Dust storms are defined as events where dust reduces visibility to a quarter mile or less, typically requiring winds of 50-55 mph or greater to form. Forecasting dust storms involves analyzing pre-environment conditions such as hot, dry, and windy weather patterns that bake the top soil layer, along with boundary layer depth which determines whether dust will form dangerous haboobs (concentrated dust walls) or dispersed plumes. The primary impacts of dust storms include traffic hazards, respiratory health issues for vulnerable populations, and livestock safety concerns. Effective emergency response requires coordination between meteorologists and emergency managers to close roads and alert motorists, with Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEIA) being particularly effective for reaching drivers who may not monitor traditional media sources.
WeatherBrains 1070
Added:Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Weather Brains episode 107070.
This is for the 20th of July, 2026 on our regular Monday uh schedule here.
This is the pre-show, by the way. If you're looking for the actual show content, move the slider over about 8 minutes. But this is the pre-show. Don't miss this. This is where we share boring personal stories, humorous anecdotes, and occasionally we say some outrageous things.
Yes, indeed. Um, and by the way, on a logistical note, a housekeeping note, uh, I am off next week. And for those longtime viewers, listeners, uh, I take three weeks a year, three three weeks.
one in late June, one in late July, and one at Christmas. And for the times I'm off, we do that week show on the Thursday before the vacation week, which means we have a Thursday night special this week for those that like to watch us live on uh YouTube. So, uh just a quick note, we would love to have you join us on Thursday.
Be headed up to watch the Red Sox. Hey.
Hey. You know, baseball's a great sport.
I mean, the Red Sox, it looked like they were going to be absolutely the worst team in baseball this year. Worst team.
And all of a sudden, they have ripped off 13 wins in a row. Their longest win streak since the 1940s, and they are basically in the playoffs.
If if if things were to happen now, they'd have a wildcard birth. I mean, how strange does it get? So, we'll be at Finnway this weekend, a Saturday and Sunday. The Blue Jays are in town.
Typically, I see we we go to the Red Sox Finway in June, but this year we went to Alaska and that was great. Enjoyed that. Met a lot of Weather Brains listeners and viewers while I was there.
But always love being in Boston. It's a summer tradition, one of our happy places. So, looking forward to that. All right, let's bring in some of our guests that have been waiting in line here for three hours, I think. Uh, what's what's bad? Our guests tend to be more timely than the regular hosts here, which is not good. Um, but it's going to be a good show tonight. All right, Jessica and Kim and Jeremy, can you hear me?
Okay, >> can do.
>> I can hear you.
>> Good.
>> Very fine.
>> Great. Thank you guys. You are timely.
All three of you are right on time. I mean, wow. That's in fact you you're ahead of time. So, thank you. Um, and just we'd like to let all of our guests know that we are streaming live on YouTube. Not that you would say anything inappropriate. The guy that's about to join the session would say something inappropriate. The man that you see right there, um, >> no doubt.
>> Air John. He Gordon. Gordon.
>> Hey, Eagle. How are you? Hey, Kim.
Good to see you, John.
>> Great to see you. Kim's one of the finest people I ever met in my career.
>> He's a great American. A great American.
>> He is. And Jeremy all the way from by God Goodland, Kansas.
>> That's right. We're uh not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.
>> GLD.
GLD.
Goodland, Kansas.
>> You've been there, J.
>> Wizards.
I would love to go to Goodland, Kansas.
I feel like I I feel like I've experienced it after 48 years of looking at surface observations from Goodland, Kansas. Blizzard, blizzards, dust storms, tornadoes. You I mean, it gets no better than that. I mean, come on.
It's outstanding.
>> The best days are when you get to us all in the same day.
>> Uh, absolutely. No, it's that's >> Jessica.
>> Hey, John.
>> Glad you're here. Thanks for coming.
>> Of course. I'm happy to be here.
>> Are are you in Huntsville, Jessica?
>> No, I am in Greenville, South Carolina.
>> Okay. I saw your email address and wondered if you happen to be in Huntsville. So, >> no, I I'm there on occasion.
>> Okay. I was going to see if you were at the Trash Pandas game on Saturday night >> for the bobbleheads.
