Atmospheric and Climate Sciences
Extreme
Weather
EAPS faculty and students use observations and numerical modeling to better understand the physics, predictability and impacts of extreme weather systems, including thunderstorms, tornadoes, and tropical cyclones, and their variability within the climate system.
Climate
Dynamics
The fundamental physics and processes of the regional and large-scale climate system and its variability (such as monsoons, El Niño, and the jet stream), and intraseasonal variability are topics of research by our faculty and students.
Surface-ATMS Interactions
Select EAPS faculty and students study the exchange of energy and matter between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, including sea, land, and vegetation.
Atmospheric Science News
'Twister,' 'Twisters' and the actual practice of storm chasing
07-22-2024
NPR — A plucky meteorology heroine; a male rival with no shortage of hubris; and some very, very big storms: that's the basic formula behind the new disaster action movie Twisters, which follows storm chasers around Oklahoma amid a tornado outbreak. It's a standalone sequel to the 1996 film Twister, a box-office hit in its day which also spurred a lot of real-life research into severe storms. NPR's Consider This Podcast discusses the actual practice of storm chasing with Prof. Robin Tanamachi of Purdue EAPS.
Can You Stop A Tornado? Atmospheric Scientists Reveal the Truth About the Biggest Plot Point in ‘Twisters’
07-22-2024
INVERSE — Tornadoes appear around the world, but are most common in the United States. And they’ve been main plot points in films throughout the past century. Perhaps among the most popular is the 1996 classic, Twister. Now, 28 years later, Twisters, a successor film of sorts and now in theaters, leans into the same elusive lure tornadoes bring. The central premise of Twisters is that, somehow, humans can throw chemicals into a tornado to absorb the tropical moisture that gives rise to these storms and thereby pull the plug on the funnel. But how much of the Twisters movie is based on real science? We spoke with two weather experts, including Prof. Robin Tanamachi of Purdue EAPS, who say it's a lot of wishful thinking.
These Tornado Chasers and Scientists Hunt Real Twisters
07-19-2024
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN — Chasers will always be a vital part of tornado detection efforts, but now drones, artificial intelligence and supercomputers are all helping meteorologists figure out just how these terrible storms come together. Prof. Robin Tanamachi, of Purdue EAPS, is highlighted in this video by Scientific American.
'The pressure change was causing me to have contractions': What it's really like to be a tornado chaser
07-16-2024
BBC — How tornadoes form remains one of nature's biggest mysteries. Meet the scientists who are chasing twisters to unlock the secrets of destructive storms. "I realized it was very likely the tornado was killing people while I was collecting data," says Robin Tanamachi. "It gave a lot of gravity to the situation, and really drove home just how serious the work was that I was doing."
How hurricanes will change as the Earth warms
07-09-2024
THE ECONOMIC TIMES — Hurricane Beryl struck the Grenadine Islands on July 1 as an early category 5 storm with unprecedented speed and intensity, attributed to warm ocean waters. Scientists forecast a record-breaking 2024 hurricane season. "If the National Hurricane Centre's early forecast, released May 23, is right, the North Atlantic could see 17 to 25 named storms, eight to 13 hurricanes, and four to seven major hurricanes by the end of November," says Jhordanne Jones, a postdoctoral research fellow who studies how climate change affects the scientific effort to predict hurricanes at Purdue University.