 Dr. Anarelli Morales. And again, we like to meet with people every week from NCAR so that you can learn about what they do in their jobs and answer your questions from those of you who are joining us. And one really cool part about working at a place like NCAR is that there are so many different types of jobs such as being a scientist or an engineer or an electrician or a computer programmer, safety expert, a machinist. All these different jobs and more help support our scientific research. And maybe some of you have sent questions ahead of time, but if you haven't, that's okay, feel free to write those questions in the chat box as we go along and we'll get to them during the breaks or at the end. And it's okay to put in the chat. If I could have right now, if you would enter into the chat box, where you're coming in from today. So we have an idea of where geographically we're seeing people, wait a little bit. Looks like we have, Colorado's represented here, Boulder, Erie, Lafayette, if anyone from out of state, and Chicago. Excellent, that's wonderful. So now I'm gonna turn it over to Dr. Morales who's gonna tell you about what she does and take your questions. Welcome. Awesome, thanks Tim. Hopefully everyone can hear me. Like Tim said, I'm in my home. I live in Boulder, Colorado. My name is Dr. Anareli Morales and I work at NCAR through the man studies program. And today I wanted to talk to you about some experiences I've had chasing storms in Argentina. So first, before I get into all the fun storm chasing I wanna tell you a little bit about me. So let's get to that. I grew up in Chicago, Illinois and I have two younger brothers, Giovanni and George or Jorge and my mom, Francisco is from Mexico. Also have a cat, her name is big. She's currently napping somewhere in the house. I don't know where she is. And when I was younger, I really enjoyed math and science. I liked those classes a lot. And so when I went to college I decided to keep learning about the earth. And so I studied atmospheric science and geology. Let's move over here. And atmospheric science helped me learn more about clouds and storms and the weather. And geology helped me learn about minerals and rocks on the surface and below the surface of the earth. When I graduated school or college I still didn't know what I wanted to be and I had so many questions. So I went, I continued going to school. So last year I finished my 19th grade and I got my PhD or my doctorate degree from the University of Michigan. I also have a master's degree from the Colorado State University. So I've done all the school and I had a really good time. So now I study rain and snow over mountains here in Colorado. So I work at NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and I study rain and snow over mountains because it's really important to know where and how much precipitation will fall because the snow that you see in these mountain peaks stays there in the winter. And then in the summer when it's more dry and we need the water, it melts and it provides water for us to take showers, to brush your teeth, to drink water, to water our plants and our crops. It's super important to understand that the precipitation happens in the mountains particularly for Western states. So Colorado, California, or Washington. So it's very important. And most of my work involves using computer models. So like this picture shows, I'm on my computer running simulations which are just basically making a virtual atmosphere where I can test certain questions and ideas I have on how precipitation falls over mountains. But sometimes I get super lucky and I get to go outside and I get to explore new places and travel the world to study the storms in real life. So this is a picture of me when I went to Argentina. And so you might ask, why go to Argentina to study storms? We have storms here. Well, in Argentina, they have some of the biggest, strongest storms in the entire world. And their storms can produce gargantuan sized hail. This is a new category that was created just for these hailstones that fall there. And they can produce a lot of damage to cars, to property, to crops, and to people. If they were to hit someone, that's really bad because it's so big. And so the mystery is that we don't know why these storms are so big. Why are they so big in Argentina? So to test our hypothesis as to, our hypothesis is that it has, maybe has to do something with the mountains in that region. So to test this hypothesis, we need to gather data. So we went down to Argentina, me and 100 plus scientists from other countries like Brazil, the US, Argentina, and students from all over the world traveled down to Argentina for the Rolampago Field Project. So Rolampago is an acronym that is spelled out here, but it's also planned words because Rolampago in Spanish means lightning. And so there was a ton of lightning there also. So all of us went down in 2018 and we brought a series of instruments, we brought radars, a plane, weather balloons, surface stations, and we all went to study the storms. And so my job in Argentina was to chase storms and gather data. So I will start looping this. Basically, a mission day would be people or the forecasters in the operation center would look at the data, would