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Research in NOAA

Interview with Kevin Kelleher and Suzanne Van Cooten
November 8, 2007

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: This is Barry Reichenbaugh. I'm with the NOAA Research Communications Office and I'm in Norman, Oklahoma, at the National Severe Storms Laboratory. So let's just start with introductions. Can you tell me your name and what you do here?

KEVIN KELLEHER: My name is Kevin Kelleher and I'm the deputy director at the National Severe Storms Lab.

SUZANNE VAN COOTEN: And I'm Suzanne Van Cooten. I'm a research hydrometeorologist also here at National Severe Storms Laboratory.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Let's start off with Kevin. Kevin, can you tell me what kind of research is going on at NSSL in the area of hydrometeorological research?

KEVIN KELLEHER: Well, NSSL is -- at the core of it is a radar lab. And out of the radar research we've done over the last four decades or so, we've found that we can extract hydrometeorological information from the radar, in terms of where it's raining and how hard it's raining.

And so about 15 years ago we started focusing on that, and the ability to estimate precipitation with radar in a remote-sensed capability rather than having rain gauges on the ground has really proven a valuable for all kinds of research that we've subsequently done from that point.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: And so you're doing some estimation based on that radar data? How's that work exactly?

KEVIN KELLEHER: Well, you can measure rainfall in different ways. You could put a rain gauge in the ground all over the place.  That's one way to do it. That's very expensive and not very practical.  But radar measures where it's raining and how hard it's raining all underneath what we call the radar umbrella, which is a pretty wide area. It's a couple hundred miles in each direction. So you can imagine having literally rain gauges spaced at 50, 60, 70 meters across the whole umbrella, or you can do it from radar.

And it depends on what kind of radar you have, how much resolution you get, but the National Weather Service has the whole country pretty much blanketed with radars. So we take the existing radar system that the Weather Service has in place and we extract from that additional information that allows us to estimate precipitation, whether it's rain, snow, or whatever. That's the science challenge behind it, to determine what exactly it is and to change -- let me go back and just explain how the radar works.

The radar sends an energy signal out and bounces off of whatever it might be, rain or, you know, birds or whatever. But what we do is we filter out everything and just try to keep it focused on the precipitation. It comes back to the radar, and the more energy that comes back to the radar that means the more particles that are out there, the larger the particles or the heavier the rain in some cases.

So we translate that power we turned into estimating precipitation and then we map that into the ground and we say, ‘At this point in the ground it's raining one inch an hour or half an inch an hour.’ That's the principle behind it.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Let's switch over to Suzanne. Suzanne, can you tell me a little bit about the work that you're doing with something called CI-FLOW?

SUZANNE VAN COOTEN: Yes, CI-FLOW. Actually, with the government, we have a lot of acronyms. So CI-FLOW stands for Coastal and Inland Flood Observation and Warning. And with CI-FLOW, what we're attempting to do is take what we do here at Severe Storms Lab very, very well, which is forecasting and monitoring of severe storms.

On a storm-scale what we do is we go, Okay. With that we want to see what is going on in the atmosphere with that thunderstorm, put that rainfall into a basin, follow that raindrop all the way through that river basin so we would have water quality and quantity all the way to when it goes into the coastal ocean.

And this project right now is focused in the Tar River Basin of North Carolina. It's a basin that has been affected heavily by hurricanes in the past, Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Dennis. They were a one-two punch in the Carolinas. And a lot of people only think about hurricanes hitting a place once.

Well, in this case it hit several times. Florida most recently with the four -- we call it the Fabulous Four. It wasn't so fabulous if you were in Florida, but there was four. And those cumulative effects of the hurricanes caused dramatic inland flooding.

And what a lot of people don't understand is that the number one fatality from a hurricane or tropical system is actually inland flooding. 53 percent of the deaths are from inland flooding. Additionally, most of our weather-related hazards, the main fatalities are also with rainfall, with flash flooding.

So what we are doing with the CI-FLOW project, in order to be able to monitor this rainfall and map it into river basins, is to improve our ability to forecast flash floods in order to save lives and property, which is what our mission is with NOAA.

And so with this, what we're going to be able to demonstrate in the Tar River Basin of North Carolina is going to be able to directly impact people across the nation in our coastal zones where more people are moving. We have half of our nation's populations now living in coastal zones. That's a tremendous responsibility for what we have to do here at National Severe Storms Lab and inside of NOAA.

And so with that, we are going to take this technology and be able to take it into the Gulf Coast areas. We saw what happened with Katrina. We've seen what's happened with Tropical Storm Allison.  We also see what happens with winter storms, with Nor'easters. We can't forget those large systems either, because they do cause tremendous amounts of coastal flooding.

