Most times, when associate professor of meteorology and atmospheric science Kelly Lombardo wants to learn something new about severe weather events, she’s hunkered down behind a computer, running mathematical models, making precise changes to the model inputs to see how they shape the storms.
But, sometimes she gets to brave the elements. She goes out with her husband, Matthew Kumjian, an associate professor of meteorology, to launch weather balloons and use other tools to garner just a sliver of the many observational data points needed to tell how the storm is changing.
Lombardo is most interested in mesoscale convective systems, or squall lines—so called because of their long, thin shape on the radar—and how they evolve when near coastlines. It’s an avenue of research that’s little understood yet has the potential to save lives in some of the most heavily populated areas of the globe.
It’s a forecasting problem that first came to her while earning a doctorate at Stony Brook University. She was surprised to learn that the National Weather Service, in trying to forecast these squall lines, knew little about what could cause them to weaken or intensify.
“They didn’t know what they should be looking at, what clues they should be searching for that may give them some insight into how the storm will behave,” Lombardo said. “It was a forecasting problem that inspired my Ph.D. research”.
Once she began her research, she came to realize the difficulty of the scientific problem.
“It’s so complex that it’s going to easily take me to the end of my career and yet there will still be so much we won’t know,” she said.
That’s the crux for Lombardo. If she could understand the forces at play for what her eyes see as she launches those balloons into the sky, she could solve a career’s worth of mysteries. It’s all so close, yet so far away.
‘Because it’s really hard’
At first, the Long Island native was puzzled. Why do forecasters know so little about how coastlines affect storms when so many people live along the coastlines.
So, she asked one of the scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
“I asked, why hasn’t someone looked at this? And he replied: ‘Because it’s really hard.’ With that answer I knew I wanted to focus my research on solving this problem and hopefully become the expert on the behavior of squall lines in coastal environments.”
Cloudy storm data
Specifically, Lombardo wants to know how storms change as they move from land to water. She looks at environmental conditions and the topography of the land to understand the dynamics at play. Lombardo says these storms are so challenging to study because few observational data points exist, and they’re often isolated and rapidly changing.
Coastal storms are sensitive to the surface and atmospheric boundary layer found in coastal regions, including variations in temperature, moisture, and wind across the coastlines, as well as inland coastal topography.
These factors increase the complexity of the physical processes associated with storm development, characteristics, evolution, and intensity, making understanding and forecasting these systems a challenge. Because coastal storms are capable of producing high winds, frequent lighting, heaving rain, flash flooding, hail, and tornadoes, they pose risks to the large population clustered along the coastlines.
Observations hold clues to how these storms evolve, but numerical models are critical to fill in the gaps, Lombardo said. Models can show us the processes playing out in the storms—and the importance of each—which can lead to better forecasts. Her group uses both observations and mathematical models to help understand the forces at play during these coastal storms.
Coastal squall line storms are only expected to increase.
“Global circulation models suggest an increase in the frequency of days conducive to severe storms along the eastern U.S. coastline,” Lombardo said. “This is especially problematic given the large population clustered along the coastline, which is projected to increase. Our research will reveal how storms may form and behave in these future environments, and help inform response preparations necessary to mitigate future loss in coastal zones.”
Lombardo said it can be daunting to tackle a problem so few have tried to solve. She sometimes finds her curiosity getting the best of her. But she’s able to break things down into more manageable research pieces.
“You want to answer a lot of questions,” Lombardo said. “The curiosity gets to be a bit maddening sometimes because you wish you’re able perform all the work necessary to answer the questions you have. Science is exciting, but it’s important to take incremental steps, build on past research and set up the foundation for future scientists.”
A home at Penn State
The ability to seek answers to questions that could take an entire career is what drove Lombardo to academia. And doing so surrounded by experts at a top-ranked university for meteorology and atmospheric science is what drove her to Penn State.
“Having the intellectual freedom to go in any direction that your curiosity takes you is very profound,” Lombardo said. “I know that I’m very fortunate to have that flexibility and freedom. Of course, there’s the constraint of funding. But if something interests me, I’m able to figure out a way to explore it, which is pretty amazing. It’s remarkable.”
She’s also surrounded by those chasing the same goals and with the same mindset.
As she utilzes resources available at Penn State and identifies collaborations within the department, she finds herself surrounded by others who dared to ask questions that take decades to solve. It’s science on a scale not often rewarded in the private sector.
“We have deliverables, but they’re very different from what a private industry deliverable is,” Lombardo said. “I definitely feel fortunate that we get to just ask whatever questions we want to ask and then go down that particular path.”