look at the model forecast to determine where they want to dispatch the teams. And then they would give us coordinates. We would then pack up our van with our instruments, get to the location, find a safe space where we're not in danger of flooding or cars passing by and make sure that there's an area where there aren't any power lines or trees where the balloons can get stuck. And then they place us in a grid so that if a storm forms, we can get information from different angles. And so then once we're set and it's time to launch, we launch our balloon. So here's a little video of me launching a balloon during this day. The balloon goes up into the sky and as it keeps going, it collects data on temperature, wind speed, moisture, pressure, and I believe that's it. It then translates all that into a, or we translate it into this diagram, which we call a SCUT diagram. And then that's used by the forecasters to learn more about what's going on right now. And then also we can use that data in the future to dig deeper into other questions we might have. So, does anyone have any questions at this moment? Looks like I don't see any questions there in the, in our chat yet, but you did mention a SCUT diagram. Could you tell us more about what that is? So a SCUT diagram, basically the word SCUT means that the temperature lines, so some of these lines that are skewed, so they're tilted represent the temperature. So there are various different kinds of diagrams, but the one that we typically use is this one where the temperature lines are tilted. And it's kind of complicated and I don't know all of the history of it, but it's basically a way for us to put as much data on one figure, one graph, to try to understand what's going on in the atmosphere in one location, basically. And it'll tell you how strong the storm could be if it's triggered, the potential for, or the energy available for the storm to rise, if there's sections where there's already cloud or there's sections where it's too dry or just where the layers of the atmosphere are. So I will continue. So during our time there, I had a lot of different memories that we created. So sometimes, or I guess in this case, we had a launch that had to be aborted. So we had to get rid of the balloon. And so Stacy here decided to pop it on a cacti, that cacti that were just there nearby. So that was really cool and we got a picture just when it had popped. Here's a picture of Eric who was struggling to hold on to the balloon because sometimes there were days where it was super windy because the storms were really strong and they had a really strong outflow. So the winds that are coming out from the bottom of the storm where it's raining, it's really, really strong. And you can kind of see that in the back, there's a big, it looks like a dust storm because the winds generated from the storm were pushing dust everywhere. So it could get really windy and it would be really hard to hold on to the balloons and they could get stretched out and be really unruly. And this was one of my first missions where we also, we didn't always go on the daytime. Sometimes we went at night to study the storms. And so here is one event where we went and there was a lot of noisy frogs. So let's see if you can hear them. Let's see. So I'm waiting for the time because there's a specific time where we have to launch. And you can hear all the noise. It was way louder of course. And we were there for maybe six hours and they were going the whole time. So that was really cool. I also had to take a ton of notes during my first week because I had to learn everything and then teach a new team in a couple of weeks. So I have my lab book here. It's waterproof and I can just write with it in a pencil. So I have like a lot of diagrams where I had to draw exactly what the setup looked like so I didn't mess it up. I took a ton of notes. I asked a ton of questions from everyone just to make sure that I had all the information I needed to train the next team. And then finally, some other little tidbits of what happened when I was there. I got to see my first dust devil. So they're basically like when you're outside and you see the whirlwind picking up leaves and it looks like a little tornado, it's that but bigger. And so here you could kind of see some of the dust being kicked up. And so I got to see a lot of those on some of the really hot days. And lots of cool views driving into mountains. Just really amazing mountain ranges I've never seen before. Seeing new animals. I think this is a llama. I've never seen a black llama. They're really, really cool. And then also teaching students in Spanish and meeting new people was really, really fun. And I always like talking to the students because my Spanish accent is different from what they're used to in their Argentine-Spanish accent. So they always thought it was interesting. So I kind of captivated their attention by just speaking regardless of what I was saying. But yeah, so if you have any questions of field work or how it got into field work or any other questions you have, I can take those now. