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As the 2007-2008 academic year comes to a close, let me to take this opportunity to reflect on the events of the year in our department. We bid farewell to our graduating senior class. They are off into careers in meteorology, and some are starting graduate studies. In this year's forecasting contest , the SJSU team finished 6th in the nation (6th out of 48). Thanks again to Mike Voss for guiding these students in their forecasting class. Mike himself is a two-time winner of the individual forecasting contest. We are also about to bid farewell to two of our graduate students who are completing their studies. Nick Guy will be defending his thesis (" Convective Systems in the 2006 West African Monsoon: A Radar Study ") this summer and moving to Ft. Collins to work on his PhD at Colorado State . In addition, John Noble will be defending his thesis (" Integration of MGS Observations of the 2001 Global Dust Storm on Mars: Implications for Atmospheric Modeling ") in summer, and starting a PhD at UCSC .Several of our graduate students have presented research work this year. • Emerson Lajoie presented her work on a poster entitled " IPCC Climate Change Scenarios for California Winters: The Impact of Model Sensitivity Parameters " at the at the SJSU College of Science Research Day. • John Noble presented a poster entitled " Integration of MGS Observations of the 2001 Global Dust Storm on Mars: Implications for Atmospheric Modeling " at the same meeting, and also at the Fall 2007 AGU Annual San Francisco meeting. • Nick Guy presented at poster entitled " Radar Observations of West African Monsoon Precipitation: Evolution of the 2006 Monsoon Season " at the same meeting. • Wittaya Kessomkiat presented a poster entitled " California Trends During the 20th Century: Analysis of Spatial and Temporal Uncertainties " at the 4 th Annual California Climate Change Confe rence in Sacramento . • Kari Kiefer presented her work entitled " Plume moisture enhancement observed during FireFlux " at the Seventh Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology in Bar Harbor, ME . Kari and two undergraduate students also attended the AMS' annual meeting in New Orleans , LA. Our graduate students have had a very productive year! On the faculty front, we welcomed our newest assistant professor, Craig Clements , who will be spending part of his summer in/on Greenland ( read his blog ), and part in Georgia conducting field studies. Doug Sinton decided to retire this year, and we had a spirited farewell bash in May. We will be welcoming two new faculty this Fall: Drs. Menglin Jin and John Abatoglou - we are eagerly awaiting their arrival! Our faculty have had an active research year. Bob Bornstein received the AMS's Helmut Landsburg award for his work in the field of Air Pollution Meteorology. Eugene Cordero has been on sabbatical all year, traveling around the world (Mexico, Germany, Spain, Greece, Australia, and now in Boulder, CO) in search of signs of global warming and good food, not necessarily in that order! Doug Sinton, Bob Bornstein, and Craig Clements attended the AMS's 87 th annual AMS meeting in New Orleans . In October Alison Bridger traveled to Boulder to represent the department at the annual Chairs meeting Finally, a word about our weather this year. The 2007-08 rain season is ending on a very low note, with a record-breaking dry spring in the Bay Area. In San Jose , we have had a measly 18/100 ths of an inch of rain since March 1, and no measurable rain since April 23. It's really no surprise that we've already had two significant fire events in the Santa Cruz mountains (fire season is more typically associated with late summer and Fall, when the vegetation is usually most dry). Although we don't have killer blizzards, tornadoes, or hurricanes in California , we still have plenty of weather, and maybe climate change to study and forecast! Hope you all have a productive yet relaxing summer! See you next year! Alison Bridger Chair 6/18/08
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