Professor David Schultz is a mesoscale meteorology expert

Professor David Schultz is a mesoscale meteorology expert from Oklahoma, USA. He worked for the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), which seeks to improve the forecasting of severe weather phenomena.

In November 2006, Dr. Schultz started his post as a Professor of Experimental Meteorology in Helsinki, thanks to ongoing cooperation activities between the University of Helsinki, the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), and Vaisala.

Helsinki offers great research opportunities
Professor Schultz is interested in Helsinki mainly for two reasons: snow storms, which are quite frequent in Finland, and the Vaisala prototype dual-polarization weather radar at the FMI’s facilities in Helsinki. What interests him most about snow storms is what happens inside a cloud, that is, the microphysics of a cloud. The Vaisala weather radar is an ideal tool for this kind of research, as it is able to accurately identify the amount and type of precipitation (rain, snow, wet snow, hail) from over 200 km radius, and in all atmospheric layers. Professor Schultz also appreciates the Helsinki Testbed tools and data available to him.

Professor Schultz’s goals for his year (or more) in Helsinki include:
– to develop a program in synoptic and mesoscale meteorology in Finland. He co-taught an intensive short course on the Helsinki Testbed, a unique collection of instruments placed around Helsinki to explore local scale analysis and nowcasting methods. He will also organize a summer course for graduate students from around the world on mesoscale meteorology in summer 2007.
– to help bridge the gap between the forecasters and the scientists and initiate research projects that benefit operational forecasting. This will involve mentoring students and forecasters on their research projects.

New localized services can be created
Vaisala and many meteorological experts share the vision that by combining advanced nowcasting and analysis tools, modern observation system architectures and local observations, new localized services can be created. These services provide benefits to several user groups, including public authorities, businesses and consumers. Having Professor Schultz in Helsinki is a valuable opportunity for Vaisala to further develop these visions with the help of practical experiments. This paves the way towards more widespread adoption of the new capabilities enabled by these advances in observation and processing systems.

Author: Marikka Metso, Vaisala, Helsinki, Finland