The HUB

Last week in Pennsylvania I took a few days to revisit some old haunts and favorite places including, for the first time in decades, the main campus at Penn State. Once there there were only a few hours to spare, and it rained the whole time, which was fitting because I remember many days like that in State College. (That's why I live where I do now.) Having read about and seen pictures of the changes at University Park, I was curious about how it would feel in person. I was especially interested in the feel of the HUB, and was pleasantly surprised. Although much has changed, the HUB still feels like a nice place to walk by/through while traipsing across campus. One of the changes is a garage next door, with space reserved for visitors. So I was able to park and then walk around the outside of the building without getting too wet. Viewed from the front, along Pollock Road, the HUB looks much different outside on the right side. But on the left side, pictured below, except for the brick pavement not much has changed since I first saw it almost 40 years ago.

This is what used to be called the HUB Ballroom. Now it is known as Alumni Hall. In addition to me, taking the picture, the other odd character in this setting is the guy sitting inside looking out up against the window on the right. (The other images in the windows are reflections from the outside.) It is Alumni Hall, so I guess he is an alumnus.

I only remember being in the HUB Ballroom for one event, and it was when I was still in high school. On the last night of Boys State there was a banquet in the ballroom. It had been a heated week-long campaign. My county (dorm-floor) was mostly supportive of our favorite son candidate. My roommate was a really nice guy. But he and one or two other people on our floor supported the other candidate. From dawn to dusk he and I would join our separate camps. Then while others were sleeping we would continue our running conversation: How can you support this?; Well what about you, how can you support that? My candidate lost by a significant margin, portending the real national election that fall. To make things worse, the banquet speaker was a Nixon speechwriter.

Until the banquet, the Boys State activities had been confined to the east side of campus, far to the left of the picture above. I wasn't impressed. But on that last night, approaching along Pollock Road, then resting in the shade of the big trees that predated the original HUB, I was impressed with the look and feel of the campus. Our party had decided that during the speech it would be important to protest the blatant real campaign agenda in the choice of the speaker. (Some things never change.) Despite the tension in the ballroom, I was preoccuppied with enjoying the view looking back out the windows.

The original trees started disappearing before my freshman year, and additions to the original HUB started that year. But the new trees have filled in nicely, and there are still good views and reflections into and out of the entire building. It's nice that they've managed to retain some of the look and feel of the original HUB. It's also nice to know that it still rains in State College, so that the trees will keep growing.

Pittsburgh Radar, July 25

It happens that the Pittsburgh radar, as well as the Phoenix radar, is an early test site for dual polarization. Not long after the Pittsburgh upgrade there was flash flooding in an area about 30 miles southeast of the radar. There were no fatalities, unlike a later event in Pittsburgh.

The image above is at 12:35 PM local daylight time. Thunderstorms by then were organized along two lines: one old, the other newly developed. The older, solid line of thunderstorms was oriented east-west and had been moving slowly to the south, reaching a position generally along highway I-70 (the thin red line in the background map generated by NOAA/NCDC's Weather and Climate Toolkit). The brown lines in the background map crudely approximate county boundaries, with the meandering brown line segments being where the county boundaries coincide with the Monongahela River. The flood reports (Donora, Allens Crossroads, Fayette City) were within a few miles of the point where I-70 crosses the river/county boundary. By this time a new, broken line of thunderstorm cells had formed in an area elongated west-southwest to east-northeast (from the southwest quadrant of the image toward the middle), with cell movement toward just slightly north of east. The severe flooding occurred where cells of the new line met and merged with the older line.

The differential reflectivity was higher at the western end of the old line and for most of the cells in the new line. It was lower in the area affected by flooding. It would be nice to think that the new information available after the dual-polarization upgrade would contribute to improved automated estimates of rainfall. But it would also be nice to think that the new information would better enable human forecasters to confidently, quickly, precisely and accurately communicate a flood threat.