John Lawson

Mathematics and Statistics

Research Assistant Professor

John Lawson

Contact Information

Office Location: Vernal BEERC 117D
Phone: (435) 722-1793

Educational Background

PhD, Meteorology, Iowa State University, 2016
Butterflies and Bow Echoes: Addressing Poor Forecasts with Ensemble Simulations
MS, Meteorology, University of Utah, 2013
Analysis and Predictability of the 1 December 2011 Wasatch Downslope Windstorm
Other, Meteorology, University of Reading, 2011
Classifying fronts in data from a VHF wind‐profiling radar

Biography

Senior Air Quality Scientist, Bingham Research Center, Vernal (Statewide campus). Meteorologist by training; mutlidisciplinary in nature. Main research assists goal of reducing winter ozone emissions in the Uinta Basin, Utah.

Teaching Interests

Python coding for STEM: data analysis & visualisation
Estimating forecast uncertainty
Logic and the Philosophy of Science
Applications of Information Theory
Creativity and Science

Research Interests

Theoretical side:
- Possibility theory
- Fuzzy logic
- Chaos theory
- Information theory

Practical side:
- Numerical modelling of weather phenomena (e.g., thunderstorms, mountain winds)
- ​Non-traditional modelling (e.g., fuzzy inference, ​pure AI) ​for ​weather prediction
- Predicting and communicating risk of poor air quality
- Complex Adaptive Systems (e.g., weather) and their limits of predictability
- Viability of large language models (LLMs) in creative scientific research

Publications | Journal Articles

Academic Journal

  • Lawson, J., Lyman, S., (2025). Pixels and predictions: Potential of GPT-4V in meteorological imagery analysis and forecast communication. Artificial Intelligence for the Earth Systems, 4:1, 240029.
  • Davies, M., Lawson, J., O'Neil, T., Lyman, S., Zager, K., (2025). Uinta Basin Snow Shadow: Impact of Snow-Depth Variation on Winter Ozone Formation. Air, 3, 22.
  • Lawson, J., Lyman, S., (2024). A Preliminary Fuzzy Inference System for Predicting Atmospheric Ozone in an Intermountain Basin. Air, 2:3, 337--361.

An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.

Publications | Other

Other

  • Lawson, J., (2025). A Probabilistic WxChallenge Proposal. arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.14139 *
  • Lawson, J., (2024). Communicating Risk with Possibility, Not Probability. arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.21664 *
  • Lawson, J., (2013). Analysis and predictability of the 1 December 2011 Wasatch downslope windstorm. The University of Utah *

An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.