The van den Heever Group
Convective Storms
Microphysics and Aerosols
Cold Pools
INCUS
Drones
RAMS Model
tobac
Research News
Impacts of Aerosols Across Models
Steve led a Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences paper which compared aerosol impacts in eight cloud-resolving models. The models show a consistent response to increased aerosol loading in the warm-phase, but not the ice-phase.
Lake Effect Snow Enhancement
Group alum Ben Ascher had the second half of his MS work recently published in Monthly Weather Review. Using cleverly designed model simulations, Ben and his coauthors investigated the impacts of Lake Huron on snowfall downwind of Lake Erie.
Validating Cold Pool Theory
Using sondes launched by the van den Heever group in three field campaigns, Nick led a Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences paper which validates a cold pool propagation speed equation that has been used for over 50 years.
Comparing Ku, Ka, and W Band Spaceborne Radars
A new paper led by group alum Randy Chase and published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology demonstrates that Ka-band spaceborne radar missions, like NASA’s INCUS, can characterize global convection in a similar manner to past Ku-band missions.
Missing Variability in Reanalysis Data
In a new Geophysical Research Letters study, Peter Marinescu et al. ask: How Much Convective Environment Subgrid Spatial Variability Is Missing Within Atmospheric Reanalysis Data Sets? Read the paper to find out!
Forest Breeze–Cold Pool Interactions
Former group member, Ben Ascher, had his MS work recently published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, showing that forest breezes are important for initiating convection along forest boundaries, but that cold pools can play a key role in propagating the forest breezes themselves.
Group News
2025
October 14: The van den Heever group welcomes Mathilde Ritman, a student who will be visiting the group for the next several weeks. Mathilde is a DPhil student in Philip Stier's group at the University of Oxford. Mathilde studies the properties of anvil clouds and how factors such as convective mass flux can impact these properties. The group is looking forwards to collaborating Mathilde and showing her around Fort Collins!
September 2: Sue is named the 2025 ATS Outstanding Professor of the Year! This award honors Sue's exceptional instruction in the classroom. This is Sue's fourth time being named professor of the year! Read more about this award here.
August 25: This week, group alum Aryeh Drager started as an assistant professor in SUNY Oswego's meteorology program. He is currently teaching introductory meteorology, as well as an elective in micrometeorology for meteorology majors. Aryeh is excited to be teaching and conducting research with undergraduate students, and he can't wait to see his first waterspout over Lake Ontario.
August 4: Group alum Bee Leung begins her new job at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. She will be an Anna Julia Cooper postdoctoral fellow, and will start her position at as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Fall 2026. Congratulations Bee, the group sends its well-wishes!
June 8 - July 29: Leah, Christine, and Nick, along with group alum Sean Freeman and his student Kyra Britton, participate in the RAM-CINC field campaign. Christine, Nick, and Kyra spent six weeks on the RV METEOR in the tropical Atlantic, as a part of the larger METEOR research cruise M211. The RAM-CINC team conducted targeted drone flights in and around cold pools to understand their thermodynamic properties and impact on aerosols. These novel observations will advance our understanding of cold pools in this remote region. Click here to read more about the other activities during cruise M211.
June 24: Jennie, Peter, and IT organized and chaired a special session on INCUS at the AMS Mesoscale Conference in Boise, ID. All three also presented on the exciting science being done on the INCUS project, such as quantifying the variability of storm environments, understanding the importance of ice processes in storm anvil clouds, and discovering the origins of strong updrafts. Click here to read more about the special INCUS session. Charles also presented his work on bioaerosol transport at the AMS Mesoscale Conference and gave a talk on Leah's research on measuring cold pools.
May 16: Well-wishes and congratulations to the group members who earned their degrees in the Spring 2025 semester: Nick Falk (PhD) , Charles Davis (MS), and Bee Leung (PhD)!
May 9: Bee was conferred the Maria Silva Dias award, given annually to a senior PhD student in the department for outstanding research. Congratulations, Bee!
May 5: Congratulations to Brenda, who won the CSU College of Engineering Outstanding Researcher Award!
April 30: Bee successfully defended her PhD dissertation, “Aerosol and Land Surface Impacts on Tropical Convective Processes”. She recently accepted a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. She will be an Anna Julia Cooper postdoctoral fellow beginning August 2025, and will start her position at as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Fall 2026. Congratulations, Bee!
April 16: Bee wins a third place Outstanding Student Presentation Award at the 2nd Symposium on Cloud Physics at the annual American Meteorological Society (AMS) meeting in New Orleans, LA. She gave a talk entitled "Convective Mass Flux and Surface Precipitation Across Tropical Convective Life Cycles" looking at the impact of grid spacing on storm characteristics from the INCUS simulation dataset. In the talk, she showed that isolated and organized convection have opposite resolution sensitivity in terms of their peak convective mass flux.