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CCU professor explains hurricane phenomenon

October 15, 2004

Using satellite imagery animation, Coastal physics professor Louis Keiner will reconstruct this year’s hurricane season and explain how and why the deadly storms form and move as they did. His presentation, titled “What You Still Don’t Know About Hurricanes,” will be given on Tuesday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. in Coastal’s Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts, room 253. The event will be repeated on Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Collins Law Enforcement Center in Myrtle Beach. Both events are free and open to the public.

Keiner will talk about forecasting and explain how atmospheric phenomena such as El Niño influence the number of storms that occur in a season or over several seasons. Though his presentation focuses the 2004 season, in which Hurricanes Charlie, Frances and Jeanne devastated the Florida coast, Keiner will also talk about significant storms of the past, including Camille, Hazel and Hugo.

Keiner, who joined the Coastal faculty in 1998, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from Wake Forest University and a Ph.D. in marine studies from the University of Delaware. Prior to joining Coastal, he did postdoctoral work as a programmer for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

This public discussion is one of a series of 50 such events planned during 2004-2005 by Coastal’s College of Natural and Applied Sciences to commemorate Coastal’s 50th anniversary. For more information, call 349-2202.