And so the CI-FLOW, what we are looking at is being able to translate the science and demonstration of what we're doing in the Carolinas in order to provide services to all of our nation's coastal zones.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: I'm going to stick with you for a second. Can you help me understand? I mean, right now, nationally, we do make Flash Flood warnings. How are you looking to advance that capability?

SUZANNE VAN COOTEN: Well, currently within the operational structure of the National Weather Service -- and I can speak to this; I have been a hydrologic forecaster and also a meteorological forecaster with Service Hydrology's responsibilities. Currently, within our structure, we have assigned forecast points in a river basin, but many of our offices do not provide forecast services for rivers if you have what's called a tidal reflection where the water is going up and down and in multiple directions, both upstream and downstream.

That's very difficult to model in our simulations. And so it's a very challenging science application with that. We do have those applications running for major river systems that impact our national economy. For example, the Mississippi River. We have a specialized model there that's able to handle the movement of the water upstream and downstream, but these are very expensive to put in, maintain, and use.

So actually, if you live in a tidal zone area, like, for example, the Tar River Basin, if you are in an area that has a tidal reflection, you don't have a forecast point at this time. So what we're able to do here with the CI-FLOW is work with the modeling structure at Office of Hydrologic Development, which is National Weather Service headquarters, work with them and go, ‘Hey, we have a service gap here and we have a tremendous opportunity to provide people very valuable information on weather and water.’

And so with CI-FLOW what we can do is with the high-resolution precipitation that we have developed here inside of National Severe Storms Lab, we can then put this in and have a high-resolution river model that handles both the upstream and downstream water. And then from that we can say, Okay. We can provide you accurate water level forecasting at this point, which provides a whole series of services then to emergency managers. Are my roads flooded for evacuation routes? Have I placed a shelter where I have a problem with an inundation? Are these people going to be actually safe in my shelter?

And so that's what we're offering through CI-FLOW is a demonstration that we do have the capabilities to do this and then we will transition that into operations.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Kevin, let's go back to you. Do you want to add something on that?

KEVIN KELLEHER: Yeah. Suzanne did an excellent job describing the project. Some of the long-term vision we see for the CI-FLOW project can be used for things like land use. We have some scientists in our organization that really feel that we could run scenarios on what-if cases. So what if there was another hurricane that came up in a certain area? What would that mean for a run-off, and what does it mean for developers who are in a community that want to take maybe a parcel of land that is undeveloped right now? And there's an ecosystem balance right now in that area with that piece of land. What if they translated that? What if they built on that land? What if they changed the land to, let's say, an industrial area with lots of concrete? How would that change the water flow characteristics and the run-off and the pollution and all those? So there's a lot of opportunity here for running what-if scenarios. Once we get this modeling structure in place, we see a lot of different kinds of uses for it. Not just a predictive use for it.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Can we move over to another area of research I understand that NSSL is doing along with the U.S. Geological Survey, Debris Flow.

KEVIN KELLEHER: Debris Flow is another term that I grew up knowing as mudslides. But basically, I believe historically the USGS and the National Weather Service did a cooperative effort to try to predict mudslides or debris flows years ago and that somehow, over time, was not done consistently. And now they're trying to revive that effort and try to insert some science into the reasoning behind why things would be ripe for mudslides.

The USGS has basically used soil types, and when they become saturated from historical threshold levels, then they would say that the area might be in danger for some mudslides.

There are other things at NSSL, for instance, and we're on the science side. We're a research lab. We can bring into the understanding, increased understanding of when areas might be ripe for a mudslide, and that has to do with the rainfall amounts. And so we take our tools like mobile radar. We'll take it out to a site, and we've done this for the last two winter seasons in southern California; we continue to plan on doing it this season.

And gather data in areas -- we're focusing right now on areas that previously were subjected to fires, because typically, if an area has a fire the previous summer, let's say, then the growth and the ability for the soils to be held in by the living grasses or trees is diminished, and so it's more susceptible to a debris flow.

So we focus on those areas and we're taking data from radars and other measurements and analyzing it to see if we can come up with a better threshold for when something might turn into a mudslide versus when it wouldn't.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Let's switch back over to Suzanne.  Suzanne, we were touching on your experience being a forecaster in the past. Can you talk generally about how does NSSL's research benefit forecasters?

SUZANNE VAN COOTEN: Well, that's the nice thing with Severe Storms Lab is we've always been extremely focused on what we're developing inside of the lab, and then how it will impact services to United States citizens. And in that link, of course, naturally, are forecasters and hydrologists.

