Unraveling the Mysteries of the Tropics: A Tribute to Bill Gray

I first met Bill Gray in 1970 when he visited the Joint Typhoon Warning Center on Guam where I was serving in the U.S. Navy as a Typhoon Duty Officer. While I had not known much about Bill previously, it was clear after his seminar and visit that here was a rather special individual. His passion and insight about the hurricane/typhoon problem and the tropics in general was like nothing I had ever seen. Then as a grad student at the University of Washington during the period of GATE, I found myself referring often to Bill’s work on tropical cloud clusters and the up-moist/down-dry paradigm that he was advancing. Therefore, upon learning in 1979 that I was to join Bill at CSU as a faculty colleague, I was elated.

The hallmark discoveries on tropical convection, the diurnal cycle, and hurricanes have been comprehensively reviewed in a recent Bulletin article by Klotzbach et al. In this talk I will refer to those that have directly influenced research in our group involving tropical convection and the diurnal cycle, as well as recount some of the many fond memories in my 45 years of association with Bill.