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This fall, NASA scientist Kris Bedka flew into Hurricane Helene to test a device that uses lasers to create ultradetailed wind measurements. It could be the key to unlocking better storm predictions. The new device is called the Aerosol Wind Profiler (AWP), and its been in the works at NASA for about four years. The AWP uses the Doppler effect to create real-time, 3D maps of wind patterns above the Earths surfacedata that, before now, has been much more difficult to capture. Bedka is the AWPs principal investigator at NASAs Langley Research Center, and he has spent more than 100 hours in the air testing the device in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which runs the National Weather Service (NWS). He believes the AWP could be the missing link in weather agencies abilities to accurately map severe weather events like hurricanes and thunderstorms. [Photo: NASA/David C. Bowman] The shortcomings to current wind data collection To create predictions for severe weather phenomena, agencies like the NWS collate a vast swath of data including atmospheric temperature, moisture levels, and pressure patterns, typically pulled from satellite readings. Wind patterns, both on the ground and above ground level, are another piece of assembling the overall puzzle. But when it comes to fitting wind patterns into the model, there are a few limitations. If forecasters need wind measurements close to the Earth, Bedka says, its fairly simple to take readings using sensors that can be mounted on the ground. But what’s most important for weather forecasting is having a sense of the three-dimensional picture of the windso winds not just at the ground, but many miles above us, which all combine to drive the weather that we experience at the ground, he says. Currently, to get a sense of the 3D wind picture, forecasters mainly use weather balloons. These balloons give accurate readings, Bedka says, but there are only around 1,300 launch sites across the globe, meaning their data is fairly limited. Another tool, called geostationary satellites, can use snapshots of cloud cover and atmospheric moisture patterns to calculate wind vectors, but only at the cloud top, meaning that the 3D wind picture is still missing. Many experts believe that tools like the AWP are the “missing link” to address this problem. [Photo: NASA/David C. Bowman] How the AWP uses lasers to make a 3D wind map Before making a detailed 3D wind map, scientists need to understand two main factors: how fast wind currents are moving and in what direction. The AWP does that by tracking the movement of particulatesincluding tiny pieces of cloud matter, dust, smoke, pollution, and sea salt that are all floating in the atmosphereto see how wind is buffeting them at a given moment in time. To capture the movement of those particulates, the AWP is mounted to an aircraft with viewing ports underneath it. From there, the instrument emits 200 pulses of laser energy per second toward the atmosphere in two opposite directions, where they scatter and reflect off the particulate matter. This scattering causes a measurable change in the laser pulse wavelength, also known as the Doppler effect. You’ve probably heard of the Doppler effect before, and youve experienced it yourself, Bedka says. You hear an ambulance coming towards you, and at one particular distance, it sounds very high pitched, and then as it comes by you and then goes away from you, you hear the pitch changethat’s due to the Doppler effect. A Doppler wind lidar kind of behaves in an analogous way. In simple terms, the altered frequencies of laser light that bounce back from particulates give the AWP the information needed to calculate wind speed and direction, even measuring conditions at different altitudes in the atmosphere simultaneously. All of those details can then be stitched together to create a complete 3D wind map. [Photo: NASA/Maurice Cross] The AWP flies through Hurricane Helene In 2022, Bedka says, NOAA solicited new technologies for accurate wind measurement, which had been an ongoing challege for the agency when trying to predict severe weather. Since Bedkas team had just wrapped up their AWP prototype, they proposed an aircraft flight campaign that would validate the tools effectiveness. NOAA agreed to fund the proposal, and last fall, Bedka took flight for over 100 hours in a kind of flying laboratory, installed inside a 1970s-era DC-8 aircraft. The lab came outfitted with NASAs AWP and its High-Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO), another tool built to measure water vapor, aerosols, and cloud properties. Over the course of the flight campaign, AWP and HALO worked together to create ultradetailed 3D maps of wind patterns and aerosol layers. Bedka was aiming to collect data from as wide a range of weather conditions as possibleand, as it happened, that included Hurricane Helene. Because Helene was a relatively well-predicted storm, Bedkas team had time to plan a flight route that would allow the AWP to measure as close to the storm center and the highest winds that were available to us. Given the planes limited six-hour flight range, Bedka and the crew flew through the edges of the hurricane in several legs on September 26, traveling down the western edge of the storm, going around the eye in the Gulf of Mexico, and heading back up the East Coast. In all, it took