Day one - Friday Aug 3

First day of class!!! We are ready and raring to go! This year we have 18 students attending - a big group! Roughly 2:1 undergrads to grads, with a good group of new grad students. The target again is the North American Monsoon, with our home base in Flagstaff, Arizona. And as usual we are hoping for sustained monsoonal activity, although it does look to be dying down over the next few days.

In class today, we are reviewing the forecasting tools and sites we'll be using for the course, and students will make their first forecast today! In the afternoon they will be reviewing instrumentation, and conducting a balloon launch from the roof of Duncan Hall.

This is our 4th field trip to Arizona, and we've learned a bit more every year. We are looking forward to integrating it all into a wonderful course this year! If the monsoon fails to materialize, there are still plenty of measurements we can make!

If anybody would like to do a rain dance, feel free to get started!