Weather and Forecasting Research at MIT

Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate (PAOC) has a vibrant synoptic meteorology program. Through analysis of hourly weather data and numerical weather prediction models, students become familiar with basic principles of synoptic meteorology and weather forecasting.

Using the facilities of PAOC synoptic laboratory and associated computational resources, research is carried out in:

(*) study of severe weather including storms, blizzards and tropical cyclones
(*) use of data assimilation and forecasting as tools to better understand the physical system and, hopefully, improve models
(*) studies of probabilistic, or ensemble, forecasting methods which take account of model error.

In parallel with these research activities, we engage graduate, undergraduate, postdoctoral scientists and faculty in hands-on weather forecasting by participating in the national collegiate weather forecasting competition, WxChallenge, and producing regular forecasts for the MIT newspaper.