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. And yes, the questions have been coming and one of your colleagues, I think, must be Steven Nesbeth has been helping out with the responses. There were questions about how many balloons per day. And he said probably eight balloons per site and 700 throughout Rampago and maybe 2,300 for the whole campaign. And there was another question about the history of the weather in it. There's studies in the storms in the region that they were the first, you were the first one on the ground is how he replied about satellite study. So hopefully he got that right and trust you. And then there was another question about your favorite part of working in Argentina and why you like being a scientist. My favorite part was actually being in the field. So I'm a, I guess what we would call a modeler. So I use computer models to generate an atmosphere, a virtual atmosphere and then perform tests on it. So it just means that I'm kind of in an office for a lot of the time. And so I can kind of get boring. So I really enjoyed being outside and every single mission was different. So you had to just be flexible and be ready to roll with whatever's happening. So this picture is interesting. This was one of the more intense storms that we had encountered. So we actually were way in the back here at some point. And then we didn't have internet access. So we couldn't look at the radar to see what was happening. And we could only, I think we had a satellite phone or something or some kind of device that we could send messages to. So basically at some point while we were there, we had to leave immediately. So we, this is the safer place that we found. We were told to move from that previous location because something was happening and we had to leave. So it just had to be super fast making decisions and keeping everyone safe. And what's the other question? So there's two more questions that have already come in. And we have a question from Kevin. He was wondering, did the study yield any promising data or results? Yes, it's still, all the results are still coming. There's a ton of research being done. There were multiple components to the project. So some people are looking at the hydrology. So I believe I had some notes on that. So one of the results for the hydrology component is that there's changes in land cover of the region that have been happening over time and those changes in the land cover. So switching from pasture to crops are affecting how quickly the rivers rise. So that's affecting flooding for the storm development itself. Like why do we, is it true that the mountains are affecting the thunderstorms in this region? Yes, it seems to be the orientation and the height of the mountains that are affecting how strong or they're causing or seem to be causing the strong updraft. So the air that goes up that feeds these storms. And then there's still a ton more. There's something about clouds and aerosols, which I don't know what they're doing, but so many people doing research. So just keep an eye out on those results because they're definitely coming. Excellent, and we have yet another question. And this comes from Steph. Is there another specific amount range with weather that you'd like to study? Yes, I would like to study the Sierra's Madre del Sur. They're in Southern Mexico. So I'm currently starting to learn more about their region and I'm studying the precipitation, I guess we call it climatology. So how does the precipitation change throughout the year in this region? Because I have family there and they're all farmers and they heavily rely on the rain from the sky. So any small changes can affect their crops and their yield. So I want to understand the precipitation there better. And it's even more complicated there because there's many mountain ranges and they're all crisscrossing and there's the ocean and there's so many things. But I'm really excited because it's a nice challenge being puzzled. Excellent, and we had another question about that. Halestone, was that you holding the Halestone in the picture and how big was that compared to like an apple or? That was not, I think Victoria, this is Victoria's mom. So Victoria is a teen in Argentina or in Córdoba or Villa Carlos Paz is the city that was holding it. I want to say 23 centimeters, maybe Steve can maybe double check or explain how big it was. But it was pretty big and it might be a world record setting Halestone. Or maybe not that one, another one. They are all like that was an even bigger one. Oh my goodness. And have you done any storm chasing in the United States? No, no, I don't feel confident in my own forecasting abilities to put myself out there. And I also really, really like my car and I don't want it to be damaged by hail. So if I would love to see a tornado someday, I've never seen one, but from really far away, safe location and hopefully it's a tornado that just happening in the plains where there's no people or houses. Perfect. Well, Steven did get back, he got back with us. He said that Halestone was the size, let me make sure I get this correct, of a small cantaloupe. There you go. And in our chat, if you're not in the chat, I recommend you jump in there. There's a link to our Vanguard Explorer series video with that Halestone in it. And also a link to a journal article published recently about that. So it's quite the event having that Halestone