Weather Break

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A couple of weeks ago on Weather Break, we read a poem called “The Soliloquy of the Weather Man” by meteorologist George Mindling.  In that work, Mindling talks about the challenges of producing a reliable forecast and laments the fact that the public only remembers situations [...]

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Click here to listen to this episode of Weather Break.
China spent tens of billions of dollars making sure that everything went right for the Summer Olympics back in 2008, and they left nothing to chance–including the weather.  The Chinese government  announced plans to make sure that rain didn’t spoil the festivities at the opening ceremonies.  [...]

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Click here to listen to this episode of Weather Break.
Ski resorts pretty much only make money in the winter if there is enough snow on the ground for guests to be able to ski.  Snowmaking, therefore, becomes an important part of management’s strategy, extending the skiing season and covering bare spots on the runs.  However, [...]

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Click here to listen to this episode of Weather Break.
Mark Twain once wrote that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.  Meteorologists and atmospheric scientists are often asked why they can’t control weather, especially during particularly bad weather like the recent cold air outbreak.  On today’s episode of Weather Break, [...]

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While scientists, farmers, ranchers, crop insurance agents, and many other groups really wish that rainmaking and cloud-seeding worked reliably, research shows us that these methods of increasing the amount of precipitation over an area are pretty unpredictable and generally ineffective.  That didn’t stop the US military, however, from operationally seeding clouds [...]

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