Supervisor:

Location: Monash

Time: Summer

Severe hail storms represent a major hazard along the central east coast of Australia, with previous events causing billions of dollars in damage. Ground-based radars are an ideal tool for studying these storms as they provide three-dimensional observations of their structure at high spatial (~1 km) and temporal (~5 min) resolution.

Using archived observations from the Bureau of Meteorology’s operational radar network, 8-year hail climatologies have recently been developed for Brisbane and Sydney. So far, these datasets have been used to quantify the frequency of hail storms in these regions, explore their spatial, seasonal, and diurnal variations, and characterise the environments in which they form.

The proposed project will extend this work by investigating the lifecycle of hail storms through the application of a storm-tracking algorithm. Characteristics such as storm size, velocity, and intensity will be examined for severe hail storms and compared to those for non-severe storms. The results will serve to supplement existing guidance for severe weather forecasting in the Brisbane and Sydney regions.

 Requirements: Some programming experience with a data analysis and visualisation language such as Python, Matlab, or IDL is a requirement.

 

If you are interested in this project, please fill out the application form.