Severe Weather Scientist - Severe Local Storms, Mesoscale Meteorology, Nowcasting

King City Radar Station (King City, ON)

CURRENT S&T / RESEARCH - Contributing to Environment Canada’s mandate to protect the lives and property of Canadians against severe and extreme weather

• Low-level convergence boundaries (lake breeze fronts, thunderstorm gust fronts, drylines) and their relationship to severe weather (heavy rain, hail, damaging wind and tornadoes) and hazardous levels of air pollutants (ozone and particulate matter)
• Bridging the gap between meteorological research and operations via the Research Support Desk initiative at regional weather centres
• Development of advanced prototype tools and techniques for severe weather nowcasting
• Great Lakes lake breeze circulations / fronts and their climatology
• Tornado occurrence and climatology

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES / INTERESTS

Transfer of science knowledge to operational meteorologists through dynamic presentations (e.g., change of season workshops, damage survey training sessions) and real-time interactive learning (via the Research Support Desk)

Co-supervisor of the 1 PhD student and research work by other students via Dr. Peter Taylor at the Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, York University

Professional meeting organization (e.g., 2007 UNSTABLE Science Workshop, Edmonton, AB; 2006 BAQS-Met Science Workshop, Toronto, ON; 2005 3rd MSC Forecasters Forum, Montreal, PQ)

KEY PUBLICATIONS

Taylor, N., D. Sills, J. Hanesiak, J. Milbrandt, P. McCarthy, C. Smith and G. Strong. 2007. The UNderstanding Severe Thunderstorms and Alberta Boundary Layers Experiment (UNSTABLE): a report following the first science workshop 18-19 April 2007, Edmonton, Alberta. CMOS Bulletin SCMO. 35:20-28.

Sills, D.M.L. 2005. The Research Support Desk Initiative at the Ontario Storm Prediction Centre. Meteorological Research Branch Technical Note #-2005-001, Environment Canada, 30 pp.

Sills, D., B. Greaves, N. Driedger and R. Paterson. 2005. Development And Use Of A Prototype Nowcasting System Focused On Optimization Of The Human-Machine Mix. Proceedings, World Weather Research Programme Symposium on Nowcasting and Very Short Range Forecasting, Toulouse, France, Meteo France, DVD-ROM Paper 7.27.

Sills, D.M.L., J.W. Wilson, P.I. Joe, D.W. Burgess, R.M. Webb and N.I. Fox. 2004. The 3 November tornadic event during Sydney 2000: storm evolution and the role of low-level boundaries. Weather and Forecasting. 19:22-42.

Sills, D., P. Taylor, P. King, W. Hocking and I. Nichols. 2002. ELBOW 2001 - studying the relationship between lake breezes and severe weather: project overview and preliminary results. Preprints, 21st Severe Local Storms Conference, San Antonio, TX. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 611-614.

Hastie, D.R., J. Narayan, C. Schiller, H. Niki, P.B. Shepson, D.M.L. Sills, P.A. Taylor, W.J. Moroz, J.W. Drummond, N. Reid, R. Taylor, P.B. Roussel and O.T. Melo. 1999. Observational evidence for the impact of lake breeze circulation on ozone concentrations in southern Ontario. Atmospheric Environment. 33:323-335.