Steve Nesbitt

About

Prof. Nesbitt is a Professor and Head of the Department of Climate, Meteorology, and Atmospheric Sciences (CliMAS) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds a joint appointment in the Environmental Sciences Division at Argonne National Laboratory. His research and teaching interests reside in radar meteorology, satellite meteorology, tropical meteorology, mesoscale meteorology, and data science. His work has contributed to the understanding of processes involving deep convective systems and high-impact weather, measurements of and processes within global precipitation systems using satellites, processes in winter storms and snowfall, and understanding precipitation systems in complex orography. He has participated in over 20 field experiments, notably serving as the lead Principal Investigator of the NSF/NOAA/NASA RELAMPAGO field campaign and as a Co-Lead Investigator in the DOE CACTI campaign. He is a co-author of the 2018 textbook Radar Meteorology, A First Course, and has received several awards including the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, NASA New Investigator Program award, NASA Robert H. Goddard Award for Scientific Achievement, and was named a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2025.

Research topics

• Meteorology
• Geography
• Climatology
• Geology
• Environmental science
• Atmospheric sciences
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Physics
• Computer Science

Selected publications

• A Storm Safari in Subtropical South America: Proyecto RELAMPAGO

  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · 2021 · 116 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This article provides an overview of the experimental design, execution, education and public outreach, data collection, and initial scientific results from the Remote Sensing of Electrification, Lightning, and Mesoscale/Microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations (RELAMPAGO) field campaign. RELAMPAGO was a major field campaign conducted in the Córdoba and Mendoza provinces in Argentina and western Rio Grande do Sul State in Brazil in 2018–19 that involved more than 200 scien…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Utilizing a Storm-Generating Hotspot to Study Convective Cloud Transitions: The CACTI Experiment

  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · 2021 · 96 citations

  Abstract The Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions (CACTI) field campaign was designed to improve understanding of orographic cloud life cycles in relation to surrounding atmospheric thermodynamic, flow, and aerosol conditions. The deployment to the Sierras de Córdoba range in north-central Argentina was chosen because of very frequent cumulus congestus, deep convection initiation, and mesoscale convective organization uniquely observable from a fixed site. The C-band Scanning Atmosph…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Gargantuan Hail in Argentina

  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · 2020 · 72 citations

  Abstract On 8 February 2018, a supercell storm produced gargantuan (>15 cm or >6 in. in maximum dimension) hail as it moved over the heavily populated city of Villa Carlos Paz in Córdoba Province, Argentina. Observations of gargantuan hail are quite rare, but the large population density here yielded numerous witnesses and social media pictures and videos from this event that document multiple large hailstones. The storm was also sampled by the newly installed operational polarimetric C-ba…

  DOI

• The Coupling Between Tropical Meteorology, Aerosol Lifecycle, Convection, and Radiation during the Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex)

  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · 2023 · 65 citations

  Abstract The NASA Cloud, Aerosol, and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP 2 Ex) employed the NASA P-3, Stratton Park Engineering Company (SPEC) Learjet 35, and a host of satellites and surface sensors to characterize the coupling of aerosol processes, cloud physics, and atmospheric radiation within the Maritime Continent’s complex southwest monsoonal environment. Conducted in the late summer of 2019 from Luzon, Philippines, in conjunction with the Office of Naval Research Propagation…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Convective-Storm Environments in Subtropical South America from High-Frequency Soundings during RELAMPAGO-CACTI

  Monthly Weather Review · 2021 · 41 citations

  Abstract During the Remote Sensing of Electrification, Lightning, and Mesoscale/Microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations-Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions (RELAMPAGO-CACTI) field experiments in 2018–19, an unprecedented number of balloon-borne soundings were collected in Argentina. Radiosondes were launched from both fixed and mobile platforms, yielding 2712 soundings during the period 15 October 2018–30 April 2019. Approximately 20% of these soundings were collected…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Using RELAMPAGO Observations to Understand the Thermodynamic, Kinematic, and Dynamic Processes Leading to Heavy Precipitation

  NSF · $687k · 2017–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Edward J. Zipser

  University of Oxford

  54 shared

• Greg M. McFarquhar

  52 shared

• Daniel J. Cecil

  Marshall Space Flight Center

  48 shared

• Paola Salio

  44 shared

• Timothy J. Lang

  Marshall Space Flight Center

  26 shared

• Robert J. Trapp

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  26 shared

• E. Richard Toracinta

  The Ohio State University

  25 shared

• Robert M. Rauber

  21 shared

Labs

• Steve Nesbitt's LabPI

  Not provided

Awards & honors

• NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship
• NASA New Investigator Program award
• NASA Robert H. Goddard Award for Scientific Achievement
• Distinguished Visitor of the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba…
• Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (2025)

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