Field Trips photos

Field Trips

8 June 2001 we took our annual trip to Dallas for a visit to American Airlines, the North Central Texas Council of Governments plus dinner and a baseball game.

American Airlines--We met up with Warren Qualley and Colin Toenjes who gave us a tour behind the scenes at their training and operations facility. We scoped out the flight simulators and learned about the responsibilities of the meteorologists on staff. We rounded out our visit to AA with a trip the C.R. Smith Museum and an IMAX movie.

NCTCOG--Special thanks to Scott Rae for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about the vulnerability of the Dallas Metroplex to a strong tornado. The numbers he showed us were probably underestimated and still astounding.

Texas Rangers Baseball---Free Baseball!! Well, not exactly free... we watched the Houston Astros take on the Rangers in an eleven inning game including a game winning home run by Houston and back to back home runs in the 5th by Texas.

ARM SGP SITE: On Thurs 14 June we headed north toward Lamont to visit the the Central Facility of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) Southern Great Plains Site. We watched a video that explained the ARM program and its purpose and then took a tour with Chad around the site.

The site is one of the best instrumented sites in the world including both in-situ and remote sensing instruments.

The data gained through the ARM sites is available to the public for research purposes through their webpage; many REU students have found it to be a valuable source of data. For more information on the ARM program and the data collected please visit their site: www.arm.gov.

Tulsa: Our first stop in Tulsa was at Aeromet, Inc. Meteorologist, Dan Rusk was our tour guide for the morning. We received an introduction to the company and a look at some of the instrumentation used on missions in the south pacific and the ARM site. Aeromet's expertise is taking airborne meteorology measurements including: rainfall rate, icing research, lightning avoidance and electric field research, particle size and distribution, radiation balance studies. Please visit their website: www.aeromet.com.

After lunch, we spent an hour at the Arkansas - Red Basin River Forecast Center. Bill Lawrence gave us a short introduction on their responsiblities and forecast area. We then split into groups and the meteorologists/hydrologists on duty described their typical day.

Later that afternoon we visited Williams to get a closer look at private sector meteorology. An introduction was given by David Montroy, Weather and Market Research Manager. David explained the need of meteorologists to an energy company such as Williams; one-degree difference in a forecast can make over a million dollars for the company. He also took us around the trading floor and introduced us to a couple of the meteorologists who explained their responsibilities to us. Many of us were surprised by the amount of money one meteorologist can bring to a company and were intrigued by the visit.