>> Yeah, the the the the bobbleheads in the first pitch. I told that I told that catcher, you know, they think some old man, some elderly man like me is, you know, going to get up there ahead of the circle and just, you know, toss it in underhand. Said, "Buddy, you No, no, I'm I'm on the rubber. I'm kicking off that thing, and this thing's coming hard.
This thing's coming hard. You be ready to You'd be ready to ice your hand down, pal." And uh he he he was shocked at the velocity an old man could throw. So, >> when you eat at Jim's Barbecue, you get all that per >> Yes, sir. You got that right. The protein you need. And I was telling the those folks that are on the pre-show that I'll be in Boston this weekend for Red Sox games. We go every year. I'm a Red Sox guy. Hottest team in baseball.
13 wins in a row. Uh they're in contention. It's it's been a miracle turnaround. So, uh weather looks great.
So, we're going to be in Boston.
Usually we go in June, but we went to Alaska, you know, this year. So, the uh Boston baseball trip has been pushed back a little bit. See, Rick Smith from lovely Kansas City, Missouri. I heard a rumor.
>> I heard a rumor that Rick is in Kansas City, Missouri.
>> Yes.
>> Undisclosed location.
>> I'm at the wonderful Homewood Suites, which is within walking distance of the training center. Kim's very familiar with that, Kim. So, >> yeah. Hey, Rick. What are you doing there?
Uh we're doing the second round of the NWS Academy uh foundations of I can't remember what it's called. It's it's for new meteorologists.
>> Oh, I gotcha. Okay.
>> Like I don't see a spot here. I'm less familiar with Zoom than Google Meet. I don't see a spot to to uh mute my microphone when I'm not, you know.
>> Bottom left.
>> Just just click click the audio button.
Bottom left. I'll just click >> click the audio button and you're and you're gone.
>> Yep.
>> Okay.
James, >> you know the one thing about Kim, the the one thing I've admired about Kim for all these years, this guy's got a good-look head that that is symmetrical.
>> No, no, no, no. He He's got Listen, my head has potholes. I have potholes and it's lopsided which means I have to keep the fuzz around the side to so people don't have to look at the potholes in the in the lopsided nature of my head.
So uh best head in the weather enterprise belongs to Kim Runk.
U >> quite the compliment.
>> You need to get that on a shirt.
>> That's right.
>> All right. I think we're all here. I know that Kim Clo Mlan is out. I think she's traveling. I know that Troy is out, but I see >> Well, Jen, Jen, are you here? Jen, I'm here. Hello, Jen.
>> Hello, >> Earth. Earth calling Jyn. Earth calling Jyn.
>> Can you hear me?
>> Good.
>> Hello.
>> Yes, I'm all right. So, let's get this thing started. All right, here we go.
>> Here we go. Here we go. Track one is recording. Track two. And here we go in 5 4 3 2 1.
>> You're listening to Weather Brains.
They're kind of a big deal.
>> Weather Brains, episode number 10, 170.
1070 for the 20th of July, 2026.
Meteorological summer rolling along. But you know what? You know, you know, I'm seeing all these uh college football preview events going on here. The school is back soon. College football begins soon. Before you know it, the winds of fall will be blowing. But we still got to get through August and probably September for some of us. For for some of us, this latitude, it's usually October before the de first decent front of the season. But it's coming. It's coming. Let's Let's go right to Jen Narimore. Jen, we we always have questions about your location, your mission, >> your status. So So please give us an update. Please. We're curious.
Well, do we want to do that now or at the end of the show? Are you >> I think we should do it at the end of the at the No, no, no, no. At the end.
This is a tease. I want which I was hoping you'd set up a tease.
>> I'll set up a tease. So, I am coming to you from a new location in Ohio.
And I'm going to reveal what I have done at the end of the show in a breaking news segment. We're going to we've got some email, but we're going to push it to next week. And we're going to do I want you to play your sounder, James, at the end of the show. I have a huge announcement and a few people know about it, but not everyone. So, uh, breaking news sounder at the end of the show, but I'm in a new location >> and I'm blurred my I blurred the location so nobody can try to guess what it is.
>> No, it's totally out of focus. We see nothing. Wow. Okay, >> that that that's a tease right there.
That's outstanding.
>> Thank you.
>> I see that James ate a lot. Dr. A has joined us from Tulsa town.
