Earth and Mineral Sciences

Four Penn State experts to appear on two '20/20' shows April 18 & 25

University Park, Pa. -- Four Penn State faculty experts will appear tonight and next Friday (April 18 and April 25) on the ABC television news program "20/20" in two shows partly devoted to wild weather and weather myths.

Sam Champion, weather anchor of ABC's "Good Morning America" and weather editor of ABC News, traveled to Penn State in late March to interview the faculty members.

Faculty scheduled to appear on Friday evening's program are Charles Ammon, associate professor of geosciences; and Kevin Furlong, professor of geosciences and director of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences' Environment Institute Natural Hazards Center.

Meteorology experts Paul Knight, senior lecturer and Pennsylvania state climatologist, and Jon Nese, senior lecturer and a former on-air storm analyst on The Weather Channel, will appear on the April 25 show.

Ammon and Furlong teach a course called EARTH 101, "Natural Disasters: Hollywood vs. Reality," which uses movie clips about natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami, floods and severe weather to examine the causes and consequences of natural disasters and also compare "popular media's portrayal of disasters with perspectives from scientific research," according to the Unviversity course description.

Watch a preview of Sam Champion's interview with Ammon and Furlong here.

Knight and Nese appear regularly on the 15-minute weather program "Weather World," which is produced by Penn State's Weather Communications Group and airs each weeknight at 5:45 p.m. on the PCN cable television network.

"20/20" airs on ABC Friday nights from 10 to 11 p.m. Eastern time.

Last Updated March 19, 2009

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