From Badgers to Lions: The Early Days of Hurricane Modeling (Invited Presentation)

The presentation will focus on the early years of Anthes research career beginning in Madison with Professor Donald R. Johnson in the early 1960’s when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. Anthes moved to Miami during his last 2 years of his PhD studies to work with Stan Rosenthal, also an early tropical cyclone modeler, at the National Hurricane Research Laboratory (NHRL, which later became AOML). In the early years, under Johnson’s influence, Anthes focused on the isentropic framework approach to the numerical modeling of tropical cyclones, but eventually moved toward the sigma system in collaboration with S. Rosenthal at NHRL. We will review some of the early model construction in this regard and some of the early findings published.

After Anthes joined the Penn State faculty in 1971, the Anthes Hurricane model evolved into the Penn State mesoscale model (MM1) and later greatly influenced the development of WRF. The Anthes hurricane model, strongly influenced Kurihara, Tuleya and me in the early 1970’s as we developed the GFDL hurricane model. It also influenced the development of RAMS at CSU, and by the early 1980s Anthes and Cotton were in close collaboration regarding mesoscale dynamics and produced a book in this regard.

At the talk, we will discuss Anthes’ encounters with the research arena here at the University of Wisconsin and the Space Sciences and Engineering Center, and with AOML personnel including William Cotton who developed a lifelong friendship and collaboration with Rick and was greatly influenced in his own approach to modeling. The focus will be on the major breakthroughs made and how they came into being.