Chaser Convention Occlusion (as in wrap-up)
After surviving the record low temperatures of -13F and a two hour flight delay, I'm glad to be back home. I see that my forecast once again was off. At least a broken clock is right twice per day. I didn't even do that good. ;-)
Overall, the convention was "ok" for me personally considering it was my innauguration. Although I got some benefit from it and Roger/Tim and company did a good job with the logistics overall and attracting some excellent speakers, I'm not expecting I'll attend future conventions. A little over $500 combined with air travel headaches is a little steep for me personally. Anyway....
With Jon Davies' and Dr. David Gold's presentations, I added a nice arsenal to my forecasting tools and knowlege. In particular, I will pay more attention to 0-1km EHI and 0-3km CAPE values. The LCL/LFC depth is another parameter I'll be looking at closely in relation to cap strength and tornado potential (closely correlated of course to 0-3km CAPE values). It was also good to take a closer look at case studies of non-supercell tornadoes (landpouts). For the first time, seeing the thermodynamic profile (via skew-t) for these setups filled in a big gap for me. It's pretty simple really....practically nil CIN and near dry adiabatic lapse rates from surface to LCL. All of this of course depends on proper and correct sounding modifications for the late afternoon. This can be done manually, but takes considerable time when modifying for upstream parameters and expected/forecast boundary layer. I'll be exploring software tools to help out here. Lastly, it was good to hear a little more detail about the cold core events from Jon Davies.
We also found out that the wind profiler network will be severely jeopardized due to massive personnel cuts by the NWS. Even if you don't use this data directly, it DOES feed into the RUC model initialization. The program isn't being mothballed, but when a profiler goes down, it may take weeks or even months to get it back online. I fear that if profilers like Jayton and/or Tucumcari black out, we'll pay the price big time for systems in W TX, OK and W half of KS.
Dr. Joe Golden gave a great presentation on waterpouts and reveleaed some fascinating characteristics and environmental parameters that favor their formation. I was pretty motivated afterwards to go chase these things in the middle of the summer. That might be a good future retirement plan for me. :-)
Dr. Greg Forbes gave an excellent presentation on climatology and La Nina comparisons concerning the current drought pattern to those of the past. Not surprisingly, there's really nothing concrete there as the numbers are all over the place. He did ALOT of work and research.
Of course, Tim Samaras and Tim Marshall's presentations were quite entertaining and as usual very informative. Check out the agenda for their respective presentations. I really liked Marshall's damage survey presentation.
Dr. Josh Wurman gave a nice presentation which helped me better understand some of the technical limitations and obstacles with regard to mobile radar studies of supercells. It was also fascintating to see some of their efforts regarding hurricane studies. Seeing the images of "boundary layer streaks" in a hurricane was very interesting. I also learned of their efforts in wildfire research and using forecast models to predict a fire's behavior out to one hour. that's a significant amount of time for firefighting resources to react and respond to. Good stuff.
I also found out that some improvemnts are on the way for ThreatNet (WxWorx). They might not be ready until June however. As far as the details, I couldn't pry much out the person I was talking with. But, speculation is that the bandwidth limitations that restricted the data flow will be elimintaed or greatly improved. They have been listening to our emails and suggestions. This of course translates to SPC and forecasting products and perhaps improved radar images. We shall see.
I missed the last half of Jim Reed's presentation though. That was the main thing I wanted to take away from the convention concerning the business end of photography and videography. He got started late because of delays in the scheduling which ran into my departure time. Had I been smart, I would have called American Airlines and discover the two-hour delay. Oh well.
The keynote of course was by Dr. Doswell regarding chaser ethics, safety and potential repercussions. He really kicked everybody in the butt...so to speak. He made ALOT of very valid points and observations which I've also harped about alot for many years now (except I get a good stoning over it...he gets applause...lol!). The ironic thing though is the type of people he targeted most negatively...a few of them were in the audience. They of course applauded and showered him with praise afterwards. Pull out your psych books on that one, but it's safe to say that they in no way see themselves as part of the problem...which IS a problem. Chuck's speech will quickly fade away with the first plains red box of the upcoming season as the chasers in question do whatever it takes to one-up everybody else or simply to "acquire their stripes"....whatever the hell that means anymore. I'll write more about this later down the road when I have a chance to review my notes and collect my thoughts.
Along that same line of thought, it was nice to not to be part of the political circles and cliques that were obvious at the convention. I kept pretty much to myself most of the time and discovered that I'm quite comfortable fading into obscurity within the "stormchasing community". That's a good thing...believe me. In fact, everybody thought I was the "other" Steve Miller from Tulsa. He'll get a kick out of that. ;-)
There are a couple of funny moments to note as well. Sunday morning during breakfast, the local cable station tested the EBS system using the familiar tones we all know and love on NOAA Weather Radio. The reaction through the entire room of chasers along with Angie and Sarah at my table was hilarious. The second funny thing that happened was while in the hotel van en route to the airport on Sunday. Bill Hark was sitting next to me and we were discussing our real jobs. He turned and asked me if I was a meteorologist. I instantly replied: "No. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express". :-)
Overall, the convention was "ok" for me personally considering it was my innauguration. Although I got some benefit from it and Roger/Tim and company did a good job with the logistics overall and attracting some excellent speakers, I'm not expecting I'll attend future conventions. A little over $500 combined with air travel headaches is a little steep for me personally. Anyway....