about nine hours. Bedka, who has flown in several NASA aircrafts through intense thunderstorms, says the conditions were choppy but not too severe. During the hurricane flight, his team was able to collect a rich database of wind measurements that proved the AWPs potential effectiveness during severe weather. Whats next for the AWP For now, the AWP is just in testing phases, but NASA is currently working to make it more widely available. That would involve bringing on an agency or commercial partner, like NOAA, willing to invest further in the technologyideally, by adapting it for use on smaller satellites rather than flying it up on planes. Currently, the AWP is about the size of a coffee table, but to fit on a vessel set for space, researchers would need to shrink it to about one-tenth its current size, Bedka says. (According to a NASA spokesperson, the AWP project hasn’t been impacted by federal budget and staff cuts at NASA and NOAA.) Ideally, NASA would be able to create a constellation of AWPs orbiting the Earth that could measure winds simultaneously all across the globe. With such a wide swath of data, prediction models for extreme weather would become significantly more accurate. Severe storms don’t just pop up just out of the clear blue sky on a random day, Bedka says. They form because all the ingredients align in order to make them become as intense as they are. What we’re trying to do with this technology is to measure the winds with as much spatial and vertical detail as permitted by laser technology. We’ve already found that when this data is put into weather prediction models, it has a really big impact.
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In 2021, I quit a 15-year career as a tech executive in the finance industry and pursued content marketing and journalism. When I tell this story, Im often met with, You did what? People cant wrap their heads around such an unexpected career shift. While I quit my tech job, it wasnt an overnight decision. In fact, it was something Id been considering for a long time. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/workbetter-logo.png","headline":"Work Better","description":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn't suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more visit workbetter.media.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} A career pivot is much different than simply finding a new job in the same industry. If youve contemplated the same, youve probably asked yourself, Can I do this? Will it be worth the change? What if it doesnt work out? As someone whos pivoted not once, but twice, in the past four years (first, I changed industries, and then I became self-employed), I can tell you yes, its worth it. But you need to be ready for the impact such a change will have on your career. Heres how to tell if a major career change is right for you. You cant stop thinking about it The first sign that youre ready for a career pivot is that you cant stop thinking about it. You dream not only of finding a new job, but doing something completely different. You start to explore new skills you might need to acquire, or how to prepare your résumé so its attractive to hiring managers in a new field. Once you start thinking nonstop about a career change, those feelings never go away. Trust me. Theyll only expand over time. You start to plan Your dreams become more concrete when you start to consider a timeline. For me, it was, Can I make this change within five years? The more I thought about it, the shorter my timeline became. Staying in my current job instead of pursuing something different became unbearable. Youll start to think about a financial plan. A career pivot may involve a lower salary (at least in the beginning) if youre starting in a new industry with little experience. Suddenly, my five-year timeline turned into six months. Then I quit without another job lined up (though I was at the end stages of several interviews and an offer came in a few days later). Youre comfortable with unknowns Changing careers can be uncomfortable, especially once you start a new job. The saying You dont know what you dont know is particularly apt. All the research in the world cant fully prepare you for your first day doing something completely different. As a longtime employee at my previous job, I went from being the most knowledgeable person in the room to one of the least. I went from being the boss to having a boss. I had no idea how long it would take me to catch on to the nuances of my new career. There were times I felt inadequate due to my lack of knowledge. But I also knew that my previous careerthough far differenthad given me skills others in my peer group didnt have. I understood contract negotiation, project management, and resource planning. I leaned into those, which helped me move past my discomfort. Youre willing to pivot again (if needed) As you plan to pivot to a new career, you have to ask yourself, What if it doesnt work out? Maybe you end up hating the work. Maybe moving from a senior role to a junior role bothers you too much. Maybe its not the work itself, but you land at a company that isnt a good fit, and now have to continue the job search. Im here to tell you: Its okay to pivot again. Trashing your résumé is an outdated concept. After I pivoted to a new career and joined a marketing agency, I left within eight months and joined a different