Employee Spotlight: Meet Michael Mueller

Michael Mueller
Michael Mueller

May 26, 2016

CIRES Research meteorologist Michael Mueller began working in PSL's Hydrometeorology Modeling and Applications Team in December 2014. The focus of Mike’s work is heavy precipitation and moisture transport in the western United States. He has used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to generate precipitation ensembles at the remote and data-sparse Taylor Park watershed in Colorado. The Bureau of Reclamation uses these scenarios to add a probabilistic dimension to streamflow and reservoir inflow analyses for dam safety risk assessments. While pursuing this work, he served as a forecaster and mission scientist for the CalWater 2015 and El Niño Rapid Response-SHOUT field campaigns. Here, he saw firsthand the impacts of atmospheric rivers (ARs) in the western United States. These experiences led him to explore moisture transport through the Pacific Northwest during an AR event that caused record precipitation at Montana's Glacier National Park.

Prior to joining PSL, Mike ran a meteorological consulting business serving snow and ice removal companies in the Midwest. He earned his PhD at Saint Louis University in 2013 by conducting data denial studies to test the impact of privately funded in-situ observations on high-resolution WRF-driven forecasts. In his spare time, he loves cooking, ping pong and hiking with his wife.

Visit Michael's staff profile page for more information.