Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences

How Fires Can Create Clouds

Atmospheric Science Students

By Jackson Zito

Jackson is majoring in Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at South Dakota Mines. He plans on working with wildfires and the development of pyro-cumulus and pyro-cumulonimbus clouds.

When people ask me why I am going to school, I often tell them it’s to get a degree so I can hopefully get a job. After that answer we usually have a conversation like this:

Them: Cool, so what are you learning then? 
Me: Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences. 
They look at me in confusion as if I just spoke a foreign language. 
Me: It’s meteorology. 
Them: Oh, so you’re going to be a weather boy like the one on TV then. 
Me: No, you know there is a lot more you can do with a meteorology degree than just be on the nightly news.
Them: Like what? 
Me: Well, right now I am researching pyro-cumulonimbus clouds. 

Assuming you have a confused look on your face as they often do, let me explain.

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Searching for a Place to Live with the Most Ice and Thunderstorms

Atmospheric Science Students, STS Students

By Steven Slater

Steven is majoring in Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, and his primary interest is extreme weather.

Ever since I can remember, I enjoyed watching the rare thunderstorms whenever they occurred in Western Washington. I often had to wait a year or more between seeing individual lightning bolts. I often watched The Weather Channel as my main source of weather-related content, whether it had to do with storms or snow. My mind was blown as I watched the reported snow totals rise close to 12 feet for the lake-effect vent in February 2007.

The lowlands of Western Washington don’t receive much snow, so I had to wait for that, too, though it happened more frequently than thunderstorms. I was an advocate for receiving as much snow as possible in the shortest time. The biggest event I experienced in Washington was in December 2008, where I remember playing in ~15 inches of snow at the peak of the event.

A picture containing tree, outdoor, sky, snow.
Washington in January 2012. Photo: Steven Slater.
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