FEMALE ANNOUNCER: This program is made by MPT to enrich the diverse communities throughout our state and is made possible by the generous support of our members.

Thank you.

NARRATOR: Coming up... Tracking the skies... Underwater eavesdropping... And... Taking stock of nature's giants... Next.

Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

(intro music) ♪ ♪ (bird calls) (stormy music) NARRATOR: The skies over Maryland are never still... Like works of art in motion, clouds move in patterns.

They can contain beautiful, threatening, and sometimes unpredictable events.

For those who find the skies fascinating, the science of weather is always worth a look.

JAMES HYDE: So, weather impacts everybody.

NARRATOR: James Hyde is a special kind of weather observer, working to build a system that will help better understand - and more accurately predict the weather.

JAMES: I don't really know where the weather bug came from.

A lot of meteorologists have the weather bug.

I've had it since I was an early age.

I was born in Oklahoma and spent many winters in Boston.

But I think what really got the weather bug in me was seeing monsoon thunderstorms in Arizona.

NARRATOR: James and his technician, Patrick Walsh - are part of a team called the Maryland Mesonet, from the University of Maryland, College Park... Today, they are visiting a weather station that they have installed in Eyler Park in Thurmont.

One of 75 that will eventually be erected across every county in the state, it is part of a new “Mesonet” system.

JAMES: The Mesonet is a portmanteau of actually two words.

The first word is mesoscale, which in meteorology means, uh, on the order of a size.

So, the mesoscale is the size of a state.

And so, what we're doing here is we're measuring statewide weather conditions.

Net is just a network.

So, we are a statewide network of weather monitoring stations.

We're providing data driven solutions for weather problems.

NARRATOR: These problems can range from droughts, to wildfires, to flash flooding.

Maryland has become one of 28 states with Mesonet systems, and their purpose is to gather as much data as possible and improve overall weather observations.

♪ ♪ NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: For data on the vertical structure of thunderstorms, five radar raywind stations were equipped to track freely rising balloons with radar.

NARRATOR: Originating shortly after World War II, Mesonets were first used in the central plains states for research.

JAMES: But after that, they realized that the weather data used for these networks were really important for other reasons, such as agriculture and monitoring severe storms, and other things.

So, even when the government left, a lot of the states picked up the slack.

NARRATOR: Measuring at 33 feet tall, these aluminum towers are the centerpiece of these stations, hosting multiple sensors that collect meteorological data from wind speed and rainfall to solar radiation, and temperature.

JAMES: So, this is our gill shield.

It's called a gill shield because it looks like fish gills.

The purpose of the gill shield is to allow air to move through the gill shield and impact our temperature, and humidity sensor.

It shades it from the sunlight but also allows air to pass through.

If we had direct sunlight on the instrument itself, it would read too hot.

NARRATOR: Regular maintenance is required to keep everything in working order.

PATRICK WALSH: This rain gauge, it looks pretty clean already but I always just blow in there just to get any sort of like seeds out.

Birds like to drop things inside the rain gauge and it clogs it up and makes our data a little wonky.

JAMES: So, the reason we came out here today was to inspect the soil moisture probe.

This station is fairly new.

However, we noticed that one of our soil moisture probes, particularly the probe that sits at four inches, was not responding well to rain events.

JAMES: I think there's a rock in the measurement area.

JAMES: So, all the other probes were responding to rainfall, so as the rainfall soaked into the soil, it was responding by showing higher levels of moisture, except for this one.

This showed hardly any increase in moisture.

And the reason why that would happen is because if it's reading a rock, rocks don't increase in moisture.

NARRATOR: Sure enough, the culprit is found.

JAMES: One of these smaller rocks, something like this, was in the measurement area.

NARRATOR: Mesonets have become a de facto weather observing system for many states, as well as a useful educational tool.

In northern Baltimore County at the Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center, Jackie LaMonica is excited to take part.

JACKIE LAMONICA: What an awesome learning opportunity.

What an awesome resource to the community.

