field project was conducted in Oklahoma City and was the largest urban dispersion experiment ever in North America. Because the focus of JU2003 was on atmospheric processes within the urban environment, an extremely dense network of instrumentation was deployed in and around the central business district (CBD) both prior to and during the field experiment. Among the variables collected were high-resolution observations of air temperature from various instrument sources. Additional observations of air temperature were also collected at Oklahoma Mesonet stations in the rural areas surrounding Oklahoma City. Using an index value, the diurnal cycle of the urban heat island (UHI) for Oklahoma City, with respect to the surrounding rural terrain, was quantified. The results revealed a consistent mean nocturnal UHI greater than 1.5°C at both 2 and 9 m. However, observations at 2 m during JU2003 revealed a significant urban ''cool'' island during the convective portion of the day. The mean variability of temperature within the urban core of Oklahoma City increased significantly after sunrise, increased to a maximum near solar noon, and decreased following sunset. These results were inconsistent with the rural observations wherein the variability among sites was maximized during the nocturnal period. Finally, the vertical temperature gradient between 2 and 9 m demonstrated a clear and strong diurnal trend at the rural locations, whereas observations from the urban environment were nearly isothermal and consistent with near-neutral conditions throughout JU2003.

ABSTRACT:The Oklahoma City Micronet (OKCNET) is an operational surface observing network designed to improve atmospheric monitoring across the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, metropolitan area. The 40 station network consists of 4 Oklahoma Mesonet stations and 36 micronet stations mounted on traffic signals at an average station spacing of approximately 3 km. Using several technical innovations as well as existing infrastructure in Oklahoma City, data are collected and quality assured in near real-time at an interval of 1 min for the traffic signal sites and 5 min for the Mesonet sites. Because OKCNET also spans a land use gradient from rural to urban, the spatial and temporal densities of OKCNET observations have shed new insights on atmospheric processes (e.g. the urban heat island, severe thunderstorm evolution) across the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

The lateral collateral ligament is the primary varus stabilizer of the tibiofemoral joint. Diagnosing an injury to this ligament can be challenging in the setting of multiligamentous trauma; however, failure to recognize these injuries can result in instability of the knee and unsatisfactory outcomes after cruciate ligament reconstruction. Recent literature exploring the anatomy and biomechanics of the lateral collateral ligament has enhanced our understanding and improved diagnosis and management of these injuries. Physical examination and imaging studies also are important in diagnosis and can facilitate classification of lateral collateral ligament tears, which affects treatment decisions. Nonsurgical, reparative, and reconstructive techniques can all be used to manage lateral collateral ligament injury about the knee; the optimal treatment is selected on the basis of injury severity.

Flash flooding is a high impact weather event that requires clear communication regarding severity and potential hazards among forecasters, researchers, emergency managers, and the general public. Current standards used to communicate these characteristics include return periods and the United States (U.S.) National Weather Service (NWS) 4-tiered river flooding severity scale. Return periods are largely misunderstood, and the NWS scale is limited to flooding on gauged streams and rivers, often leaving out heavily populated urban corridors. To address these shortcomings, a student-led group of interdisciplinary researchers came together in a collaborative effort to develop an impact-based Flash Flood Severity Index (FFSI). The index was proposed as a damage-based, post-event assessment tool, and preliminary work toward the creation of this index has been completed and presented here. Numerous case studies were analyzed to develop the preliminary outline for the FFSI, and three examples of such cases are included in this paper. The scale includes five impact-based categories ranging from Category 1 very minor flooding to Category 5 catastrophic flooding. Along with the numerous case studies used to develop the initial outline of the scale, empirical data in the form of semi-structured interviews were conducted with multiple NWS forecasters across the country and their responses were analyzed to gain more perspective on the complicated nature of flash flood definitions and which tools were found to be most useful. The feedback from these interviews suggests the potential for acceptance of such an index if it can account for specific challenges.

Objectives: To investigate the association of obesity with fracture characteristics and outcomes of operatively treated pediatric supracondylar humerus fractures.

Flooding is routinely one of the most deadly weather-related hazards in the United States, which highlights the need for more hydrometeorological research related to forecasting these hazardous events. Building upon previous literature, a synergistic study analyzes hydrometeorological aspects of major urban flood events in the United States from 1977 through 2014 caused by locally heavy precipitation. Primary datasets include upper-air soundings and climatological precipitable water (PW) distributions. A major finding of this work is that major urban flood events are associated with extremely anomalous PW values, many of which exceeded the 99th percentile of the associated climatological dataset and all of which were greater than 150% of the climatological mean values. However, of the 40 cases examined in this study, only 15 had PW values that exceeded 50.4 mm (2 in.), illustrating the importance of including the location-specific PW climatology in a PW analysis relevant to the potential for flash floods. Additionally, these events revealed that, despite geographic location and time of year, most had a warm cloud depth of at least 6 km, which is defined here as the layer between the lifting condensation level and the height of the −10°C level. A “composite” flood sounding was also calculated and revealed a characteristically tropical structure, despite cases related to tropical cyclones being excluded from the study.

Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of Levels of Evidence.

During 2007During -2008, a dense network of meteorological stations was deployed across the Oklahoma City metropolitan area to collect real-time, research-quality observations of atmospheric variables throughout the urban environment: the Oklahoma City Micronet (OKCNET). Because surface characteristics can be vastly different between rural and urban areas as well as throughout a city, significant variability exists in the local microclimates observed by meteorological stations deployed in an urban area. As such, documenting the characteristics near any site (i.e., metadata) is critical to fully understand the overall representativeness of the site and the associated evolution of atmospheric conditions. To date, a universal classification system for urban meteorological stations does not exist. Thus, this study utilized four different methodologies to classify OKCNET sites and increase the metadata for the individual sites and the overall network. The results demonstrated that while each classification system had specific merits, significant challenges existed in establishing consistent metadata for the sites due to (a) limitations associated with the methodologies and (b) the heterogeneity of surface conditions. In particular, stations deployed within the transition zones form urban to suburban and suburban to rural posed the greatest challenges in establishing consistent metadata for the sites.