Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch

Former Lapenta Intern Interviewed by the BBC

The BBC interviewed Alvin Cheung, 2022 William Lapenta intern and 2021 Colorado State University Research Experience for Undergraduates student, about secondary eyewalls in hurricanes as part of an article entitled “’I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy’: The people who work inside the eye of a hurricane.” While working with scientists Chris Slocum, John Knaff and Naufal Razin, Alvin developed a dataset of secondary eyewall cases from the Tropical Cyclone PRecipitation, Infrared, Microwave and Environmental Dataset (TC PRIMED). With these cases, Alvin worked to advance our understanding of secondary eyewall formation, existence, and routine detection. Alvin and his internship research mentors published these results in a Weather and Forecasting article back in January (Cheung et al. 2024).

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240911-the-scientists-and-chasers-seeking-insights-inside-the-eye-of-the-most-powerful-storms

Cheung, A. A., C. J. Slocum, J. A. Knaff, and M. N. Razin, 2024: Documenting the Progressions of Secondary Eyewall Formations. Wea. Forecasting, 39, 19–40, https://doi.org/10.1175/WAF-D-23-0047.1.

(POC: Chris Slocum, christopher.slocum@noaa.gov; John Knaff, john.knaff@noaa.gov; Naufal Razin, naufal.razin@colostate.edu; Funding: PDRA. Submitted to SOCD.)