And a way to, you know, also support their project that they are doing across the state of Maryland.

James: So, we're going to take down the tower today, just do a little maintenance on the anemometer to make sure it's working right.

JACKIE: So, we're really excited to be part of this project.

And, you know, being a part of the science, it felt like, here in the Hereford zone, in Parkton and having access to this live data and all the information that they're able to provide us is incredible.

(roar of airplane engine) NARRATOR: One industry that relies on accurate weather data is aviation, and the mothership of Maryland weather reporting is at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Here, pilots only take off and land with the understanding that conditions are safe.

One of the people providing this information is Erin Thompson.

Serving in the air national guard for 12 years, she began her career as a weather forecaster for fighter jets.

ERIN THOMPSON: I actually started out as a child deathly afraid of thunderstorms.

And I used to hide under dining room tables during thunderstorms.

Now, as a weather observer, I've gotten over my fears and I think it's one of the coolest things to watch the sky change.

NARRATOR: Erin's job takes place both in her office, and on the rooftop.

ERIN: As a weather observer, the weather observing program is a joint operation between the National Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense.

ERIN: We are actually on the fifth floor rooftop of BWI airport.

I have to come out here, so I can see the entire celestial dome.

That's what we call the sky in the weather world.

So, I'm out here just to get a visual in all directions.

North, South, East and West.

I need to see the entire airfield, as well as all of my visibility markers in each direction.

NARRATOR: Aside from her eyes, the most important tool that Erin uses is located across the airfield next to a busy runway.

(roar of airplane engine) Known as “ASOS” - the automated surface observing system - this massive cluster of instruments collects information as part of the primary surface weather network for the United States.

ERIN: All of these sensors are used to help collate hourly report that goes out for aviation uses, and also National Weather Services for hydrological, meteorological, and every type of climatological data that they need to report for their purposes.

NARRATOR: Because of these combined efforts, as today's stormclouds approach, the team at BWI is ready.

ERIN: It's actually moving east towards the airfield right now.

But despite that, because of weather observations, airfield operations are able to continue because we are able to update them continuously on how close and whether or not it's a danger to airfield personnel.

NARRATOR: On Maryland's Eastern Shore just south of St.

Michaels, the Mesonet team's work continues.

As each station goes up, not only does the weather data increase, but so do the ranks of future meteorologists.

JAMES: The students get hands-on experience in a lot of different ways.

One is that they get to play with some really high caliber instrumentation.

And secondly is that they're learning things about meteorology that is not taught in the classroom.

JAMES: In the classroom, you're taught a lot about physics, and dynamics, and mathematics, where this is real world.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Forty miles off the coast of Maryland, out among the active shipping lanes, an urgent scientific mission is underway...to remotely collect information about some frequent, yet rarely seen, visitors in these waters: big Baleen whales.

DAVE SECOR: We can't see these whales underwater.

And so, we're using sound.

DAVE: I'm gonna send down a transponder... NARRATOR: Dave Secor from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science leads the Tailwinds team, examining the potential impacts of offshore wind developments on local marine life.

DAVE: The surface of the ocean's opaque and there's so much going on that we don't know about.

NARRATOR: They're here today to recover a network of underwater listening devices called hydrophones, anchored to the seafloor months earlier... Sending a coded acoustic signal the team releases each unit remotely, allowing it to float to the surface for easy recovery.

CAROLINE: The gnarly looking ones are over there, and then we are putting out new ones to maintain long term monitoring.

DAVE: This hears most things in the ocean.

So, we'll be listening.

We'll be able to hear boat noise.

We'll be able to hear dolphin whistles at the high end.

And between those we'll be able to hear the whales.

NARRATOR: In a decade of work, the program has captured sounds of Sei whales and Fin whales, the rare and endangered North Atlantic Right whales and Humpbacks... All, most often during seasonal migrations through the area... ...between New England's feeding grounds up north, and southern calving grounds in the waters near Georgia and the Caribbean... DAVE: There's a lot of evidence that these are sentient, complex behavioral animals that we continue to learn quite a bit about.