agency. One year after that, I pivoted again. Now Im self-employed. As it turns out, that itch I felt to try something different was really a drive to strike out on my own. I didnt know it at the time. I had to make a few stops along the way to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. What you think you want and what you actually want might be two different things. But chances are, if youre willing to make the leap once, youll be willing to do it again. Anna Burgess Yang is part of the Creator Network at Fast Company, covering topics like work culture and the intersection of technology and work (including the impacts of AI). Anna is a former tech executive who spent more than 15 years at a financial technology company, including roles as a product manager and the director of customer success. In 2021, she joined the Great Resignation and quit her job to pursue content marketing and journalism. Today, she is a freelance writer who works with prominent B2B SaaS companies, specializing in fintech, automation, and AI. Additionally, her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and several banking publications. You can learn more about Anna at annabyang.com. You can also follow her on LinkedIn, Threads, and Bluesky. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/workbetter-logo.png","headline":"Work Better","description":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn't suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more visit workbetter.media.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
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Cloud storage services conveniently let you store and access documents, photos, videos, and more from any device. The best part? Many top providers offer free plans that are surprisingly capable. But with so many options, how do you choose the right free cloud storage service? Let’s take a look at some of the leading free online storage services available today. Google Drive Google Drive offers 15 GB of storage, shared across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. Thats one of the most generous free storage amounts, and the service offers seamless integration with Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides). Its also got a user-friendly interface and solid search capabilities. The 15 GB is shared with other Google services, however, so heavy Gmail users or those backing up high-quality photos might find it fills up quickly. And Google being a large tech company, some users have privacy concerns regarding data handling. Mega At 20 GB, Mega provides the most generous permanent free storage tier among major providers. Theres a strong focus on privacy and security with user-controlled end-to-end, zero-knowledge encryption on all plans, including the free one. The company cant see your files, in other words. However, free accounts have transfer limits (you can download or upload a certain amount of data over a set period), and its unique encryption means if you lose your password or recovery key, your data is unrecoverable. pCloud pCloud gives you up to 10 GB of storage space, which is a decent amount of free space. It also features excellent built-in media players for streaming audio and video directly from the cloud. And it offers unique “Lifetime” paid plans, starting at a one-time $199 payment for 500 GB of storage. However, to reach 10 GB on the free plan, youll need to perform certain actions like verifying your email address and installing mobile apps. Encryption and sharing options are also limited on the free tier. Microsoft OneDrive Although Microsoft OneDrive offers only 5 GB of storage on the free plan, its got excellent integration with Windows and Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Files can often be accessed directly from Windows File Explorer and theres a “Personal Vault” folder for extra security on sensitive files. 5 GB of free storage might not be enough for all your stuff, however, and there can be similar privacy considerations as Google Drive for some users. Apple iCloud Drive Like Microsoft, Apple iCloud Drive offers a meager 5 GB of storage. This storage is shared across iCloud Drive, device backups, Photos, and Mail. That being said, its got unbeatable integration with Apple devices, making it essential for backing up iOS devices and syncing photos across the Apple ecosystem. Those five gigabytes get consumed quickly by device backups and photos, though. Paid plans start at just a buck a month for 50 GB, making it kind of a no-brainer. Dropbox At a lowly 2 GB, Dropbox offers the least amount of free storage of the providers on our list here. It is, however, a pioneer in cloud storage, known for its reliable and fast file syncing, simple user interface, excellent compatibility across platforms, and good third-party app integrations. Sync.com Sync.com offers 5 GB of free storage and boasts excellent security and privacy features, including end-to-end zero-knowledge encryption and compliance with features. Theres also 30-day file versioning and recovery, no file size limits when using desktop or mobile apps, and you can earn more free space through referrals. However, there are limited sharing capabilities on the free plan (number of links and daily downloads per link), and it lacks built-in document editing tools, instead relying on Office 365 integration.
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