I was off to the Convention Center early on Monday morning, October 14, walking 1000 yards from my hotel--at least, that's what the Convention Center's website said was the distance. After getting my registration completed, I took my place in the large ballroom outfitted with tables and chairs for the presentations.
Following welcoming remarks from the NWA leadership at about 7:45, the general sessions began. First, there were presentations on tropical system storm surge and wind speeds, especially in regards to Sandy. Having just occurred a year ago, this major weather event is still fresh on many minds, and surely shall remain an important topic of discussion in the meteorology community for some time to come. Also during this session was a presentation on a model being developed for the general use of the public as a way to help people understand the effects of storm surge. This model, accessible online, allows users to adjust various parameters of a tropical system situation to see how flooding would affect buildings in a local community. Another one of the speakers was Bill Read, former director of the National Hurricane Center, who talked about how events like Sandy and Katrina are reason for concerns, given land usage in coastal areas, and the way insurance is structured.
After a break, there were presentations on social science and meteorology. There were many presentations on this topic that I attended throughout my time at the conference, and they were the ones that fascinated me the most. These presentations talked about how the public perceives weather risks, and how the meteorology community can effectively engage the public to help them be more resilient to extreme weather. One speaker even talked about using notable past weather disasters to help educate the public to be more prepared.
The one presentation during this session that stood out to me was how social media is used in NWS operations. This presenter mentioned Aristotle during her talk, noting from his philosophy how important emotional connections are for persuasiveness in relationships, which is part of opening avenues for communication, essential in the response to major weather events. The Christ College part of me swelled with delight to see how philosophy plays a role in this intersection of social science and meteorology.
Around the first break on Monday, I caught up with three meteorology students from Valparaiso University, as well as a fellow alumnus, who is a meteorologist for the NBC station in Elmira, NY. We went out to lunch together at Wendy's, and it was a good time back in the spirit of ValpU camaraderie.
After the lunch break, two TV meteorologists from the local area spoke about their recollections of Hurricane Hugo, when it devastated the Charleston area back in the late 1980's.
The next session of presentations focused on tornadoes and severe weather. The speakers talked about more effective ways to assess tornado intensity and damage. One speaker even questioned the EF-scale used to rate tornadoes, because it is based solely on the work of Dr. Ted Fujita, and it has a certain amount of domination as such, even though he is looked to as an expert regarding tornadoes.
Subsequent to another break was a panel discussion about societal impacts of meteorology. This is no doubt a topic of increasing concern in our society. There was a lot of good discussion among the panelists and with people in the audience voicing their concerns and insights about effectively reaching out to the public. One woman in the audience is a meteorologist with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. She mentioned that Australia doesn't have TV meteorologists giving weather reports on individual stations like in the US. As such, meteorologists don't have as much of a presence with the public there, and are looked down upon to an extent.
One thing emphasized was the use of "the public" in our outreach efforts. The idea of "public" is actually rather vague, because the members of the meteorology community can consider themselves part of "the public". Instead, this community is seeking to better communicate with the "end users" of the weather information that is sent out. I found this to be insightful.
I, for one, was glad to be present for such an important discussion. It's one thing to have the knowledge of meteorology within this community, but it's another matter entirely to communicate it in the right way for the general public, or rather, end users, so they can use it for their own benefit.
Around 5 PM, the panel discussion concluded. An hour later, there was a dinner reception held, as an opportunity to mingle with people. I met up with this great guy named Mike Mogil I had first met at the AMS Meeting in Austin back in January. I also got talking with a graduate student from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and one of his professors. There were good spreads of vegetables, small appetizers, and a carving station. This was one of many good opportunities I had to meet people, as were the breaks in between sessions.
I was back again at the Convention Center Tuesday morning a few minutes before 8 AM. The morning started with a weather briefing for the Charleston area. Subsequently, Ken Carey, in the NWA leadership, gave the keynote address, talking about how the meteorology community can be more unified in its approach to help the end users of its information to be more weather-resilient, as part of becoming a Weather Ready Nation.
Following this presentation was the first session of the morning, with presentations on severe weather. There were two case studies discussed, each having notable meteorological characteristics. Then there were two presentations on lightning, in regards to how it affects decisions made to protect players and viewers at NCAA games, and a technique to track lightning strikes for forecasting purposes.
During the break that followed this session, I had the chance to talk with a number of individuals, including NWA President Bruce Thomas, Bill Read, Ken Carey, and Janice Bunting, the NWA Executive Director-elect.
The session after the break was a presentation with four parts on the heavy snowfall associated with Sandy that fell in the highest elevations of the Appalachians, which can be described as a northwest flow event, which is a typical weather pattern that causes such snowfall. These presentations highlighted the high level of technical detail that is involved in describing weather events, which was present in many other talks. But with my background having studied the science, it wasn't really all that much over my head.
After these presentations ended, I got talking with some more people, especially the exhibitors about their companies and the products they offer for using and displaying weather data.
I definitely had a great time at the conference. It was a fabulous opportunity to meet people in the field, and attend presentations on technical analyses of weather occurrences, and weather's societal impacts, not to mention being part of the important discussions that came up. I was reminded of the significance this science has, and made me glad to have a part in it as a weather enthusiast, and to express it in such a gathering.
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