Raul Erlando Lopez

Raúl Erlando López
April 15, 1939 - September 4, 2022

Raúl Erlando López was born and raised in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He obtained a B. S. degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1960 from the University of Puerto Rico. He later went to Colorado State University where he obtained the M. S. and Ph.D. degrees in Atmospheric Science in 1968 and 1972. After teaching at the University of Puerto Rico for four years, Dr. López took a research position with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) where he worked until his retirement in 1999. He held positions in several laboratories and programs of NOAA including the Wave Propagation Laboratory in Colorado, the National Hurricane and Experimental Meteorology Laboratory in Florida and the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma.

His principal areas of research included meteorological studies of cloud-to-ground lightning, radar polarimetry, cumulus dynamics, and the structure of convective systems. He worked on the design of lightning detection networks and the statistics of lightning deaths and injuries. On several occasions he was a consultant to and lectured at the National Meteorological Institute of Spain, was co-rapporteur for the World Meteorological Organization on detection and location of lightning, and served a term on the Radar Meteorology Committee of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. López published more than 50 papers in scientific and professional journals, and more than 90 conference papers and technical reports.

In addition to his interests in a variety of meteorological and climatological topics, Dr. López studied several languages including French, Biblical Greek, and Hebrew, and frequently preached and taught in churches and Bible schools. With his wife, he was also involved in the translation of a variety of materials into Spanish and was an avid student of History, Archaeology, and Geology. In addition to his numerous publications in Atmospheric Science, he published papers on Scientific Creationism and on the Numismatic History of Colonial Hispanic America.

He was blessed to have a wonderful and dedicated wife, Evangelina, with whom shared two sons, Raúl and Alberto, both of whom are Medical Doctors. The Lord also gave him five grandchildren, Raul, Roxana, Rebeca, Samuel and Ana Maria and a great grand daughter, Laleh. He appreciated having Ramineh and Yesenia as daughters in-law.

Raúl retired at sixty years old from his career as a distinguished Research Meteorology in order to spend some time serving the Lord in various capacities.
He was active in the Spanish Ministry of Mount Calvary Baptist Church where he would occasionally preach. He and his wife Evangelina spent two months in Panamá substituting a Missionary family and were in charge of the church there as Furlough Replacements in 2007.