And so through our field experiments, field research in tornadoes, we've had a very good track record with that. Inside of the National Weather Center now also offers us tremendous opportunities.  A lot of people aren't aware that inside of the National Weather Center here, we have operational and researchers sitting right across the room from each other.

We can bring people in. We can have students come in, and it's a tremendous learning opportunity. Because what we can see here with our high-resolution modeling, what we can see here with our high-resolution precipitation estimation, we can just open a door and talk to a forecaster and go, ‘Did that help you in any way, or did we just totally miss the mark?’ And it's that dynamic feedback and that assessment method that really helps us focus our research to realize, ‘Are we on the right track? Will this really add any value to what we are currently doing?’

And so I think that is a very big, fundamental issue of why the National Severe Storms Lab, Storm Prediction Center, the forecast offices in Southern Region have been so successful in reducing tornado fatalities, lightning fatalities. We have an absolutely world-class lightning research program here in partnership with the University of Oklahoma. And we're trying to translate that track record of success into what we are developing inside of our storm-scale precipitation measurements and also our storm-scale hydrologic modeling in concert with Office of Hydrologic Development. We are going to use that model of success for what we're going to do in precipitation and rainfall.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Let's stick with you, Suzanne. Since we're here at the University of Oklahoma in this very unique building -- I know you come in contact with students on a regular basis, but I'm curious how you got involved in this field, and maybe you can just walk me through that.

SUZANNE VAN COOTEN: Well, actually, I grew up in central Oklahoma. My family moved to Norman when I was very young from Oklahoma City, and I had actually gone through three tornadoes in South Oklahoma City when I was little. So that kind of focuses you a little bit on, Well, I was safe, but why was I safe?

And so you hear about tornado deaths, unfortunately.  You hear about hurricane deaths, unfortunately. And you realize, ‘Well, if I could survive that, why can't other people survive that?’ So you want to translate that out to places that aren't naturally as tornado-savvy or storm hazard-savvy. And with that then, it was, ‘Well, what do you want to do with your life? And what type of career do you want to have?  Do you want to have one where you're helping people, or do you want just to sit in your little cubicle and do research all day?’

Well, the nice thing with Severe Storms Lab, and what we do inside of the Weather Service is you can actually do both. So I went to the University of Oklahoma; my undergraduate is in Meteorology.  I actually graduated from the school that's now on the fifth floor of our building here at National Weather Center. And then I decided that was enough equations for me, and so I went to the Fort Worth Forecast Office with tornadoes, of course, on the southern end of what we call Tornado Alley, and worked there.

Then from there I had an opportunity to go to the Gulf Coast, and I worked at the Slidell Forecast Office and the Slidell River Forecast Center. And that was a very unique perspective when you've been tornado-centric. You realize the impacts of a hurricane, and a hurricane is actually a super storm. A hurricane has tornadoes. A hurricane has flooding. A hurricane has high winds. It has everything, essentially, that you would ever work with inside of National Severe Storms Lab.

But what I also realized was there was a tremendous opportunity there for research too. How are we connecting with the people, and how are we connecting with the emergency management officials to get people out and get them safe? So when the opportunity came up for me to come to National Severe Storms Lab and they said, ‘What were the biggest questions you had as a forecaster, and we want you to work on those.’ That's like a dream job.

And it's like, Okay. We can do much better with heavy rainfall. We can do much better with river forecasting. We can do much better with getting our message out and trying to bring down these fatalities with flash flood and inland flooding. And so that's what brought me here to Severe Storms Lab, and that's what I'm working on now.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Kevin, let's switch over to you.  Maybe you can just take us through your career path. How'd you get involved in science?

KEVIN KELLEHER: Well, I wouldn't say that I was necessarily a weather nerd when I was a kid, but for some reason I always knew that I wanted to get involved with something to do with weather. So it was an easy choice for me.

I can remember when I was growing up in the Northeast that time after time there would be forecasts made -- I love snowstorms.  That's always been my thing. And I would be so frustrated because I lived on the East Coast and the forecasts would build up day after day and they would say, Oh, it looks like there's a storm coming. It's going to be bigger and bigger, and there's going to be two to four inches, and then it would be four to eight inches, and then over a foot.

And all of this would happen, and we'd go to bed one night and wake up the next morning and guess what? There'd be a dusting, or an inch or something like that, and I would be so upset. Sometimes I wouldn't even do my homework because I'd be just sitting at the radio listening to all the great weather forecasts and just so excited about this because I just was enamored by snow.

So it was a very frustrating experience. And I said, ‘Well, how in the world can you not know 12 hours from now that you're either going to have a foot of snow or you're not going to have any?’  And so that problem was a challenge, and I thought that surely I can figure this out. And then I got into the field and realized, ‘Well, it's a little bit tougher than they thought.’ And that's how I got involved.

