UPSTORM: Training the Next Generation of Meteorologists by Providing Leadership and Active-Learning Opportunities to Undergraduates

The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) offers unique leadership opportunities for undergraduates in the Department of Atmospheric and Earth Science through field operations as members of the student organization UPSTORM - the UAH Profile Sounding Team for Operational and Research Meteorology. Through hands-on experiences, students learn different aspects of field work including, but not limited to, weather balloon launches, data collection, radar interpretation, training on mobile radar / profiling systems, and teamwork. During the most recent field campaign, The Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment-Southeast (VORTEX-SE), UPSTORM participated in Meso18-19 which entailed ten intensive observation periods during which radiosondes were launched every 6 hours during a 48-hour period. During potential severe weather events across north Alabama, UPSTORM members deploy to launch weather balloons before, during, and after the storms passage in order to provide critical atmospheric data for research field campaigns, as well as to the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Huntsville, which is not an upper air office. UPSTORM currently boasts around sixty students between the undergraduate and graduate level, with students getting involved as early as the first semester on campus. Each member undergoes training each semester on the preparation involved to launch weather balloons, Python and SHARPpy use, and the set-up process of several data collection instruments used in the field. These opportunities through UPSTORM help pave a path of success in all prospective fields of meteorology.