00:01 - From the band family studios in the department of

00:04 - meteorology and atmospheric science at penn state

00:08 - this is whether world.

00:21 - Good evening and welcome to weather world on this Thursday is the twenty seventh of

00:25 - August i'm Marissa burger alongside Ben Robert and Ben

00:28 - the humidity is up and storms are beginning to fire

00:31 - yeah and depending on where you were today it's been very

00:33 - very different parts of eastern Pennsylvania basically raining from start to finish

00:37 - other areas just seeing sun start to finish and everything in between

00:41 - we'll talk about where we go from here in just a moment

00:43 - okay well Ben will give us those details as he just

00:45 - that in just a moment also tonight Rob lilac sits down

00:48 - with the new interim Dean for the college of earth

00:51 - and mentor all sciences to talk about his new role

00:53 - and some of the fascinating research he's done in the past but first here has been.

00:58 - Very much Marisa this is the third Thursday in a row

01:00 - that we have been talking about thunderstorms blossoming

01:04 - over Pennsylvania although today the coverage has not been as great

01:08 - but

01:08 - areas that did see the storm some have seen multiple rounds today eastern

01:12 - Pennsylvania started the day socked in with

01:14 - clouds and some areas of showers and downpours

01:17 - such as the Harrisburg area and breaking into

01:19 - some sunshine for awhile at the middle of the day

01:21 - at sunshine combined with the high humidity has now allowed for more rounds of

01:25 - showers and storms this afternoon you can even see one of those

01:28 - cumulus clouds growing tall there in the distance

01:30 - from this camera we can visualize all of this much better on the satellite and radar

01:34 - first thing this morning several batches of rain and thunderstorms in eastern penn

01:38 - sylvania some of it not even really letting up down along the i ninety five corridor

01:43 - then throughout much of the rest of the commonwealth

01:45 - a fairly quiet day with sunshine and high humidity

01:48 - now that helping to fuel some showers storms and downpours along a cold front

01:52 - is moving through from northwest to southeast i think we'll have some action over the

01:56 - next several hours and then all of this will calm down down pretty quickly

01:59 - once we lose that daytime heating tonight

02:02 - in areas that have seen rain for a while today temperatures have not gotten much

02:06 - higher than the low seventies from doylestown down to Philadelphia

02:10 - most areas in central Pennsylvania made it into the low and middle eighties today

02:14 - and then far north and west where that cold front is already slipping through

02:17 - also down in the seventies there but the bigger story has been a return

02:21 - to the high humidity dew points within or above or within

02:25 - shouting distance or above seventy

02:27 - over most of the commonwealth helping to fuel

02:29 - some of those downpours

02:31 - that high humidity is not long lived a front as i mentioned is moving across

02:35 - Pennsylvania already as we speak it's in Northwestern pa

02:39 - behind that that will shut off the showers and thunderstorms

02:42 - there are less clouds on the other side of the front and there is much less humidity

02:46 - all associated with a bubble of high pressure that

02:48 - is situated out across the western great lakes

02:51 - that is in our future

02:52 - but it is going to take a little bit of time

02:55 - to fully build in

02:56 - so here's the setup on the surface map this evening

02:59 - there the front coming through Pennsylvania right now the showers storms and

03:02 - downpours will continue for a few hours out ahead of it.

03:05 - This friend is going to start to lose some of

03:07 - it's a forward momentum it's going to slow down so

03:10 - it will still be trying to cross through Pennsylvania during the day tomorrow

03:14 - eventually it will stall not too far to our south and east but i do think it will get

03:18 - out of the state that mean by tomorrow evening

03:20 - high pressure will be allowed to build in

03:22 - clear us all out drop the humidity setting

03:24 - us up for a gorgeous evening tomorrow evening

03:27 - and then on Saturday the high sits right overhead

03:29 - that right now looks like the pic of the weekend temperatures maybe even a few

03:32 - degrees below average comfortable humidity levels

03:35 - and a lot of sunshine so we really just have to get

03:37 - through the next few hours of the really active weather

03:40 - here's one of our computer models interpretations of this the most

03:44 - intense weather

03:45 - some downpours some potentially strong to severe storms continuing through eastern

03:48 - Pennsylvania through about eight nine ten o'clock

03:51 - there can also be some others along the actual front itself but

03:55 - it all tends to quiet down once we get certainly to about midnight and thereafter

03:59 - tomorrow morning

04:00 - all quiet in the east meanwhile dense fog developing north and west and then in the

04:04 - afternoon we should see a fair amount of sunshine

04:06 - the only fly in the ointment

04:08 - could be a shower or too far to the south and east that would just be about it

04:13 - so tonight those strong storms and downpours especially in central and eastern

04:16 - Pennsylvania early that will calm down

04:19 - dense fog Google will then begin developing in central

04:21 - and western Pennsylvania particularly where it rain

04:24 - all in all just a few lucky

04:26 - spots could see a glimpse of that lunar eclipse peaking just after midnight but

04:30 - i don't know that i would bet the farm on it

04:33 - tomorrow some stubborn clouds and humidity south

04:34 - and east where it will also still be a warm day

04:37 - meanwhile dropping dew points lots of sunshine and quite comfortable north and west

04:41 - Saturday the pick of the weekend i'm calling it August awesomeness

04:45 - seasonably mild low humidity.

