In the news...

After the AMS conference, I spent most of my waking hours writing lectures for the skepticalscience.com MOOC Denial 101 on climate change denial and getting them peer reviewed, then filming them in our Educational Technology Center.  Let's just say reading off of a teleprompter is not my favorite pastime.  Thanks to Scott for his patience with my multiple takes!

Meanwhile, the data finally came out on 2014, and it turns out it was the warmest year on record globally.  Warming continues.  This news made the "above the fold" of the NY Times, although not the first time global warming has been front page news this year.

Here are a few of my pictures from that morning.

One morning during the Front Range's mixed-precipitation and fog event, I noticed some special frost on the trees.  It was hoar frost!  (Or they were rime formations, the jury is still out on that one.)  This rare event made national news, which was pretty exciting. 

Check out the unique formations!

American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting 2015

I had the opportunity to go to the AMS annual meeting in Phoenix January 4-8 and present a research poster.  I spent most of December doing the final analysis for this poster.  Yes, it's true, "break" just means us professors don't have to teach classes, although I did get in a good week of much-needed family time in Wisconsin.

I had some prime real estate-- right next to the snacks!

I had five meteorology students and three other meteorology faculty from our program join me in Phoenix.  Thanks to MSU Denver student travel for making it possible for the students to be exposed to such awesome science!  It was so much fun and I couldn't be prouder of my students!  They presented their research, attended talks, and most importantly, when given a spare key to my hotel room so they could store their luggage on the last day, didn't short-sheet me! 

MSU Denver Alumni Happy Hour

We held a MSU Denver Alumni happy hour and got to meet up with some successful graduates of our program.  I also got to attend the alumni gathering of my own alma mater, the University of Wisconsin.  I met up with my old mesoscale meteorology professor who took a group of us seniors to the meteorology lab at the top of Storm Peak at Steamboat Springs for a week back in 2004.  It was my first time in Colorado and he attempted to teach me how to ski.  That trip was the reason I ended up in Colorado for graduate school.  I saw some other good friends.  It's funny how many of us meteorologists have Wisconsin connections. 

One night the Science Center was rented out for our organization and the students and I went and enjoyed all of the exhibits. 

This one simulated the weather:  wind, rain, thunder.  It was awesome!  Wet, but awesome!

We had a few opportunities to enjoy Science on a Sphere that week.

There was a neat exhibit on health and the boys got to race, then learn about the heart.

This room had all kinds of digital-interactions.  This was a fun one, but I didn't snag a picture of them kicking digital aliens, darn!

My poster had a few key visitors that made it all worth the rush.  (Thank you!)  I got some great ideas for where to go from here and I look forward to exploring the data even more this spring. 

I'm in Science Magazine!

Okay, okay, I didn't publish a research article in Science, but I did manage to get my picture and a short paragraph in their January 2nd issue.  I was pretty excited.  (So was my mom!)

Check out the other course ideas here:  http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/22.full.pdf