Atmospheric scientist and Smithsburg native Angela Rowe poses atop Greys Peak in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Rowe lives in Fort Collins, Colo. Her research focuses on how mountains influence storms. (Submitted photo) |
Growing up near Smithsburg, Angela Rowe was fascinated by weather, often sitting on her back porch to watch thunderstorms roll through the mountains until her mother made her go inside.
“When I was in elementary school, we had a really, really bad windstorm,” she said. “I had a little playhouse-type thing that was near a tree, and (the wind) picked it up and slammed it against a tree. I was so amazed that the wind could do that.”
Today, Rowe, 28, has turned that fascination into a career as a globe-trotting atmospheric scientist conducting potentially lifesaving research about storms.
Since finishing her Ph.D. in atmospheric science at Colorado State University this summer, Rowe has been working part time for the Center for Typhoon and Society in Taipei, Taiwan.
This month, she is aboard a research ship in the Indian Ocean, where she is the lead radar scientist for a project funded by the National Science Foundation.
“It’ll be a very unique experience,” Rowe said in a phone interview before leaving on the research trip at the end of September. “I’m a little bit nervous because I’ve never been on a ship, but I feel like I’m pretty prepared.”
The ship embarked from Phuket, Thailand, and was to remain stationary on the equator for about five weeks. Rowe’s job is to make sure the radar successfully scans storms over the ocean, which it has been hypothesized influence a pattern that affects the weather all across the tropics, she said.
For Rowe, the path to this career began during her senior year at Smithsburg High School, when she interned with the morning meteorologist at what was then NBC25 in Hagerstown.
“He tried to get me up in front of the green screen, and I tried it a few times and said ‘This isn’t really for me,’” she said. “I was more fascinated about learning (how weather works). I had a lot of questions for him.”
Rowe went on to major in meteorology at Millersville University near Lancaster, Pa. There, she confirmed her interest in the research aspect of meteorology and had a 10-week internship in Oklahoma using radar to estimate the size of hail in severe storms.
During that program, Rowe also had an opportunity to go “storm chasing” with a group of experienced meteorologists.
“It was really exciting,” she said. “We saw multiple tornadoes in one day the first time I ever went storm chasing. People can chase their whole lives and never really see anything.”
The adrenaline-packed experience marked the first time Rowe had ever been frightened by the weather, but being so close to the power of nature only furthered her obsession with weather, she said.
As a graduate student, Rowe studied radar data on the North American monsoon, a weather pattern that brings increased summer rainfall to northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Rowe analyzed where precipitation occurred relative to the mountains to better understand their role in the process.
In the spring of 2008, she continued that line of research during her first international field project, the Terrain-Influenced Rainfall Experiment in southwestern Taiwan. There, the more well-known Asian monsoon brings torrential rains during May and June, Rowe said. As large weather systems move onshore in Taiwan, they interact with steep mountains, leading to disastrous and sometimes deadly flooding and landslides, she said.
“It was fascinating,” Rowe said of her first monsoon experience. “Kind of a torrential rainfall. It’s so heavy and lasts for so long, an area where there’s seemingly hardly any water can have rushing water in no time.”
In the summer of 2010, she returned to Taiwan to continue her research during a 10-week study-abroad program. During that trip, she visited the ruins of a village that had been buried by a landslide during Typhoon Morakot in 2009, killing nearly 500 people.
The village was deep in the mountains, and Rowe could see the hole on the side of a steep mountain face where a chunk of the mountain had broken loose and fallen onto the village.
“There was one building left,” she said. “One house left standing.”
Without much technology, villagers in that remote region rely on forecasters to notify their village leader of the need to evacuate, and the typhoon struck at night when communication was limited, Rowe said.
The disaster led to the formation of the Center for Typhoon and Society, where Rowe now works. The center’s mission is to improve not only forecasts, but the ability to warn and prepare people for weather-related emergencies, she said.
Rowe divides her time between Fort Collins, Colo., and Taiwan as she continues to study the interaction between the large, rain-producing systems and the mountains.
“We gear our research to how we can better help forecasters warn people,” she said. “The goal is to answer the question, ‘When’s it going to rain, where’s it going to rain, and how much is it going to rain?’”
