is helping sponsor this outreach event, along with the Department of Geography.
The Doppler on Wheels mobile radar is a National Science Foundation facility available to faculty at U.S. colleges and universities for research and education. From March 29 through April 13 it is on loan to Houston for educational deployment for his radar meteorology course in the UNL meteorology-climatology program. On April 13 it is on its way back to Boulder.
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Media Contact: Todd Gottula, Director of Communications, 308.865.8454, gottulatm@unk.edu
UNK Contact: Jeremy Dillon, Sociology Geography and Earth Sciences, 308.865.8681, dillonjs@unk.edu
