at 9:09 AM by Mallory Schnell

Pi’s Connection to Weather

This past Saturday was a celebration for math nerds all around the world, as the “perfect” Pi Day occurred for the first and only time this century. The numbers of Pi (3.141592653…) were represented in Saturday’s date – March 14, 2015 – and the special day was taken even further to be celebrated at 9:26:53 AM and PM. Pi is an irrational constant that is used to represent the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

Capital Weather Gang wrote a recent article on how pi is connected to weather; as a physical science, meteorology consists of quite a bit of math, and Pi is an important element that helps us understand the weather systems we study. Below is an excerpt from the aforementioned article:

Pi is also integral in global weather system models, like the GFS and European, which take advantage of the Earth being shaped like a sphere notes Brian McNoldy, Capital Weather Gang’s tropical weather expert.

McNoldy also points out Pi is embedded within the equation that describes the scattering of light by spheres, known as Rayleigh scattering, which relates to why the sky is blue.

At the most basic level, we use Pi to calculate the volume of water in a raindrop (since raindrops are spheres).

So while math nerds were rejoicing this past Saturday, weather nerds had their own reasons to celebrate Pi Day. For more of this article, check out Capital Weather Gang’s website.