NARRATOR: Listening to them is one thing, but actually seeing whales in these waters is quite another.

Just ask Evan Falgowski, captain of the Tailwinds research charter.

EVAN FALGOWSKI: We had one instance in particular where two adult humpbacks, I think, were attracted to the sound of the boat's stabilizing gyro, and they came up and laid next to the boat.

They basically, put on a show, until we could basically, safely leave them.

(sound of whales) An encounter like this with whales is pretty rare... It was definitely a unique experience.

DAVE: It is fascinating that they seem to have sometimes this curiosity or maybe even connection with humans.

NARRATOR: Spread across forty nautical miles, the nine unit array will eavesdrop on the ocean... ...but researchers must wait six months for redeployment runs like this one...before accessing the data.

Which is why the true star of the study is this “real-time whale buoy.” DAVE: It's a very humble sentinel, it's not a huge oceanographic buoy.

It stands about a meter and a half and it's out here all the time.

NARRATOR: The float, 22 miles from Ocean City, was first deployed in 2021... one of a series of buoys strategically situated along the eastern seaboard...developed and maintained by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The design includes a seabed base, housing a digital recorder and small computer... Tethered and electronically linked to a satellite antenna, in this case about 38 meters up above.

DAVE: It's a pretty remarkable buoy in terms of how it's moored.

It can withstand seas that are 20 feet high.

It's listening continuously for sounds in the ocean.

Any sounds within a certain spectrum where we expect to hear whales.

The computer makes an initial guess that it's detected a whale, and it gives an initial guess about what kind of whale that is.

NARRATOR: Information transmitted to the cloud every two hours, and downloaded at the Chesapeake Biological Lab in Solomons, Maryland, where analysts Kirsten Silva and Becca Wingate look to confirm detections using a visual soundscape.

The actual audio files don't transmit.

KIRSTEN SILVA: When you're looking at the real time data, you're only looking at the pictures.

NARRATOR: Different species show up in their own register, range, and often very distinctive patterns... KIRSTEN: They call Fin whales the “metronomes of the sea.” Their pulses are just really consistent.

It's like looking at music notes on a music sheet.

But then, when you get the archived audio, it's like getting the complete composition, because now you're able to hear it.

And that's really exciting.

(whale moan) KIRSTEN: So that moan was, a Humpback whale, we also have the North Atlantic Right whale sounds picked up here as well.

(whale sound) KIRSTEN: Its like this eee-oop.

DAVE: Those are called contact calls, and they're just saying, Hey, I'm here.

You can't see me.

I'm ten miles away, but I'm here.

NARRATOR: Frequent victims of ship strikes and fishing net entanglements, only about 380 North Atlantic Right whales remain in the world.

The real-time whale buoy provides critical information authorities use to alert shipping companies and recreational boaters when North Atlantic Right whales are detected in the area, and initiate voluntary 10-knot slow zones.

DAVE: At less than ten knots, it's been shown that, Right whale collisions are drastically reduced.

These assets really give us a good conservation tool.

NARRATOR: Catherine McCall of Maryland's Department of Natural Resources helped create the real-time whale buoy's local partnership.

CATHERINE MCCALL: People don't think about Maryland and whales.

People come down to Ocean City and it's a treat to see dolphins going by.

Sometimes, you see the occasional whale, but they're much further offshore.

And we really didn't have a lot of data and information about where they were, when they were coming through... CATHERINE: Yeah, we actually used the buoy to understand more about when they're migrating north and south.

NARRATOR: Touring Ocean City's waters with Natural Resources Officer Robert Wood, Catherine learns about frontline education and enforcement efforts designed to protect whales, including work with the area's commercial fishing community... ROBERT WOOD: They have their floats up top with their markings and there's the vessel's name on them.

NARRATOR: ...those most likely to see whales... Like, Captain Monty Hawkins, who's been running fishing charters in these waters for more than 40 years, long before the tailwinds study, or any data about whales in the area was collected.