05:08 - In.

05:12 - Penn state's academic programs are divided among more than a dozen colleges the penn

05:17 - state department of meteorology and atmospheric sciences house within

05:20 - the college of earth and mineral sciences

05:22 - which celebrates his one hundred and thirtieth anniversary this year.

05:26 - Tonight we're pleased to welcome

05:27 - interim John Leon Dean the college of earth and mineral sciences John morrow who took

05:31 - over the position this summer John welcome to

05:33 - weather world thank you so much Rob for having me on

05:35 - yeah so you previously served as the department head

05:38 - of material science and engineering here at penn state

05:41 - what's the transition been like going from

05:43 - heading a department to now overseeing a college while sometimes it feels like

05:46 - drinking from a firehose but fortunately we have outs standing staff here both at the

05:50 - college and among all of our departments so

05:53 - they are very willing to tell me everything i need to know even before i think to ask

05:58 - they have made this transition as smooth as possible

06:00 - unfortunately i know the other departments pretty well too so

06:04 - I've got good relationships with

06:06 - the faculty and the students and i'm eager and excited to take this one

06:11 - yeah there have been any surprises as you've taken on this new role

06:14 - while i dunno about surprises because i already knew about all the the outstanding

06:18 - achievements from our students and from the faculty

06:21 - but one thing that did surprise me is the connections between the research and the

06:25 - different departments for example

06:27 - when i was touring the department of meteorology

06:29 - eg in atmospheric science there was research there

06:32 - related to the nucleation and growth of ice crystals

06:35 - and that is actually very similar to some of the work that we do in the department of

06:39 - materials science and engineering so for a lot of folks at home who may not realize

06:43 - the role of the Dean you've actually kind of

06:46 - had some recent opportunities to take on a greater

06:49 - capacity being a cheerleader for all of these us right

06:52 - yes yeah i was really surprised when i and also dr Barbara

06:56 - Arnold who is the chair of our mining engineering program

06:59 - within the college we got invitations to go visit the white house

07:03 - last week for a roundtable discussion with

07:06 - high level administration including president trump.

07:09 - This was real related to the importance of mining engineering for the country

07:13 - both from an economic point of view and from a national security point of view

07:17 - so the white house gathered together all fourteen of the able accredited

07:21 - universities in mining engineering

07:23 - and they set us with the mission of doubling or even

07:26 - tripling the number of graduates that we produce

07:29 - in mining engine hearing

07:30 - president trump also announced one hundred million

07:33 - dollars in new funding to help support these efforts

07:35 - so we were really excited by the news

07:38 - and we look forward to taking the next steps

07:40 - great to have a seat at the table and be an

07:42 - advocate for our programs here at penn state

07:44 - you've done some innovative research

07:46 - innovative research i have your own in fact it includes a lion glass you're at penn

07:50 - state you call invented lion glass what is that

07:53 - oh great question thank you for asking so lion glass

07:55 - is a new type of glass composition that is named after

07:59 - our nittany lion mascot here at penn state

08:01 - and lying glass is designed to be a replacement for standard glass products like

08:07 - glass windows in your houses and office bill buildings

08:10 - the glasses that you drink out of

08:12 - glass packaging for food and for beverages and this is made from a glass cold soda

08:18 - lime silicate which has not changed in a very long time.

08:22 - Sodium silicate is called that because two of the main ingredients are soda ash

08:26 - and limestone both of these are carbonate materials which means

08:30 - they melt

08:31 - they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

08:34 - and it leads to a pretty substantial carbon footprint

08:37 - the other issue is the very high melting

08:38 - temperatures that are required to melt this glass

08:41 - so what languages does is it proposes a completely new formulation

08:46 - of the underlying glass chemistry that

08:48 - first of all completely eliminates the use of carbonates

08:51 - so that contribution to the carbon footprint is gone

08:54 - and it also greatly lowers the melting

08:56 - temperature by about four hundred degrees celsius.

