TEACHING MESOSCALE METEOROLOGY IN THE AGE OF THE MODERNIZED NATIONAL-WEATHER-SERVICE - A REPORT ON THE UNIDATA COMET WORKSHOP/

This report summarizes discussions that took place during a Unidata Co operative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education, and Training (COMET) workshop on Mesoscale Meteorology Instruction in the Age of t he Modernized Weather Service. The workshop was held 13-17 June 1994 i n Boulder, Colorado, and it was organized by the Unidata Users Committ ee, with help from Unidata, COMET, and the National Center for Atmosph eric Research staff. The principal objective of the workshop was to as sess the need for and to initiate those changes at universities that w ill be required if students are to learn mesoscale and synoptic meteor ology more effectively in this era of rapid technological advances. Se venty-one participants took part in the workshop, which included invit ed lectures, breakout roundtable discussions on focused topics, electr onic poster sessions, and a forum for discussing recommendations and f indings in a plenary session. Leading scientists and university facult y in the area of synoptic and mesoscale meteorology were invited to sh are their ideas for integrating data from new observing systems, resea rch and operational weather prediction models, and interactive compute r technologies into the classroom. As a result, many useful ideas for incorporating mesoscale datasets and analysis tools into the classroom emerged. Also, recommendations for future coordinated activities to c reate, catalog, and distribute case study datasets were made by the at tendees.