Atmospheric Dynamics @ St Andrews, led by Simon Lee in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, focuses on understanding large-scale atmospheric variability and predictability, with an emphasis on subseasonal and seasonal timescales in the extratropics.
By leveraging a wide range of datasets – including observations, multi-model large ensemble forecast model output and targeted model simulations – we examine the dynamical processes that influence weather and climate patterns, and assess whether models can accurately represent and predict them.
Particular areas of interest include stratosphere–troposphere coupling, sudden stratospheric warmings, weather regimes, annular modes, jet streams, subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction, teleconnections, large ensembles and model biases.
About Simon
I am a Lecturer (~Assistant Professor) in Atmospheric Science in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES) at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.
Prior to joining St Andrews, I was a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics (APAM) at Columbia University in New York City. I obtained my PhD and MMet degrees from the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, UK, and spent time in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma during both my MMet and PhD. I served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the RMetS journal Weather from 2020–2025.
I have been interested in weather and climate from a very young age – I’ve written a little bit about that in this Weather in my life article. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do atmospheric science for a living, and I am indebted to numerous great scientists for their inspiration, mentorship, and collaboration.
I am originally from North Yorkshire, and have a fondness for outdoor activities including running, hiking, and road cycling. I also enjoy storm chasing in the US Great Plains, and have seen many tornadoes. My photo of a tornado near Forgan, OK on 17 May 2019 features in the frontispiece of the second edition of Introducing Meteorology: A Guide to Weather by Jon Shonk.
You can also find me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
