Lynn McMurdie
University of Washington, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Snowfall in the mountains feeds high-altitude snowpack, which supplies water for farms, cities and recreation. Much of this snow is orographic, meaning it is boosted when air is forced upward over mountains.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Physics
- Topics
orographic snowfall
snowpack
cloud microphysics
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Determine how large-scale weather patterns and water vapor transport shape the character of snowfall events over Colorado's Park Range, using a winter-long radar and balloon dataset combined with numerical modeling.
- Examine how the mountain barrier modifies local cloud and precipitation processes, using SEA-POL C-band and millimeter-wavelength radars together with in-cloud observations at Storm Peak Laboratory on Mt. Werner.
- Test how terrain-modified aerosol–cloud interactions, enhanced supercooled liquid water and riming (ice collecting frozen droplets) change near-surface snowfall properties, using disdrometers and vertically pointing radars.
More about the research
The processes that set how much snow falls are complex. Gaps in knowledge still limit snowfall forecasts and projections of snow in a future climate.
Why it matters
Better knowledge of how mountain clouds produce snow could improve snowfall forecasts and projections of future snowpack. Water resource managers, agricultural planners, farmers, ranchers and mountain communities that depend on snowmelt would benefit. The team plans to share its results directly with these groups.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Justin Minder
University at Albany, NY·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify the mechanisms that govern changing temperature and precipitation patterns over the Andes by testing several hypotheses within a single set of high-resolution South American weather simulations.
Zhanqing Li
University of Maryland, MD·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how cloud-surface coupling, the link between clouds and the lowest atmospheric layer, changes the influence of aerosols on clouds over urban, forested and coastal land surfaces.
James Ruppert
University of Oklahoma, OK·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine whether real-world tropical Atlantic storm clusters self-organize or are forced by the large-scale environment, using SEA-POL C-band polarimetric radar aboard the R/V Meteor during PICCOLO.
The school
University of Washington: 81 labs on PI Pages, $1.7B a year on research, 694 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.