And I started my schooling, college schooling in upstate New York where the snowstorms were. And then when I was applying to graduate school, someone said, ‘Hey, there's this activity out in Oklahoma where you can do some research,’ because the traditional schools that I had applied to were offering teaching assistantships, but I really wanted to do research. So on a whim, I came out to the University of Oklahoma and working at the Severe Storms Lab and a research assistantship and that's basically how I got into tornadoes.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Let's stick with you, Kevin. If you could, tell me a little bit about what you say to a person who's interested in a career in science.

KEVIN KELLEHER: Well, young people who are interested in science, there's so many opportunities. Generally, those students that I run into, they're usually interested in weather at some level.  And so I ask them if they have an understanding of the different kinds of meteorology positions that there are, whether it's a broadcast meteorologist, someone who wants to work on TV, let's say, someone who likes to do forecasting, maybe with the National Weather Service or in a private company.

But the fundamental question eventually I have to get around to, and I almost cringe when I ask them because I'm not sure what they're going to say is, How good is your math? How are you doing in math? Usually they're high school students and I'll say, Well, are you taking any advanced math?

Many times you'll find that their perception of what a meteorologist does or is or what the career path is, they're surprised to find out that math is that big a component and that's something they're going to have to decide, whether they're going to put the investment in to learn the math, because meteorology is taking equations of the atmosphere, equations of the atmosphere as a fluid -- we know how fluids work and we have equations to model that. You take those equations and then you put them into computers, and then you run models that predict the future. That's how it works. If you don't have an understanding of math, you've got a long road to go. But if you find a student that has an interest in meteorology and a background in math, then that's the foundation for becoming a meteorologist. Then it's just a matter of what kind of meteorologist. Small-scale meteorologists interested in what we do here at the lab in terms of thunderstorms and tornadoes, or large-scale meteorologists who want to see those big highs and lows move across the country that you see on your TV nightly broadcast.

So there are so many opportunities. Air pollution meteorology.  If you have an interest in chemistry, you can become involved in meteorology on the chemistry side, in terms of ozone and pollutants and greenhouse gases. So the field is really expanding. And now the field, there's so many opportunities in climate and climate change.

Global warming, climate change, has really brought a lot of interest and a lot of funding and a lot of opportunities. So the field is growing. I'd never thought it would get as big as it is. And here in Oklahoma, we're very fortunate to have, really, the nexus of all things, mesoscale, small-scale meteorology, that have come together, both in the government, the university, and the private sector.

BARRY REICHENBAUGH: Suzanne, let's wrap up with you.  In looking at your biography, I see that you've been involved as a minority student mentor. And maybe you can tell me a little bit about what you say to someone you're talking to about science.

SUZANNE VAN COOTEN: I think it's very interesting that under-represented groups, and we have a diversity of thought, be brought into weather. Because I'm with Kevin -- weather affects everything, and there's just a myriad of things that you can do with weather.

I am a member of the Chickasaw tribe of Oklahoma, and through that I do have a perspective in talking with tribes and tribal citizens and tribal members about where they're going with careers.  And right now they've had a tremendous success story in the medical field.  And that is because when you go to a doctor, it's a very personal relationship in medicine. And so it's nice to see somebody that looks like you.

Weather tends to not be thought of in a personal way like that; however, I argue that we are getting to the point the weather will become extremely personal, especially in light of the water issues that we're seeing now. Look at the state of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.  These are becoming very real, very personal issues in the water arena.  And so with that, in having a diversity of people involved in our sciences, you have those faces that are able to convey the information about water and how we need to change how we look at water to an audience that is a very, very diverse audience. And so the reception of that information depends on how -- basically how they like you.

And so with that, climate change comes into play. And when you look at where people are living and how long they've lived at, we have a very transitory population in the United States. However, when you look at where people really live and have lived for a long time, that's usually on tribal reservations.

And so to bring in the tribes now to work with us, with our water resources and water resources initiatives, and bring them to the table and go, Okay. This probably, in some cases, is your water.  How would you like for this to be looked at and how can we help? Because we know these cycles, and these cycles have been in our histories for so long, means that we need to have more Native Americans involved in science.

And so this is a tremendous opportunity to bring in a group that is so under-represented traditionally in our STEM disciplines, in our science, technology, engineering and math disciplines. And so that's what I'm working to here at National Severe Storms Lab, because again it's location, location, location. And in the state of Oklahoma, we have an excellent reputation and also the demographic to support that we could be a national leader in how we bring Native Americans into our science programs here.