James, how are you on this summer evening?
>> Uh, warm. We were 98 today and going above 100. Probably the hottest we will be since August of 2023. And I didn't mean that to rhyme, but it's going to happen that way.
>> Oo goodness. Yeah, it's um it's that time of the year. And south of us, we actually have a tropical depression in the Gulf that could become a tropical storm Bertha tonight. Uh watching some of the rainbands swirling through, but it looks like this thing is just it's having a hard it's it's not doing well.
It's ill. Uh a lot of sheer some dry air. I think the deepest convection is going to stay offshore. So hopefully no major problems here. But let's go to another one of our panelists that's in an undisclosed location. and Rick Smith, I do not recognize your QTH. And I'm probably the only guy on the show that knows what QTH means, but I don't recognize you your spot there.
>> I know I know what it means. Um >> Oh, God.
>> Yeah. I'm uh I'm in Kansas City. Not undisclosed. Uh Jen kind of uh Jen's got the coolest announcement that I'm at a home with sweets. It's boring. It's nothing fancy, but uh right across the street from the uh weather service training center and I'm here this week helping out with um the second round of our applied meteorology course for brand new meteorologists. So excited about that. I checked in the hotel about 25 minutes ago and if you could see my setup here in the room, well, I don't want you to see my setup here in the room. So hopefully it works.
>> It's working good. It is working just fine. All right. So, uh, let's see. I guess, uh, we'll bring in, uh, John Gordon. John Air Gordon, the the >> I wish we all wish we had John's energy and passion, enthusiasm, knowledge, experience, the He's got the whole package. We We all want to be like John.
So, John, I'm going to let you set up the show tonight and introduce our guests.
>> Well, thanks, Eagle. I'm the JV for the main show who's going to be at Fenway Park before you know it, sharing on those songs.
>> Yes, sir.
Yeah, buddy. This weekend I'll be there.
Can't wait.
>> I grew up with Carl Yremsky. How many of you remember him?
>> So, anyway, welcome folks. So, we're kind of doing a double tonight. So, I want to welcome first uh our folks. Kim Runk is the El Presidente for the National Weather Association, and he'll be on a little bit later on the show.
will be a panelist for the first segment along with Jessica uh Stump who's the program chair for the NWA annual meeting which James Span is going to bring down the house for his talk >> if we don't get if we if we don't get kicked out first. Um you know >> there may be security.
>> Yeah Kevin and I are somewhat controversial. Uh we might need some real security for this thing. So we we'll see how it plays out but it it will never be boring. It will never ever be boring. I'll guarantee you that.
>> That's a fact. So, we'll talk to the NWA folks here about uh maybe five till or so. So, our main show here is the Dust Show. So, I am really pleased to welcome I went to Goodland in 2019, I think, for a couple months. And I'm first met Jeremy. Um Jeremy is the uh MIC and 4,800 people, Goodland by God, Kansas on Interstate 70. Uh, and uh, Jeremy's a good dude. He's been in 25 years in the weather service. He's been in North Plat, Omaha, Sou Falls, and Goodland, Kansas, the sunflower capital of America. Right, Jeremy?
>> They say that, but uh, someone just noticed we haven't seen any sunflowers all year. Maybe it's just an off year for planting them this year.
>> No sunflowers. Gotcha. He grew up in the sand hills of Nebraska. uh growing up in a either a trailer or a modular home. He knows what it's like to leave his house to go to a place of shelter and got his interest in weather from all those tornadoes. uh got a um bachelor's from University of Nebraska in Lincoln and he's really he got me interested James Span because when I went to Goodland I assumed when you assume James Alt when you assume that the number one problem in Goodland was blizzards and he says no John it's dust.
>> So tonight we're going to talk to Jeremy and dust. So Jeremy welcome to Weather Brains.
>> Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be able to talk about this. Uh, it's strange to be talking about dirt, but uh, it's a big deal out here. So, >> yeah, >> I never have you ever heard this you ever heard the song? You ever heard the song Dust in the Wind?
>> Yes, I have.
>> Who So, who who did that song? What was the name of the band that did Dust in the Wind? Here's the trivia of the night.
>> Oh, I know.
>> I'm usually really good at that's I hate to say that's a little old for me.