drawn. And there's another question. Are there any tornadoes in Argentina? Yes, there are. I believe that there aren't as many as you would expect given the number of storms. I think that's another research question that scientists are looking into, but there are tornadoes. All right. Looks like we potentially have exhausted all of our questions. We'll wait just a second to see if anyone else has any questions out there. Oh, we do have a question. Where would you say the Hale Alley and Tornado Alley are in Argentina? Oh. Not to put you on the spot. I generally are. Don't know where the Tornado Alley is. I feel like the Hale was within this region, which is where we went to study, but don't quote me on that. Steve would know way more than I do. It sounds like a lot of your colleagues are interested in your talk today, so they're here. Yeah, and Vlad, they are here. They have more knowledge for certain things than I do. And so it's great to share our knowledge together. And we did have a question about how far the research site, I looked on your slide, I think it might be clear how far the research site was from the ocean. Is it where your cursor is? Is that the center of where you were? Yes, we were somewhere within here. So I don't know, distance wise, but we're in the center of Argentina, halfway between both oceans. So we never got to see the ocean. We're actually pretty far away from the Andes, when we went to Mendoza, that's when I actually kind of got to see them. But I didn't see them very often. Okay. And Stephen said that the site was about 500 miles to Buenos Aires, from the research site. Buenos Aires being on the coast. There was another question about hail. Did you see any hail while you were in Argentina? Yeah, we did. For the event where we had to run away, basically this event, after this picture was taken, we then went to another location that was a little bit higher ground. Then it started hailing. It was pretty small hail, but then when we drove away, the hail was basically blanketed the whole highway and the grass and everything. So as I was driving, I could feel the car like crushing the hailstones. They looked, I don't know, maybe like a ping pong ball size, but they had already started melting by the time we got there, but there was a lot. And so it's just such a diversity of hail. Some of them would be tiny, some of them would be a little bit bigger. Sometimes the hail would cover a large area and then sometimes they would just be enormous, cantaloupe, more cantaloupe size. It's kind of super interesting there. And it's so, I guess one last thing is to us, that's amazing, this cantaloupe size hail, that's crazy. But to them, that's normal. So for us, we're like, this is so cool. This is like world record hailstones. But to them, we're like, oh, really? Huh, these happen all the time. So it's, I guess it emphasizes the need to connect to other places and go explore other regions besides your own backyard to see what is actually extreme, I guess, and what people's point of view are on different weather events. Well, that's funny that you should mention that because someone just asked, like did the children you spoke with at the schools, did they share any stories of observations with you? Yeah, they were super smart or very knowledgeable on their weather. We went to a location that was on the mountains, a very rural location, and they definitely, we asked them about hail and they immediately were telling us, yeah, sometimes it falls like this, sometimes like this, the clouds look like this. So they knew their stuff. They're constantly observing their surroundings. So they were really, I think we could have learned some more if we kept asking them. Yes, and one of our listeners, viewers has some knowledge and she said that she's seen that the inside of a hailstone look like it has tree ring layers too. Do you know anything about that? Why it would have layers? Yeah, so some hailstones can have layers like onions and they basically go from clear to opaque or so little white, I guess. And I believe that has to do with the freezing mechanism. So if the hailstone happened to freeze really quickly and so fast that air bubbles weren't able to escape, then that layer looks white or milky and opaque. But if the freezing occurred slowly enough that the air bubbles could escape, then it's a lot more clear. And then there's a lot more I could talk about, but that's a whole different kind of an event. But you can definitely Google it and learn more about it, hail growth and hailstones. Well, Dr. Morales, you are an amazing fount of knowledge and it's been really fun to explore the job of, could we call you a global change ecologist? I don't think so. What would you give as a broad title for yourself? I don't know, a mountain meteorologist or- Mountain meteorologist. I like understanding rain and snow on mountains. All right, well, excellent. And for everyone who's listening, if you would like to know more about Rallonfogo, the project in Argentina, you can go to the link above my heads or write in the chat, I'm going to post links to those campaigns and the link to the rest of our Ask NCAR sessions coming up, but please put your hands together virtually for Dr. Morales and thanks for coming.