Dave Sills

Research and Projects

Contributing to the protection of the lives and property of Canadians against severe and extreme convective storms

• Lead research on tornadoes, derechos and downbursts in Canada and their climatologies as Director of the Northern Tornadoes Project

• Serve as principal investigator with the Northern Hail Project

• Serve on the leadership team for the Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory

• Help to develop advanced techniques for severe thunderstorm detection and nowcasting

 

Professional activities / interests

• Serve on the ASCE Tornado Wind Speed Estimation (EF-Scale) Standards Committee

• Serve as Associate Editor for the scientific journals Atmosphere-Ocean (continuing) and Monthly Weather Review (past)

• Provide scientific reviews of journal manuscripts (e.g. Bulletin of the AMS, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Weather and Forecasting, Atmospheric Environment, Atmospheric Research, Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, Hydrological Processes, Journal of Climatology, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Alternatives)

• Transfer of science knowledge to meteorologists, engineers and emergency managers through dynamic presentations

• Serve on international committees such as the WMO Nowcasting and Mesoscale Research Working Group (past)

• Supervise and serve on defence committees for graduate students: York University, University of Manitoba, McMaster University, University of Western Ontario, Queensland University (Australia)

• Serve on scientific committees for various professional meetings and/or convened sessions (e.g., AMS Radar Conference - current, European Conference on Severe Storms, CMOS Congress, Great Lakes Operational Meteorology Workshop, field study workshops including NTP, UNSTABLE, BAQS-Met)
   

Key Publications

• Sills, D. M. L and L. Elliott, 2023: Assessment of Tornado Alerting Performance for Canada. Atmos.-Ocean, DOI 10.1080/07055900.2023.2257163.
• Sills, D. M. L., C. S. Durfy, and C. P. E. de Souza, 2022: Are Significant Tornadoes Occurring Later in the Year in Southern Ontario? Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2021GL096483, DOI 10.1029/2021GL096483.
• Sills, D. M. L., G. A. Kopp, L. Elliott, A. Jaffe, E. Sutherland, C. Miller, J. Kunkel, E. Hong, S. Stevenson, and W. Wang, 2020: The Northern Tornadoes Project - uncovering Canada’s true tornado climatology. Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc., DOI 10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0012.1.
• Sills, D. M. L., and P. I. Joe, 2019: A short history of severe thunderstorm research and forecasting in Canada. Atmosphere-Ocean, DOI 10.1080/07055900.2019.1673145.