Contact Information
Biography
Dr. Trapp is the Director of the School of Earth, Society and Environment, and Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Before joining Illinois in 2014, he was a Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Purdue University from 2003-2014, and a research scientist with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (through the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies) in Norman, Oklahoma from 1996-2003. Four years of his tenure with NSSL were spent as a visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
Dr. Trapp conducts research on severe convective storms, including their dynamics and attendant hazards, and their connection with climate change and variability. He is also the author of the textbook “Mesoscale-Convective Processes in the Atmosphere,” published by Cambridge University Press.
Dr. Trapp received his B.S. degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, M.S. degree from Texas A&M University, and Ph.D. degree from the University of Oklahoma. He was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow.
Education
- Ph.D. in Meteorology, The University of Oklahoma, 1994
- M.S. in Meteorology, Texas A&M University, 1989
- B.S. in Agriculture/Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1985
Additional Campus Affiliations
Director, School of Earth, Society, and Environment
Professor, Climate, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences
Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
External Links
Recent Publications
Buckingham, T. J., Schultz, D. M., Markowski, P. M., & Trapp, R. J. (2025). Two archetypes of tornadic quasi-linear convective systems in the United Kingdom: Relevance of horizontal shearing instability to vortexgenesis and maintenance. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 151(770), Article e4967. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4967
Christo, G., Trapp, R., Nesbitt, S., Di Girolamo, L., Wolff, E. C., Homeyer, C. R., & Hong, Y. (2025). The Spatial Area and Other Attributes of GOES-16 Overshooting Tops as Indicators of Potential Hail. Monthly Weather Review, 153(10), 2121-2137. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-24-0150.1
Gopalakrishnan, D., Cuervo-Lopez, C., Allen, J. T., Trapp, R. J., & Robinson, E. (2025). A Comprehensive Evaluation of Biases in Convective Storm Parameters in CMIP6 Models over North America. Journal of Climate, 38(4), 947-971. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-24-0165.1
Graber, M., Wang, Z., & Trapp, R. J. (2025). Linking weather regimes to the variability of warm-season tornado activity over the United States. Weather and Climate Dynamics, 6(3), 807-816. https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-6-807-2025
Silcott, M. K., Parker, M. D., Kosiba, K. A., Nesbitt, S. W., Trapp, R. J., Wurman, J., & Weiss, C. C. (2025). Properties of Cold Pools from PERiLS 2022–23. Monthly Weather Review, 153(10), 2085-2106. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-24-0280.1