Lance Bosart's 20 Years of Contributions to Operational Research, Part I: History and Scientific Contributions

Motivated by high-impact, low-predictive skill weather events across the northeast United States, Dr. Lance Bosart has made operationally focused research a hallmark of his nearly 50-year career in meteorology. By establishing a strong, cooperative research relationship between students and faculty at the University at Albany (UAlbany) and forecasters at National Weather Service (NWS) Forecast Office in Albany, New York and NWS centers and labs, Lance has been instrumental in transitioning critical research findings pertaining to warm- and cool- season hazardous weather into operations. In this, the first of two posters celebrating Lance’s contributions to research with direct operational application, the history and major scientific contributions of the dynamic UAlbany-NWS partnership will be explored.

Beginning in 1995 with a Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology and Training (COMET) grant to study the effects of terrain on severe weather in the Capital District of New York state, continuing through the most recent multiscale, multi-project Collaborative Science, Technology, and Applied Research (CSTAR) grant, Lance has participated in 18 successful UCAR- and NOAA-supported grants which increased scientific understanding and improved forecasters’ situational awareness of high-impact weather events. These grants have supported the Masters and PhD research of over 25 graduate students, who worked closely with both UAlbany faculty members and NWS focal points, to address significant operational forecast problems identified by forecasters, including mesoscale banding in snowstorms, heavy rainfall events preceding tropical cyclones, and the contributions of localized flow around complex terrain to the development of severe convection. The major scientific findings of these projects, among others, will be summarized, emphasizing conceptual models that have become an integral part of the research to operations success of Lance’s work.