The Environment Analytics Research Group has deep expertise in the analysis of large data sets at the intersection of environmental conditions, ecology, and infrastructure.
We use big data and machine learning for weather and climate decision support as well as basic research. We have extensive experience distilling large data sets and combining information from multiple sources including multispectral satellite, radar, lidar, in situ meteorological measurements, and numerical weather model output.
Current and recent projects within our research group at North Carolina State University:
Winter Weather
NASA–IMPACTS (Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms) [1/2019 – 12/2024]
NASA’s IMPACTS website
NASA IMPACTS 2023 Field Catalog
NASA IMPACTS 2022 Field Catalog
NASA IMPACTS 2020 Field Catalog
NSF–Collaborative Research: Extensive Field Observations and Modeling to Understand Multi-band Precipitation Processes within Winter Storms [8/2019 – 7/2023]
Winter Storm Regional Radar Movies
Model Evaluation and Weather Decision Support
US Navy Office of Naval Research–Marine Boundary Layer Characteristics, Clouds, and Air-Sea Interactions Matching Observations and Model Forecasts to Diagnose COAMPS and NEPTUNE Weaknesses [1/2021 – 12/2024]
Delta Air Lines Meteorology Weather Prediction Model Verification [6/2019 – 6/2021]
Marine Clouds and Precipitation
NSF–Collaborative Research: Mechanisms Governing Synoptic-scale, Rapid Cloud Dissipation in Subtropical Marine Low Clouds [7/2017 – 7/2022]
Products and Resources
Northeast US Regional NEXRAD radar mosaics of winter storms from 1996-2023
Tomkins et al. (2023) Dryad archive Part 1 [Dataset]
Tomkins et al. (2023) Dryad archive Part 2 [Dataset]
This dataset contains over 14,000 hours of regional radar mosaics over the northeast US from 600+ winter storm days between 1996-2023. Winter storm days are defined when at least 2 out of 15 surface stations in the northeast US produced at least 1 inch of snow over the 24 hour period. Sequences of these mosaics aid in analyzing the precipitation area and the structures within winter storms. Radar reflectivity data is combined from the first, lowest (0.5 degree) elevation angle from 12 NEXRAD WSR-88D radars in the northeast US. The scans occur every 5-10 minutes from each radar depending on the radar scan settings. This product is different from other widely used radar mosaics such as the MRMS produced by NOAA since it does not interpolate to a constant altitude and thus preserves the finer scale details in the reflectivity field. Because the data used to create these mosaics are not interpolated to a constant altitude, the altitude varies over the region (altitudes of radar scan used at each grid point are provided as a field for each data file). This data set is specifically designed to analyze fine-scale structures in winter storms.
Part 1 contains files for 1996-2012 before dual-polarization integration so files only contain reflectivity. Part 2 contains files for 2012-2023 after dual-polarization integration so files contain reflectivity, correlation coefficient, and muted reflectivity field.
Pressure Sensor Networks Dashboard used for research on atmospheric gravity waves. There are currently regional networks in the New York Metro area, Eastern Long Island, Toronto Metro area, and Raleigh, NC using low cost high precision pressure sensors designed and built by Matthew Miller.
MicroRainRadar Resources Page for links to software and storm perusal web pages from our vertically-pointing radar deployments.
Weather-Flow is an extension of the EarthNullSchool tool for greater utility in college-level education. This visualization aid provides a more intuitive depiction of atmospheric flow and interactions among winds, pressure, and temperature and their changes with altitude. Includes current data and archived data back to September 2018.