William A Gallus, Jr.

William A Gallus, Jr.

Position
  • Professor
I am a professor of meteorology, and have been at Iowa State for 25 years. My research interests include improved understanding and prediction of thunderstorm systems, their evolution, rainfall, and severe weather, as well as prediction of winds for wind energy. Convection-allowing numerical models such as WRF are an important part of this research. I also look at how climate change might impact extreme weather events.

Contact

Email
wgallus@iastate.edu
Phone
515-294-2270

Contact Info

3025 Agronomy
716 Farm House Ln.
Ames
,
IA
50011-1051

Education

  • Ph.D., Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, 1993
  • M.S., Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, 1991
  • B. S., Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, 1987

Interdepartmental Programs

Research Objectives:

Warm season rainfall prediction remains a difficult challenge in meteorology, with skill far below that of winter.  This is primarily due to the fact that warm season rainfall comes from thunderstorm systems which are small in scale and often triggered by small-scale features not resolved well by our observational networks.  My research uses state-of-the-art numerical weather prediction models to examine thunderstorm system evolution to better understand how these storms grow upscale, usually during the nighttime hours.  I also investigate techniques to improve the forecasting of thunderstorm rainfall, evolution, and severe weather.  In addition, with the growth of renewable energy in the United States, I have been involved in some work to try to improve the forecasting of parameters important for renewable energy.  This work extends to future climates.