A perpetual shower of random raindrops falls inside a three-foot metal ring Dale Durran erected outside his front door (shown above). A part-time sculptor and full-time professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington, Durran has co-authored dozens of papers describing patterns in Earth's ever-changing skies. It's a field for those who crave a confounding challenge trying to express with math the endless dance of air and water. A perpetual shower of random raindrops falls inside a three-foot metal ring Dale Durran erected outside his front door (shown above). A part-time sculptor and full-time professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington, Durran has co-authored dozens of papers describing patterns in Earth's ever-changing skies.