Collaborative Research between Lake Nona High School and the 45th Weather Squadron: Year 5

A collaborative research program was formed between Lake Nona High School and the 45th Weather Squadron in 2014. The 45th Weather Squadron is the U.S. Air Force unit that provides weather support to America’s space program at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and NASA Kennedy Space Center. The advanced placement statistics and advanced placement calculus classes at Lake Nona High School performed the research for the 45th Weather Squadron. This was done at no financial cost to either organization. The goal was to do research for 45th Weather Squadron and to increase the high school students’ interests in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) topics. A business paradigm was used where 45th Weather Squadron specified the research requirements and the students decided how to meet those requirements. Therefore, in addition to increasing interest in STEM topics, the students also gained experience in leadership, management, followership, teamwork, planning, and scheduling.

In year-5 of this collaboration, Lake Nona High School is performing three research projects. The first project is completion of a climatology of the Lightning Launch Commit Criteria, the complex weather rules to avoid natural and rocket-triggered strikes to inflight space launch vehicles. The frequency of violation of the Lightning Launch Commit Criteria was determined seasonally, diurnally, by individual rule and for any rule. The data were from observed Lightning Launch Commit Criteria observed during launch windows from 2005-2017. This climatology can be used in extended launch forecasts, mission planning, and setting research priorities in improving the Lightning Launch Commit Criteria. This climatology has already been used to justify and obtain the ‘Cumulus Electrification Study’.

The second project by Lake Nona High School is updating the sources of weather deaths in Florida from 1987-2016. This research provided the number and percent contribution of weather deaths from various weather phenomena. The research also showed that the relative contribution of lightning to Florida weather deaths has been decreasing with statistical significance, falling from the strong leading source of weather deaths to a distant second place. This suggests that the increase in lightning safety education in Florida starting in the late 1990s has been effective. No other source of weather deaths in FL showed statistically significant trends. The sources of weather deaths are used to optimize the weather safety education program by 45th Weather Squadron. In addition, Lake Nona High School increased the outreach to communicate this information to all parties interested in optimizing weather safety education in Florida.

The third project by Lake Nona High School, new this year, is updating the sources of weather deaths from tropical cyclones in the U.S., e.g. in-land flooding, storm surge, wind, etc. Recent work (Rappaport, 2014) showed that storm surge had suddenly increased from seventh to the leading source of tropical cyclone deaths in the U.S. However, that was likely due to a small number of extreme events. This new analysis is restricted to the past decade (2009-2018). This will exclude those extreme events and be more representative of the current sources of weather deaths in the U.S. The authors expect this will be useful in hurricane preparedness education in the U.S.