The memory of her visit to the buried village is never far from Rowe’s mind.
“It was truly a humbling, life-changing experience,” she said. “I realized how much I wanted to help in any way I can to better warn these people of such hazards.”
“When I was in elementary school, we had a really, really bad windstorm,” she said. “I had a little playhouse-type thing that was near a tree, and (the wind) picked it up and slammed it against a tree. I was so amazed that the wind could do that.”
Today, Rowe, 28, has turned that fascination into a career as a globe-trotting atmospheric scientist conducting potentially lifesaving research about storms.
Since finishing her Ph.D. in atmospheric science at Colorado State University this summer, Rowe has been working part time for the Center for Typhoon and Society in Taipei, Taiwan.
This month, she is aboard a research ship in the Indian Ocean, where she is the lead radar scientist for a project funded by the National Science Foundation.
“It’ll be a very unique experience,” Rowe said in a phone interview before leaving on the research trip at the end of September. “I’m a little bit nervous because I’ve never been on a ship, but I feel like I’m pretty prepared.”
The ship embarked from Phuket, Thailand, and was to remain stationary on the equator for about five weeks. Rowe’s job is to make sure the radar successfully scans storms over the ocean, which it has been hypothesized influence a pattern that affects the weather all across the tropics, she said.
For Rowe, the path to this career began during her senior year at Smithsburg High School, when she interned with the morning meteorologist at what was then NBC25 in Hagerstown.
“He tried to get me up in front of the green screen, and I tried it a few times and said ‘This isn’t really for me,’” she said. “I was more fascinated about learning (how weather works). I had a lot of questions for him.”
Rowe went on to major in meteorology at Millersville University near Lancaster, Pa. There, she confirmed her interest in the research aspect of meteorology and had a 10-week internship in Oklahoma using radar to estimate the size of hail in severe storms.
During that program, Rowe also had an opportunity to go “storm chasing” with a group of experienced meteorologists.
“It was really exciting,” she said. “We saw multiple tornadoes in one day the first time I ever went storm chasing. People can chase their whole lives and never really see anything.”
The adrenaline-packed experience marked the first time Rowe had ever been frightened by the weather, but being so close to the power of nature only furthered her obsession with weather, she said.
As a graduate student, Rowe studied radar data on the North American monsoon, a weather pattern that brings increased summer rainfall to northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Rowe analyzed where precipitation occurred relative to the mountains to better understand their role in the process.
In the spring of 2008, she continued that line of research during her first international field project, the Terrain-Influenced Rainfall Experiment in southwestern Taiwan. There, the more well-known Asian monsoon brings torrential rains during May and June, Rowe said. As large weather systems move onshore in Taiwan, they interact with steep mountains, leading to disastrous and sometimes deadly flooding and landslides, she said.
“It was fascinating,” Rowe said of her first monsoon experience. “Kind of a torrential rainfall. It’s so heavy and lasts for so long, an area where there’s seemingly hardly any water can have rushing water in no time.”
In the summer of 2010, she returned to Taiwan to continue her research during a 10-week study-abroad program. During that trip, she visited the ruins of a village that had been buried by a landslide during Typhoon Morakot in 2009, killing nearly 500 people.
The village was deep in the mountains, and Rowe could see the hole on the side of a steep mountain face where a chunk of the mountain had broken loose and fallen onto the village.
“There was one building left,” she said. “One house left standing.”
Without much technology, villagers in that remote region rely on forecasters to notify their village leader of the need to evacuate, and the typhoon struck at night when communication was limited, Rowe said.
The disaster led to the formation of the Center for Typhoon and Society, where Rowe now works. The center’s mission is to improve not only forecasts, but the ability to warn and prepare people for weather-related emergencies, she said.
Rowe divides her time between Fort Collins, Colo., and Taiwan as she continues to study the interaction between the large, rain-producing systems and the mountains.
“We gear our research to how we can better help forecasters warn people,” she said. “The goal is to answer the question, ‘When’s it going to rain, where’s it going to rain, and how much is it going to rain?’”
The memory of her visit to the buried village is never far from Rowe’s mind.
“It was truly a humbling, life-changing experience,” she said. “I realized how much I wanted to help in any way I can to better warn these people of such hazards.”
