Spectrum

Nonprofi t Organization U.S. Postage PAID Mount Pleasant, MI 48859 Permit No. 93 College of Science and Technology ET Building 200 Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant, MI 48859 Taking the nation by storm Faculty work featured on coalition's brochure cover When Leigh Orf sent his computer image to an author of the software he was using, he originally intended it for an online gallery. Instead, the work by CMU's associate professor of meteorology now is featured on the cover of a Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC) brochure and may open doors to future collaboration regarding his research. The software author felt the image was a perfect candidate for a national CASC brochure cover competition, and Orf's visualization of a tornado supercell was chosen from 80 illustrations submitted nationwide. The cover image depicts a snapshot in time of a numerically simulated supercell thunderstorm. Rather than chase storms to find information, Dr. Orf runs a sophisticated numerical weather prediction model, which essentially "grows" a realistic supercell thunderstorm. Orf recreates storms using the National Center for Atmospheric Research's "Vapor" software. "It's fun to make 'pretty pictures,' that also convey useful scientific information and This computer image of a tornado supercell, created by meteorology associate professor Leigh Orf, won a nationwide contest and may open the doors to future research collaborations. offer insight into how the atmosphere works, " Orf says. The goal of Orf's research is to improve our understanding of processes leading to tornado formation in supercells – the most powerful type of thunderstorm. Having his image displayed on the cover brings national exposure to Orf's research at CMU. CASC is committed to solving some of the world's most challenging scientific and engineering problems and receives a wide range of visibility within the areas of simulation and visualization. •

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