CAPTAIN MONTY HAWKINS: A whale sighting was pretty darn rare.

I mean, we did see some, but not like we see now.

We see more nowadays.

NARRATOR: Laws to protect whales helped bring some species back from the brink of extinction, and changing ocean conditions may be altering prey patterns and distribution.

But while a whale sighting would no doubt thrill Monty's customers... For whales, encounters with commercial fishing gear can sometimes turn perilous, as Monty witnessed first hand not long ago, when he came across a struggling Humpback.

CAPTAIN MONTY HAWKINS: We were just on our way off shore.

Just another normal day.

And a whale is something I'm going to go check out anyhow.

And rapidly it became obvious this fella was tangled up.

He was dragging rope, he was dragging orange poly balls.

And it wasn't a commercial gear I recognized, it had to have come from far away.

NARRATOR: Monty notified DNR and offered up his specialized whale rescue blade to the team, which slowly approached the whale... Officer Wood and another carefully leaned overboard.

MONTY: It had to have been amazingly tense.

ROBERT: You don't want to hurt the animal itself.

So, we were very careful to make sure we were cutting where it was coming just off the end of the fin, so that it could free itself.

We ran the registration numbers on the buoy and it came back to a commercial fisherman off New England.

So, it was evident that...that whale had been struggling for quite some time to tug that commercial fishing gear that long of a distance.

NARRATOR: While, always awe-inspiring, not every whale encounter is as dramatic... The real-time whale buoy now provides researchers new critical data about how whales are using the area, and when to be most vigilant about management policies.

CATHERINE: The seasons that we expect some of these creatures off-shore is longer than we thought before the buoy was detecting them.

It's a hidden highway down there.

NARRATOR: But the buoy alone can't pinpoint a whale's location, which is why Dave Secor and his team also deploy their network of acoustic sensors -- from 5.0 miles offshore to 45.

DAVE: We can learn something about spatial distribution of these whales so that we can support the real time, continuous data that we get from the real time whale buoy system.

NARRATOR: Today, the real time whale buoy detected a Humpback in the area, something Caroline Tribble would love to see.

CAROLINE: I've never seen a whale out here but there's always a chance.

Be a nice like full circle moment.

To see them would be really, like beautiful moment.

♪ ♪ JOLI MCCATHRAN: It's fantastic!

On a steamy July morning... JOLI: Alright, let's get its circumference!

Big tree enthusiast Joli McCathran leads a small crew, armed with neon vests and a tape measure, on a mission to document Maryland's living giants... Among them...one towering presence that she greets like an old friend.

JOLI: Perfect, beautiful tree.

This is my favorite tree.

It's a beautiful example of an English Elm.

24 feet, 5 inches.

And it's just what we call a gobsmacker.

It just knocks you off your feet when you see it both close and far.

NARRATOR: Known as the Goshen Elm, it stands sentry over Goshen Road in Montgomery County, its precise age and origins, a mystery... JOLI: It's very old.

We believe it may have been brought over from Kent, England and planted by early settlers because it doesn't grow naturally in this area.

NARRATOR: But its scale is undeniable.

JOLI: This is the world's largest known English Elm.

If someone finds one that's larger, I will go visit it personally.

(chuckles) But this is such a special, rare treat to have.

NARRATOR: And Joli would know, she's met a lot of trees during her tenure as co-chair of the Maryland Big Tree Program, a volunteer-based organization through the Department of Natural Resources.

JOLI: The main purpose is for us to find the largest tree of each species, state, county, even national.

NARRATOR: The Goshen Elm, recognized as a National Champion, or the largest of its species nationwide... JOLI: A hundred and seven.

NARRATOR: ...was nominated back in 1999.

But the program's roots stretch back a full century...to 1925, when Maryland's first state forester, Fred Besley, launched a contest to find the state's biggest trees.

Entries poured in...450 of them.

First place and a $25 prize went to the owner of a 124-foot-tall pecan tree in Somerset County.

