Dr. Doug Miller

Doug Miller is waiting for rain. Like most people in Western North Carolina, Miller, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at UNC Asheville, is worried about dwindling wells and parched lawns. But he has even more at stake. Miller and Ana P. Barros of Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering are banking on a $689,164 NASA-funded rainfall study on the clouds opening up. The 18-month study, which launches this month, will begin to examine the nature of rainfall in the Western North Carolina mountains.

The Appalachian Mountains create unique weather patterns, explains Miller. "The way clouds form over the Midwest can be quite different than how they develop over mountains," he said. "There are a lot of aspects about cloud formation and rainfall over mountains that atmospheric scientists just don't know anything about."

Miller and three UNC Asheville students will help Barros begin to unravel the mystery of mountain rainfall patterns. The UNC Asheville team is working this month to place some 30 high-tech rain gauges at different remote sites in the Pigeon River Basin in southern Haywood County. The devices have the capacity to collect and record rainfall via small battery-powered computer packs attached to the gauges. Students will periodically check on the gauges and computer packs and will also download the data to send back to Barros to process and analyze.

Barros is grateful for the help of the students who are willing to hike up remote mountain sides in the name of science. She's also glad to draw upon Miller's expertise.

"Dr. Miller has been involved in numerous meteorological field experiments and so he brings valuable knowledge and experience essential for this experiment," Barros said. "UNC Asheville is located near the Pigeon River Basin, so this collaboration is logistically valuable. But most of all, I am extremely pleased to involve UNC Asheville students in the study."

Barros points out that the gauges are being placed this month to take advantage of the potential of late summer storms and hurricanes that may pass over the mountains. Presently, there are almost no rain gauges at high elevations in the Appalachians, which creates challenges in accurately estimating rainfall when predicting the weather.

"Dr. Barros will analyze the data that UNC Asheville students collect. This information will be fed back into NASA's satellite algorithms, which may improve their precipitation estimates and in turn may lead to better rainfall forecasts for the mountains," said Miller.

The UNC Asheville students are eager to get the gauges in the field and begin the research. The student team is made up of Robbie Munroe of Farquay Verina, N.C.; John Allard of Virginia Beach, Va.; and Chris LaValley of Myrtle Beach, S.C. All are atmospheric science majors and have taken classes with Miller.

Allard concedes that he needed a summer job but said, "I could never have imagined having a job this fascinating. It's a dream come true."

LaValley is equally pleased to participate and is hopeful that the research will lead to more accurate predictions in five to ten years. And he grins when he says, "I'm also doing it to give meteorologists a better name. A lot of people give us a hard time when we predict the weather!"