Jill C. Trepanier
Professor and Department Chair Louisiana State University
- Baton Rouge LA
Dr. Trepanier is a hurricane climatologist and geographer focusing on the statistical estimation of extreme weather risk.
Media
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Research Focus
Hurricane Risk & Tropical Cyclone Climatology
Dr. Trepanier’s research focuses on tropical-cyclone climatology and hurricane risk, analyzing how storm frequency, intensity, and stalling behavior endanger Gulf and Atlantic coasts. She employs extreme-value statistics, climate reanalyses, and hazard modeling to quantify wind and surge probabilities, project future risk under climate change, and guide coastal resilience planning.
Education
Florida State University
Ph.D.
Geography
2012
Florida State University
M.S.
Geography
2009
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
B.A.
Geography
2007
Media Appearances
Storms of the Century with Al Roker: How hurricanes are evolving with climate change
NBC News tv
2025-05-28
Al Roker looks back at the most devastating hurricanes to hit the U.S. since the turn of the century, starting with Hurricane Katrina.
Imagine if We Listened to Scientists Before the Hurricane
The New York Times online
2020-09-08
Climate science and weather science have made impressive advancements in the 15 years since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in their ability to track these storms and identify how climate change influences their formation and ferocity.
Yet the United States is still woefully unprepared. Our coastlines in many places are overbuilt and lack defenses against storm surge and flooding from heavy rains. And the response in the hours and days after these storms hit is often slow and inadequate.
LSU climatologist warns DOGE NOAA cuts may disrupt weather forecasting
WGNO-ABC online
2025-03-12
NOAA has had to cut about 2,000 positions as part of the DOGE cuts to federal spending. The organization is known as the most trusted place for climate and weather data. They not only forecast major storms, but aid in commerce and disaster preparation. All the National Weather Service offices across the country rely on their data for their forecasts.
“People might perceive that that weather app on their phone and access to the Weather Channel don’t go away with NOAA, however, the data that they are utilizing on those platforms and on those sites by and large is coming from the National Weather Service Connected Network,” LSU Hurricane Climatologist Jill Trepanier said.
Articles
Spatiotemporal Climatology of Georgia Tropical Cyclones and Associated Rainfall
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering2024
Tropical cyclones (TCs), often characterized by high wind speeds and heavy rainfall, cause widespread devastation, affecting millions of people and leading to economic losses worldwide.
Stalling North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones
Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology2024
Tropical cyclone (TC) translation speed influences rainfall accumulation, storm surge, and exposure to high winds. These effects are greatest when storms stall. Here, we provide a definition and climatology of slow-moving or stalling TCs in the North Atlantic from 1900 to 2020.
Advances in tropical climatology – a review
Physical Geography2024
Understanding tropical climatology is essential to comprehending the atmospheric connections between the tropics and extratropical latitudes weather and climate events. In this review paper, we emphasize the advances in key areas of tropical climatology knowledge since the end of the 20th century and offer a summary, assessment, and discussion of previously published literature.
Classification Analysis of Southwest Pacific Tropical Cyclone Intensity Changes Prior to Landfall
Atmosphere2023
This study evaluates the ability of a random forest classifier to identify tropical cyclone (TC) intensification or weakening prior to landfall over the western region of the Southwest Pacific Ocean (SWPO) basin
A Dataset of Dropout Rates and Other School-Level Variables in Louisiana Public High Schools
data2022
Students dropping out of high school is a nationwide problem in the United States, plaguing communities and often greatly reducing the prospects of a quality life for those students who do not complete their high school education. The state of Louisiana consistently has among the highest public high school dropout rates in the United States and, often, the highest.