With Jon Davies' and Dr. David Gold's presentations, I added a nice arsenal to my forecasting tools and knowlege. In particular, I will pay more attention to 0-1km EHI and 0-3km CAPE values. The LCL/LFC depth is another parameter I'll be looking at closely in relation to cap strength and tornado potential (closely correlated of course to 0-3km CAPE values). It was also good to take a closer look at case studies of non-supercell tornadoes (landpouts). For the first time, seeing the thermodynamic profile (via skew-t) for these setups filled in a big gap for me. It's pretty simple really....practically nil CIN and near dry adiabatic lapse rates from surface to LCL. All of this of course depends on proper and correct sounding modifications for the late afternoon. This can be done manually, but takes considerable time when modifying for upstream parameters and expected/forecast boundary layer. I'll be exploring software tools to help out here. Lastly, it was good to hear a little more detail about the cold core events from Jon Davies.
We also found out that the wind profiler network will be severely jeopardized due to massive personnel cuts by the NWS. Even if you don't use this data directly, it DOES feed into the RUC model initialization. The program isn't being mothballed, but when a profiler goes down, it may take weeks or even months to get it back online. I fear that if profilers like Jayton and/or Tucumcari black out, we'll pay the price big time for systems in W TX, OK and W half of KS.
Dr. Joe Golden gave a great presentation on waterpouts and reveleaed some fascinating characteristics and environmental parameters that favor their formation. I was pretty motivated afterwards to go chase these things in the middle of the summer. That might be a good future retirement plan for me. :-)
Dr. Greg Forbes gave an excellent presentation on climatology and La Nina comparisons concerning the current drought pattern to those of the past. Not surprisingly, there's really nothing concrete there as the numbers are all over the place. He did ALOT of work and research.
Of course, Tim Samaras and Tim Marshall's presentations were quite entertaining and as usual very informative. Check out the agenda for their respective presentations. I really liked Marshall's damage survey presentation.
Dr. Josh Wurman gave a nice presentation which helped me better understand some of the technical limitations and obstacles with regard to mobile radar studies of supercells. It was also fascintating to see some of their efforts regarding hurricane studies. Seeing the images of "boundary layer streaks" in a hurricane was very interesting. I also learned of their efforts in wildfire research and using forecast models to predict a fire's behavior out to one hour. that's a significant amount of time for firefighting resources to react and respond to. Good stuff.
I also found out that some improvemnts are on the way for ThreatNet (WxWorx). They might not be ready until June however. As far as the details, I couldn't pry much out the person I was talking with. But, speculation is that the bandwidth limitations that restricted the data flow will be elimintaed or greatly improved. They have been listening to our emails and suggestions. This of course translates to SPC and forecasting products and perhaps improved radar images. We shall see.
I missed the last half of Jim Reed's presentation though. That was the main thing I wanted to take away from the convention concerning the business end of photography and videography. He got started late because of delays in the scheduling which ran into my departure time. Had I been smart, I would have called American Airlines and discover the two-hour delay. Oh well.
The keynote of course was by Dr. Doswell regarding chaser ethics, safety and potential repercussions. He really kicked everybody in the butt...so to speak. He made ALOT of very valid points and observations which I've also harped about alot for many years now (except I get a good stoning over it...he gets applause...lol!). The ironic thing though is the type of people he targeted most negatively...a few of them were in the audience. They of course applauded and showered him with praise afterwards. Pull out your psych books on that one, but it's safe to say that they in no way see themselves as part of the problem...which IS a problem. Chuck's speech will quickly fade away with the first plains red box of the upcoming season as the chasers in question do whatever it takes to one-up everybody else or simply to "acquire their stripes"....whatever the hell that means anymore. I'll write more about this later down the road when I have a chance to review my notes and collect my thoughts.
Along that same line of thought, it was nice to not to be part of the political circles and cliques that were obvious at the convention. I kept pretty much to myself most of the time and discovered that I'm quite comfortable fading into obscurity within the "stormchasing community". That's a good thing...believe me. In fact, everybody thought I was the "other" Steve Miller from Tulsa. He'll get a kick out of that. ;-)
There are a couple of funny moments to note as well. Sunday morning during breakfast, the local cable station tested the EBS system using the familiar tones we all know and love on NOAA Weather Radio. The reaction through the entire room of chasers along with Angie and Sarah at my table was hilarious. The second funny thing that happened was while in the hotel van en route to the airport on Sunday. Bill Hark was sitting next to me and we were discussing our real jobs. He turned and asked me if I was a meteorologist. I instantly replied: "No. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express". :-)
posted by Steve Miller TX at 2/20/2006 11:48:00 AM
4 Comments:
If everyone thought you were me, I'm surprised you don't have a black eye or two from the misfortune!
Everyone thought I was you in 2005.
I suppose I should go next year just to screw with people.
As for Doswell, I look forward to seeing him speak in a few weeks. I have always heard he is not kind to chasers under 40 years of age which has always intrigued me - intrigued me that organizers of chase-related functions continue to invite him to speak. But, alas - I, like many others, are interested in what he has to say. Why? I don't know.
I definitely had to be on my guard. I finally had to write "Texas" on my name badge in self-defense. That confused them even more because a couple of people said, "I thought you lived in Tulsa?". Priceless. :-)
I think Miller-Ok should have given you a heads up on that one and told you to wear a shirt with Texas in big letters on the front in the back. You pretty lucky you did not get jumped in an elevator or dark hallway! I can just picture Grillo and Hollingshead waiting in the shadows.
Well, someday, the "Wanted" posters will include me as well. I'm already on the black list of a few individuals out there. ;-)
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