Gustavo Pereira, PhD

Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences

Gustavo Pereira regularly regales his meteorology students with tales from his student days, when he used to head into the Great Plains in search of severe weather. Finding a tornado, Pereira tells them, is like winning the lottery. The odds are small, but the payoff—in terms of excitement and knowledge—is huge.

Students would often ask Pereira to take them storm chasing. And last summer, he was able to make it happen. The College at Brockport, State University of New York, became one of the small number of U.S. colleges to offer a storm-chasing class. Pereira, 17 students and two other faculty members, ventured to the Midwest for a two-week immersive and experiential educational experience.

"The class was a tremendous success," Pereira says. "While we didn't get to witness any tornadoes, we did get to observe some severe weather. The students called it a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I'm eager to offer the course again."

The students flew into Denver to begin their journey. From there, their destination was unknown. Each night, the class would conduct weather briefings to determine the area in which they would be most likely to encounter severe weather. If the class determined that the probability was high enough, they would climb into vans and begin their chase early the next morning. Otherwise, Pereira had a series of lessons and activities planned—including field trips to places such as the National Weather Service.

Students on the trip say it reaffirmed their decision to pursue their course of study.

"I have never seen a tornado before," meteorology major Erin Pratt told the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper. "It's the stuff that excites me—and made me become a meteorology major."