NSSL Staff Profiles

Thea is a research associate with CIWRO/NSSL in the Warning Research and Development Division. Her research interests include radar data associated with severe storms, tornado prediction and detection, and machine learning. She also collaborates with the Probabilistic Hazards Information and the Warn-on-Forecast System teams to provide probabilistic guidance for tornadoes, and occasionally joins the NOXP crew for field projects. Additionally, Thea is involved with several NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed Experimental Warning Program experiments and works towards research-to-operations goals by collaborating with National Weather Service forecasters. Other areas of interest include work with TC tornadoes, software development in WDSS-II, generating big datasets relating to tornadic storms, tornado warnings, severe storm reports, as well as mentoring and working with students.

Sandmæl, T. N., B. R. Smith, A. E. Reinhart, I. M. Schick, M. C. Ake, J. G. Madden, R. B. Steeves, S. S. Williams, K. L. Elmore, T. C. Meyer, 2023: The Tornado Probability Algorithm: A Probabilistic Machine Learning Tornadic Circulation Detection Algorithm. Weather and Forecasting, 38, 3, 445–466, doi:10.1175/WAF-D-22-0123.1.

Sandmæl, T. N., B. R. Smith, J. G. Madden, J. W. Monroe, P. T. Hyland, B. A. Schenkel, T. C. Meyer, 2023: The 2021 Hazardous Weather Testbed Experimental Warning Program Radar Convective Applications Experiment: A Forecaster Evaluation of the Tornado Probability Algorithm and the New Mesocyclone Detection Algorithm. Weather and Forecasting, 38, 7, 1125–1142, doi:10.1175/WAF-D-23-0042.1.

Homeyer, C. R., T. N. Sandmael, C. K. Potvin, A. M. Murphy, 2020: Distinguishing Characteristics of Tornadic and Nontornadic Supercell Storms from Composite Mean Analyses of Radar Observations. Monthly Weather Review, 148, 5015–5040, doi:10.1175/MWR-D-20-0136.1.