Virginia Tech Meteorology

Announcement: As I step back from teaching full-time this fall semester, new content on this site will be posted on the Virginia Tech Department of Geography Facebook site. Many thanks to all of the students who participated in our adventures over the years and those of you that regularly followed along here as well! Be sure to bookmark and follow along in the future on the departmental page. Cheers! -Dave
https://www.facebook.com/VTGeography

The very moist air mass that has encompassed much of the U.S. east of the Rockies has moderated overnight lows for much of the summer (in addition to producing conditions favoring heavy rainfall events across the country). Low temperatures finally made it back into the 30’s at our station on the Canaan Valley NWR. Temperatures higher up in protected areas on Dolly Sods likely flirted with the freezing mark the past couple of nights as they are less prone to fogging in compared to Canaan.

First two days of June begin with frosty mornings in the 20’s on the Canaan Valley NWR.

Frosty Memorial Day weekend on the Canaan Valley NWR.

Another day of fieldwork for weather instrumentation as the students completed annual cleaning, maintenance and testing on stations at Virginia Tech’s agricultural research facilities.

Another field work day high atop Apple Orchard Mountain where we reconfigured the guy wire setup. The station is rock-solid and ready to endure the weather extremes on the summit. A picnic lunch in the shade at the Peaks of Otter awaited us after finishing our work!

Summer Instrumentation started out big with a trip to The Mountain State high point: students replaced the power supply system on the Spruce K**b station. This included our largest solar panel to help power the station through tough winter conditions.

Accolades continue to roll in for the VT Meteorology Club as it has been named Top Student Organization at Virginia Tech for the second year in a row. Congrats to the dedicated officers and club members!

That bittersweet time of year has arrived once again as we prepare to bid farewell to our graduating seniors. The annual senior cookout for the college is a much-appreciated send off for our students. Each class plants a tree on campus as a decades-long tradition continues to this day.

The winter weather observational station at Bear Rocks on Dolly Sods in WV has been removed for the season. Hopefully to return next fall! It proved to be a popular station, with nearly 22,000 views in the four months it was operating.

Testing our updated mobile mesonet stations which can now transmit live weather data from the field to the web.

The Geography Department welcomed our past meteorology graduates back to campus for a weekend of activities in Blacksburg. One of the key features of this weekend centers around networking opportunities with our current students. It’s always good to see our Hokie Mets return to their Blacksburg home.