http://www.dri.edu
	Summer 2006

North Carolina State student wins DRI’s Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award

Heather Reeves, a graduate student at North Carolina State University, has won DRI’s 2006 Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences for her study of how a layer of stable air (an inversion) in the Po Valley, Italy affected where and how convection and precipitation occurred in the valley and surrounding areas.

Reeves developed three models to explore why weather and precipitation predictions were not accurate when a stable layer of cold air was present in the valley. Her findings show that the stronger and cooler the inversion, the more convection developed to the south of the Po Valley, rather than where it was originally predicted to occur.

Reeves’ work is significant for weather forecasts because, if stable-layer strength is not predicted accurately, convection and precipitation may be mis-forecast with areas of heavy rain being predicted in the wrong places.

The $1,500 Peter B. Wagner Award is given annually and was established in 1998 by former Nevada Lt. Gov. Sue Wagner in memory of her late husband, Peter, a DRI scientist who died in the 1980 crash of a DRI research aircraft. The national award is intended to encourage women graduate and doctoral students in the atmospheric sciences.