Leanne Blind-Doskocil

Howdy! I'm a first-year master's student co-advised by Drs. Robert Trapp and Stephen Nesbitt. Before attending UIUC, I received my bachelor's in meteorology and minor in oceanography at Texas A&M University. As an undergraduate, I launched weather balloons during the VORTEX-SE field campaign and maintained weather instrumentation at the Texas A&M Mesonet. I also conducted a virtual internship with the NWS WFO in Juneau, AK where I investigated the varying strengths and impacts associated with atmospheric rivers (ARs) across SE AK to aid forecasters in predicting AR events.

My graduate research examines the dynamics and environmental conditions that produce tornadic quasi-linear convective systems (QLCSs). I am primarily interested in the factors that cause a QLCS mesovortex to become tornadic and how QLCS forecasting techniques can be improved. Currently, I am analyzing the predictability of tornadic QLCSs using the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) atmospheric model. In the spring of 2022, I will participate in the Propagation, Evolution, and Rotation in Linear Storms (PERiLS) field campaign that will collect data on QLCS events throughout the SE U.S.