http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com science writer and book author Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:49:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc en hourly 1 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/metorology-pioneer-joanne-simpson-dies http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/metorology-pioneer-joanne-simpson-dies#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:10:40 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/metorology-pioneer-joanne-simpson-dies Joanne Simpson, a world-renowned atmospheric scientist who led the way for today’s many women meteorologists, died on Thursday, March 4, in Washington, D.C. She and her husband Robert (Bob) Simpson, who survives her, were a rare example of a wife and husband who were both leaders in the same scientific field.  In The AMS Weather [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/metorology-pioneer-joanne-simpson-dies/feed 0 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/answers-weather-balloons-and-airplanes http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/answers-weather-balloons-and-airplanes#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:04:36 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1855 Q: Hi, I enjoyed “Rise Up” in the March 2010 AOPA Flight Training magazine.   I wonder about  the danger of those weather balloons and noted your  comments about there being “no danger” as it’s floating down under parachute. But really, hasn’t there ever been an incident or accident associated with one of these balloons [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/answers-weather-balloons-and-airplanes/feed 1 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/more-snowy-science-lessons http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/more-snowy-science-lessons#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:53:31 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1832 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/more-snowy-science-lessons/feed 0 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/snowy-science-lessons http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/snowy-science-lessons#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:43:11 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1778 From the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 5 through the afternoon of Tuesday Feb. 9, I spent roughly eight hours shoveling snow, thanks to the record-breaking “Snowmageddon” that brought two to three feet–in some cases even more–of snow to the Washington, D.C. area. Shoveling snow is a good time to think about the science of winter storms, [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/snowy-science-lessons/feed 1 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/volcanoes-climate-and-a-doubtful-solution http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/volcanoes-climate-and-a-doubtful-solution#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:41:35 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1752 My story on “The volcanic-Climate Connection,” which was published in the January-February 2010 issue of Weatherwise magazine, focuses on how a few extremely large volcanoes in the past have cooled the Earth for a few months. At the end of the story I mention that the cooling effects of past eruptions have led some people, including [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/volcanoes-climate-and-a-doubtful-solution/feed 1 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/answers-wind-direction http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/answers-wind-direction#comments Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:11:43 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1739 Q: In your article in the January 2010 issue of AOPA Flight Training, you say: “If the lines on a weather map showing air pressures of 500 millibars and 496 millibars were straight and parallel, the PGF and Coriolis forces would soon balance and the wind would flow parallel to the lines of equal atmospheric [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/answers-wind-direction/feed 1 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-librarians-honor-ams-weather-book http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-librarians-honor-ams-weather-book#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:17:37 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1725 The Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI) organization has selected The AMS Weather Book: The Ultimate Guide to America’s [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-librarians-honor-ams-weather-book/feed 1 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/arctic-blast-science-stories-missing-in-action http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/arctic-blast-science-stories-missing-in-action#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:51:34 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1685 The New Year has brought us a blizzard of stories about frigid temperatures and snow storms, but I’ve been unable to find any stories that closely examine what’s going on. I had been wondering whether I just hadn’t looked hard enough until I read the Jan. 6 Knight Science Journalism Tracker blog and saw that Tracker [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/arctic-blast-science-stories-missing-in-action/feed 3 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-lessons-from-bitter-cold http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-lessons-from-bitter-cold#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:16:00 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1662 The strong winds and bitter cold that the new year 2010 brought to large parts of the United States has put wind chill in the news. This, like any outbreak of cold, windy weather, offers high school physics teachers in places where people are talking about wind chill an opportunity to relate the laws of thermodynamics [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-lessons-from-bitter-cold/feed 0 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-lessons-from-the-blizzard-of-09 http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-lessons-from-the-blizzard-of-09#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:39:43 +0000 Jack Williams http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/?p=1508 Like any big weather event the storm that spread snow from Tennessee and North Carolina along the East Coast to New England on December 18-21, 2009 is a good source of real-world science lessons. With this storm, as with most winter storms, some of the most appropriate lessons revolve around how meteorologists produce forecasts and how [...]]]> http://www.weatherjackwilliams.com/archives/science-lessons-from-the-blizzard-of-09/feed 5