Episode 11 - Weather in the Line of Fire (Part I: The Incident Meteorologist)

Show Notes

Hosts:  Jeff Cunningham and Ryan Harris

Guest: Alex Hoon, Senior Meteorologist at NV Energy

Description:  Alex Hoon from NV Energy joins us this week to talk about his time “deploying forward” to help battle wildfires out west armed with his weather skills and tactical technology to help him do the job.  He spends time breaking down the three elements of the fire triangle (topography, fuels, and weather) and talks about the unprecedented conditions that led to some of the deadliest wildfires in the last decade and U.S. history and even an EF-3 Fire Tornado.  While unfortunately several dozen people lost their lives in two such fires in 2018, the work done by incident meteorologists like Alex save countless lives each year by applying expert weather information to a dynamic environment.  This is Part I of a two-part show with Alex.

References:

• Wettest 24 hours in nearly a century for Dallas-Fort Worth (Yale)
• Dallas-Fort Worth rain record (NWS)
• Nevada says goodbye to grass due to climate change (CBS)
• China extends power curbs amid heatwave, drought (Reuters)
• The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce energy insecurity (Brookings)
• No water, no micro-chips; what is going on with the drought in Taiwan (Forbes)
• 2018 Carr Fire (Wikipedia)
• 2018 Camp Fire (Wikipedia)
• NOAA’s Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) Viewer

Weather and climate in the news

(0:03:15)

From the Air Force to incident meteorologist

(0:16:57)

Technology used by IMETs to battle wildfires

(0:19:50)

Weather on the front lines of the devastating 2018 Carr Fire

(0:25:50)

The fire behavior triangle

(0:28:11)

Fire tornado alert

(0:36:50)