And Marylanders have been noticing and nominating big trees ever since.

JOLI: Okay, we've got a lot of trees tagged here!

NARRATOR: Back on the Big Tree trail... JOLI: Look at the hickory in front of us.

That's what I was going to say.

TEAMMEMBER: I love that.

JOLI: I do too.

I have no idea where this tree is.

Joe: Why don't we ask somebody?

NARRATOR: Joli and crew pay a visit to the headquarters of the Izaak Walton League of America.

JOLI: Hello!

We're with the Maryland Big Tree Program, Montgomery County Forestry Board.

Someone nominated a yellow poplar in the woods.

MAGGIE: Yes, that was our team.

JOLI: So, if someone can show us what it is that would be fantastic.

NARRATOR: Joli was introduced to the program nearly 30 years ago by longtime volunteer and Big Tree evangelist Joe Howard.

JOLI: He asked if I would attend a meeting.

I said, "I'm way too busy, I got way too many meetings," but Joe, you can't turn down.

JOE: I've been leading Big Tree tours since the 1990s.

We preach to them a little bit about taking care of trees.

That's one of our hidden agendas, always trying to get converts.

And we use big trees to do this.

NARRATOR: Even at 95, Joe is still chasing champions.

JOLI: We do tromp around in the woods a lot.

I think we've gotten everything you can get: poison ivy, poison oak... ...let me start with GPS and we'll do our usual tricks.

NARRATOR: Unlike the Goshen Elm, this tulip poplar is a new one for the books... JOLI: Boy it is tall... NARRATOR: Nominated by Izaak Walton staffer Maggie Dombrowsky.

MAGGIE: My coworkers actually were the ones who knew about this tree... I have some forestry experience so I brought my diameter tape and measured it and then we submitted it so it was kind of a group effort.

NARRATOR: A few miles down the road, Rockville resident Christopher Leins nominated yet another towering tulip tree, which he couldn't help but notice while walking his dogs.

CHRIS: You look up and suddenly there's this magnificent spread and you know it's one great tree that's right there.

JOLI: We're going to measure with the lean.

CHRIS: It just makes you stop and think about all the life that might be in the tree.

JOLI: Twenty and a half.

NARRATOR: And in Gaithersburg, Kevin and Carolyn Bridget were curious about two giants in their yard.

KEVIN: The one behind us, a willow oak, and another one, which is a white pine.

JOLI: We'll see what we get for the height.

KEVIN: They were big for me to look at.

So, I wanted someone else to know about trees to look at them and give us some information about them.

JOLI: I'm getting 85.

NARRATOR: But just because a tree is nominated doesn't mean it makes the cut.

That comes down to a formula, the same one they've been using for a century: JOLI: There you go.

NARRATOR: circumference in inches... JOLI: We measure the circumference of 4.5 feet above ground level.

NARRATOR: ...plus, the tree's height in feet, which Joli measures using a tool called a hypsometer... Plus, one quarter of the tree's average crown spread, again in feet.

Calculated together, these three measurements give each tree its final score... JOLI: Seventy-four in height.

NARRATOR: ...which determines whether or not it gets a place in the Big Tree database.

JOLI: That gives us a total to compare to the other trees of the same genus and species.

JOLI: The total circumference is 246.

JOLI: Including trees that are deceased, it's 3,496 records.

NARRATOR: Today's outing yields six new additions.

Four for the state and two for Montgomery County.

But the true value of Maryland's trees goes far beyond feet and inches... JOLI: If these trees could talk, it'd be really interesting to know what has happened through their lives, what they've seen, what they've witnessed.

And of course, we just appreciate for the sheer beauty of the larger trees.

My hope for the next hundred years of the program is that it keeps going, keep the database going, and make sure it goes on to the next generation and beyond.

(music) ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: To stream episodes of Outdoors Maryland , visit mpt.org/outdoors and don't forget to follow us on social media.

(owl hoots) Learn more about Maryland's diverse natural resources at dnr.maryland.gov, or download the official mobile app.

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