09:00 - What are some of your goals kind of thinking about that research and the students

09:03 - involved with those breakthroughs graduate and undergraduate

09:06 - what are some of your goals in your in your role as interim Dean

09:09 - absolutely so one of the great things about our college of earth and mineral sciences

09:13 - is how students have the opportunity to conduct

09:15 - really relevant meaningful research even

09:18 - during their undergraduate years

09:20 - I've had several students work in my lab when they were undergraduates

09:24 - many of them continuing on to graduate school to earn their phd also one of the

09:29 - things that we pride ourselves in is the opportunity to give students all

09:33 - of these

09:34 - opportunities to conduct research

09:36 - to do volunteer leadership

09:38 - to really connect

09:39 - with outreach

09:40 - to the broader community our number one goal as

09:43 - a college and as a university is student success.

09:47 - So we first of all need to

09:49 - make sure that when students come here they they know

09:52 - all of our outstanding programs that we have to offer

09:54 - but once they get through the door here we need to do

09:56 - everything we can to make sure they are prepared to succeed

10:00 - so we

10:01 - to support them

10:02 - academically

10:03 - and in terms of their growth outside the classroom.

10:07 - Are some of the ways that you continue to be involved with

10:09 - undergraduate and graduate students here at the university

10:12 - oh great question so here in the college of earth and mineral sciences we have a

10:16 - welcome event for all of our new freshmen who are coming in

10:19 - it's called teams and this takes place at lake race town

10:22 - and it was my pleasure to introduce our new class of students last week their.

10:27 - Students are core to what we do that is our core

10:30 - mission as a university and so everything needs to

10:33 - revolve around that at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels.

10:37 - Sciences face unique challenges in recent years

10:41 - in your role as interim Dean how are you involved with kind of best positioning the

10:44 - college to support departments like meteorology and others

10:48 - great question so first thing to note is that as you mentioned at the beginning

10:51 - our college of earth and mineral sciences is one

10:53 - hundred thirty years old now in penn state as a whole

10:56 - goes all the way back to eighteen fifty five so we've been around

11:00 - for a long time time and we've gone through.

11:03 - Some terrible global situations from two world wars great depression and so on

11:08 - every time we've emerged stronger so it is true that now

11:12 - we are dealing as a generation just like all the generations before us

11:16 - with some major challenges that we need to face with respect to

11:20 - medicine and the the environment

11:22 - and energy

11:24 - social issues as well

11:26 - and the way to address those is through education so even though

11:30 - we face these challenges we have all the keys that

11:32 - we need right here to address them it's it's through

11:35 - our education it's through innovations that take place

11:39 - in our research

11:40 - and most importantly it's

11:41 - it's through the students that we train

11:43 - i know you feel the same way that when we are

11:46 - educating the next generation of students that they're coming here

11:49 - not just to learn but to have a positive impact on society it's what

11:54 - inspires me as i come each day

11:56 - absolutely well thank you so much for being here on whether well tonight here's to a

11:59 - great fall semester ahead YouTube thank you Rob

12:02 - thank you

12:02 - well dr John moral enron John Leon Dean of the college of arts and

12:06 - sciences here at penn state thanks for being

12:07 - here and we'll be back in just a moment with more

12:11 - and.

12:21 - Thunderstorms and downpours will continue for the next few hours in central and

12:24 - eastern Pennsylvania and then they will taper off

12:27 - eventually dense fog will begin developing in central and north western Pennsylvania

12:31 - in between that leaves a couple of hours where a few lucky spies could get a glimpse

12:35 - of the partial lunar eclipse which peaks just after midnight but

12:39 - i don't know that i would bet on that

12:41 - necessarily after the dense fog in the morning things will start to become rather

12:45 - bright from northwest to southeast during the day although

12:48 - some clouds and humidity will remain stubborn and far southeastern Pennsylvania by

12:52 - the way there could also be one or two spot

12:54 - showers down there but otherwise it's a dry day

12:57 - dropping dew points setting up for a gorgeous evening for the first week

13:01 - of Friday night football tomorrow night it's looking really good

13:04 - Saturday also looking really good at this point if you like an awesome August day

13:08 - morning fog again giving way to plentiful sunshine co comfortable humidity levels

13:13 - once again seventy six to eighty five will do it on the high side

13:16 - and i'm calling that the pick of the weekend because by Sunday the humidity will

13:20 - already start to be coming up along with the temperatures

13:23 - okay well we just need to get through this evening make sure if you are in one of

13:27 - those flash flood prone areas to turn around don't drown

13:30 - upset then as we go into tomorrow and Saturday enjoy every bit of it

13:34 - bet alright thank you so much for joining us here this evening tomorrow night we have

13:37 - two weeks of forecasting for the labor day weekend will see them.