Impactful Weather

On Saturday, April 5, I made the trek to Fermilab in Batavia for the Annual Fermilab/WGN Severe Weather/Tornado Seminar.  This event is always a great opportunity for people from the general public to come out and attend presentations given by meteorology professionals, especially the renowned Tom Skilling, who MCs the event.  He has such a bright, bubbly persona, and showed forth such enthusiasm in his remarks before and after each presentation.

At the beginning, Governor Pat Quinn (D-IL) gave a few remarks about severe weather preparedness.  This is certainly an important topic featured in the discussion, helping people be ready to respond to such situations in their own communities.

One big focus within the seminar was on computer modelling, which has played a substantial role in helping to understand what's happening in the atmosphere, and especially in forecasting the weather.  Dr. Donna Cox of the University of Illinois, who has worked to develop graphical displays for computer models, spoke about the supercomputer at the U of I.

Dr. Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service, and good friend of Tom Skilling, also spoke about computer models in his presentation.  He then went on to talk about climate change, which led into his analysis of some severe weather events and their impact on communities, including a derecho event in late June 2012 that affected the Washington, DC, area.

He also talked about the Weather Ready Nation initiative and its program to recognize ambassadors, individuals or organizations that help promote severe weather preparedness.  During his presentation, Dr. Uccellini recognized both Fermilab and Tom Skilling for their efforts in promoting preparedness by hosting this seminar for years.  This was one of those rare moments--as Dr. Uccellini puts it--when Tom Skilling went speechless.  (Dr. Uccellini has also said that computer modelling is one of the most significant scientific advances, up there with the polio vaccine, because of its role in weather forecasting and helping protect life and property.)

Climate change was a big focus in the presentation given by Dr. Donald Wuebbles.  He focused on how climate change is really happening and affecting severe weather events, delving into the latest research that's showing trends.

Tom Skilling also gave a presentation, talking about the extreme weather the Chicagoland area has experienced recently, and what' behind it all.  He used to be a climate change (or global warming) skeptic, but did an about-face after, as he puts it, he saw the drastic changes in ice coverage in the higher latitudes, in the Arctic and Antarctica.  Like last year, climate change had a big part in the presentations given at the seminar.

After a break, the focus turned more specifically to severe weather. Russell Schneider, director of the Storm Prediction Center, talked about the role SPC plays in helping to forecast severe weather situations.

Then, there were two presentations on the November 17, 2013, severe weather outbreak in Illinois, which included a tornado that devastated the town of Washington, IL, both given by employees at the NWS Chicago Forecast Office.  Matt Friedlin, a forecaster there, talked about the meteorological set-up for the event, which included some very unusual circumstances for November.  Ed Fenelon talked about the social response and impact of the event.

Brian Smith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the NWS Omaha Forecast Office in Valley, NE, talked about tornadoes, going through various misconceptions about them.

The presentations were chock-full of good information, delving deeply in to the science behind something that has real impacts on people.

It was a good opportunity to be there for the presentations.  But an especially good moment for me came toward the end of the seminar, when Dr. Uccellini stepped out into the cafeteria area for a snack, where I was, and I had the opportunity to chat with him briefly, before Russ Schneider, and another, came out to get him, and I spoke with Russ briefly, too.  The opportunity to interact with important people in the meteorology community is definitely a highlight of this event.