Profs & Pints Baltimore: Hunting Hurricanes

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Hunting Hurricanes,” a look at research on violent storms, their impact, and their causes, with Jeffrey Halverson, professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, former NASA hurricane investigator, and author of An Introduction to Severe Storms and Hazardous Weather.

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-hurricane-hunting .]

We are in the midst of the peak season for hurricanes, cause of the costliest and deadliest natural disasters in the United States. But what do you really know about them?

Gain a deep understanding of these violent storms with hurricane scientist Jeffrey Halverson, severe weather expert for the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, long-time writer for Weatherwise magazine, and author of a book that seeks to explain severe and hazardous weather to laypeople.

Before becoming a professor at UMBC—where he teaches courses on natural hazards, weather and climate, and severe storms and their impacts—Dr. Halverson was a NASA scientist who took high-altitude aircraft into developing storms to try to understand why many intensify so rapidly. He’ll discuss what it’s like to be on such missions and to penetrate a hurricane’s eye.

Dr. Halverson will discuss what we are learning about hurricanes using high-tech tools such as satellites and high-definition computer models, and he’ll help you distinguish fact from speculation and outright nonsense regarding what science tells us about such storms. He’ll delve into the debate within the scientific community about the impact of climate change on hurricanes’ frequency, strength, and impacts.

We’ll look back at what was learned from famous Mid Atlantic storms such as Agnes, Isabel, and Sandy, and we’ll examine the outlook for hurricanes in the long term. If you have wondered about your personal risks or how to deal with specific storm forecasts and scenarios, know that Dr. Halverson will happily field questions. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: The eye of Hurricane Edouard as photographed from NOAA Gulfstream IV aircraft in 2002 (NOAA/OAR/AOML/Hurricane Research Division).