University of Queensland library – full of hailstones instead of books – is helping researchers better understand and predict damaging storms.
University of Queensland library – full of hailstones instead of books – is helping researchers better understand and predict damaging storms.
Dr Joshua Soderholm, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow from UQ’s School of the Environment, and lead researcher PhD candidate Yuzhu Lin from Penn State in the US, have found storm modelling outcomes change significantly when using real hailstones.
“People tend to think of a hailstone as a perfect sphere, like a golf ball or cricket ball,” Dr Soderholm said.
“But hail can be all sorts of weird shapes, from oblong to a flat disc or have spikes coming out – no two pieces of hail are the same.
Read more at: University of Queensland
The trajectory of naturally shaped hail inside the simulation of a thunderstorm. (Photo Credit: Matthew Kumjian, Penn State)
