The Second Day of Southwest Florida High School Weather Camp
Waking up at 7:30 AM is not an enjoyable task for me, especially during the summer months when I like to sleep in until about 9:30AM. It brings to mind the unpleasant realization that school, and an even earlier wake-up time, is fast approaching. That I wake so early to attend weather camp, however, makes it bearable.
Day one of weather camp 2017 started very well for me, considering I was busy the day everyone was supposed to meet at Lowdermilk Beach. Day one was a nice refresher about some of the concepts I learned at last year’s middle school camp.
I knew, coming in, that this camp experience would be more intense and thorough in its overview of meteorological concepts, but I recognize that this higher-level knowledge will prepare me well for potential college meteorology courses. I also am realizing that I need more than just weather-related knowledge to succeed in earning a meteorology degree.
Touring the Collier County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) today gave me a broad understanding of how things work for the county-level officials across the country who coordinate many different emergency scenarios (involving local sporting events to county- and state- wide weather disasters). With over 60 individual personnel stations in the operations room at Collier’s EOC, officials and various emergency support staff can work together to help the citizens of Collier County. Listening to Richard Zyvoloski’s presentation about the EOC’s operations, I looked over at the wall and noticed artwork representing the Lee Williams’ and 30th Ave. Fires; looking closer, I saw that Hurricanes Matthew and Wilma, and Tropical Storm Fay were also represented. In all, there were some 20 significant events, in recent years, for which the EOC had been activated.
Returning to camp after our tour, we learned about trade winds and other global wind patterns, and my knowledge of station model plots was refreshed. I remember we learned trade winds last year, but I understood Mike Mogil’s explanation much better this time. The demonstration of global winds using a Pyrex pie plate, milk, and food coloring helped me better visualize the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere.
I also feel much more confident in my knowledge of isobars and isotherms (lines of equal atmospheric pressure and temperature, compared to last year; I recall how much I asked for clarification of atmospheric pressure concepts, and also how frequently I asked for help in my isotherm analyses. This year, I did extraordinarily well, and, in contrast, asked for help only a few times. When finished, I watched on radar as a series of outflow boundaries collided near Miami; one collision between west- and east- moving boundaries caused a fascinating interaction in which the eastward-moving boundary was partially absorbed and, in effect, deflected back west toward the Everglades.
Before closing camp for the day, Mike taught us about stationary fronts, which, again, I learned last year at the middle school camp. However, I did learn some new things today, regarding the wave cyclone model and ways in which areas of either high or low atmospheric pressure work to encourage or inhibit thunderstorm development. In addition to these concepts, I also learned that discrete supercell thunderstorms, which form along cold fronts (e.g., those in the Plains states), are essentially miniature, relatively self-contained, dual high- and low- pressure systems.
Considering all that I’ve learned so far this week, and knowing that I will probably learn much more before the week is over, this high school weather camp has me wishing I could skip the rest of high school and go straight into a college meteorology program!
© H. Michael Mogil and Matt Bolton, 2017
NOTE: As part of the camp experience, student summaries were critiqued by camp leaders and fellow campers. Then, edits and comments were shared in a group setting. This is part of the communication skill-building goals of the camp.