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February 13, 2009

ULM professor to deliver presentation on Hurricane Gustav

ULM faculty member, Boniface J. Mills, Ph.D., will deliver a poster presentation at the Sixth Annual Southeastern Coastal and Atmospheric Processes Symposium.

Mills, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, will attend the symposium on Feb. 27-28 in Mobile, Ala.

His poster, “Surface Pressure Observations from Portable and Land-Base Stations in Hurricane Gustav (2008),” shows how scientists used portable equipment to supplement land-based observations when investigating Hurricane Gustav’s pressure field and inland decay.

The University of South Alabama and the USA Coastal Weather Research Center are symposium sponsors.

Gustav ranks as the 52nd most intense landfall hurricane between 1900-2008. The hurricane caused severe coastal and inland wind and flood damage in Louisiana, including major flooding in Ouachita Parish and many other northern parishes.

It also holds the record for the highest wind gusts ever recorded, 212 miles per hour.

Supplemental data from small sensor/recorder devices provided high spatial central pressure analysis and additional ground-truth to hurricane models for predicting maximum wind speeds and radius prior to and after landfall.

Mills teamed with Scott Blair, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Topeka, Kan., and Blair’s wife, Jillian, assistant director for Douglas County Emergency Management in Lawrence, Kan., to study the hurricane’s effect.

The Blairs are alumni of ULM and veteran hurricane field researchers; both majored in atmospheric science while attending the university.

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