Dr. Matthew D. Brown Parker

Convective Storms Group

Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences

North Carolina State University

Welcome! I am a Professor in the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at NC State University, and the faculty advisor for the Convective Storms Group.

Our current research focuses on the dynamics of convective storms, including tornadic supercells and mesoscale convective systems (MCSs). Such storms and systems have great impact upon our society owing to the hazardous weather they produce, and owing to their copious precipitation (which is critical to the water budget in large parts of the Americas). Some meteorological topics of ongoing interest to our group include: impacts of low-level wind and thermodynamic profiles upon supercells and tornadogenesis; storms' sensitivities and interactions in the high-shear regime that spans the MCS-supercellular spectrum; low-level kinematics and dynamics of elevated convection; and, climatology and dynamics of convective storms in the eastern U.S., especially those that occur in environments with low instability.

At NCSU, each spring I teach Mesoscale Weather Analysis and Forecasting for undergraduates. In the fall I teach graduate courses, including Mesoscale Modeling, Dynamics of Mesoscale Precipitation Systems, and Atmospheric Convection. In the past, I have also taught undergraduate courses such as Dynamic Meteorology I and II. NCSU students looking for course materials: please proceed to WolfWare/Moodle.

I have been a mobile soundings coordinator for the VORTEX2 (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes, 2009-2010), PECAN (Plains Elevated Convection at Night, 2015), VORTEX-Southeast (2016), and PERiLS (2022-2023) field projects, which form the basis of much of the ongoing research in our group. I also recently served the atmospheric sciences community as an editor for the American Meteorological Society's Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences (JAS).

I am always looking for potential graduate students who are interested in the dynamics of storms! For more on what my group studies, and opportunities for support, please visit the navigation tabs at the top of this page.