>> It's a state that you know. It's a state that you know well.
>> Is it Kansas?
>> Yes. Kansas. You got it. That's it.
>> Well done. James is the best DJ I know.
I wish I could have listened to you back in the day. That must have been a hoot.
>> It was no good. But I had fun. I >> bet you did. So anyway, Jeremy's got six kids and he just he's really embracing Goodland. And before him was a really good friend of mine, Scott Menser. Many of you remember them. I know Kim does.
And Kim, how long was uh Menser out there, Jeremy? Like 20 years, >> I think. So, um I I can't exactly remember when he retired. He was the one that hired me first into the weather service after college. And uh he's actually my neighbor caddy corner from my house now. So, he drives by from time to time. So, I still see him.
>> He really embraced Goodland because he stayed there.
>> I mean, he lives there, right? He's involved in the whole thing. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I believe he's a actually a minister now in uh very involved in the community.
>> He's a good dude. He really is. So, all right. So, Jeremy, what was the Was there an event that really got you in the weather? What I mean, what was the thing that got you hooked?
>> It's going to sound pretty cliche because a lot of people have it. It's a tornado story, but mine's kind of funny.
Um it wasn't funny at the time. Looking back on it, it's funny. My parents my whole life ran a ran a pizza. I help work at there sometimes and we were going to the town. It was in June of I can't remember the year. We were going to the town next in our mobile pizza trucks. We were going to cook pizzas for this farm expo thing. And my dad was kind of always tired of me asking if everything was a tornado. And uh so we're driving there and I look out the back window of this big kitchen truck thing and I see a tornado and I go, "Hey dad, is that tornado?" And he he just instinctively says, "No." Right? And then he looked. Then I saw him and he looked and he got real quiet. And then he said it's something I can't repeat.
And then that little tornado turned into a real big tornado. It was heading right for the town we were leaving. And uh I got I I didn't realize how scary my dad was for my our family. But I thought it was the coolest thing I've ever seen.
This beautiful tornado, full visibility, and the fact I was sitting in the back of a mobile kitchen when it was happening. Uh thankfully didn't hit town. It stayed out in open fields and didn't do any damage. But that's kind of the event that goes. This is this is really cool and they're nothing to be uh I say they're nothing to be afraid of. I used to be really terrified of storms and they kind of gave me the first, you know, if you kind of understand what's going on and you take precautions, um they're not as scary as they could be.
Okay. Gotcha. So, you became the science officer first at Goodland. So, what what it's like tell folks what it's like to be the science officer in Goodland, Kansas. And did you start any dust at that time yet doing research?
>> Uh yeah, Goodland is interesting to be a Sue. I think it's we have a little bit of everything. You have to kind of have your hands in a lot of different types of weather. Um and also we have we spent so much time training new people. It's kind of what we're all used to. Um I mean my new Sue has been here three years has already trained five people and uh it's so you're kind of always on the cusp of training people and getting them ready. Um I admittedly my original interest here were like land spouts and and things like that. Um dust was always kind of something that was out there and we always kind of I hate to say we in ops we'd always kind of throw our hands up go there's nothing you can do about it. You just have to react. And we had enough events after events where we started going that's kind of a copout, right? It's too hard. We don't know what the fields are like. Um we had I had an event in 2018 uh and it was kind of a combination. It was a dust storm and a fire event, which turns out those happen quite often at the same time. I have to learn. Um, my brother-in-laws were actually out working on wells. Fire broke out just near this little town, Weskin, and it was in the middle of a dust storm as well. And they were telling me the stories of going out there trying to fight a fire as volunteers when can't see anything. And that that at that point I kind of got into goes, "Yeah, we really need to pay more attention and try to predict these." Um, and we we tried various things. At first we uh first idea was we were going to build this dust sensor to tell us when there's dust. If we did that, that was going to be the answer. And uh I actually have the remains of it right here. All right.
It's not a bomb either. Had to be that clear. Um it was all homemade. We got the idea from Phoenix. Um this is just a basically an old plastic box that contains a Raspberry Pi and an Ardino board. and it ran off this little tiny I think it was some kind of laser uh can't remember the name of what they called the instruments essentially it had a little laser in here and it would give you the particle concentrations based on that and this thing was always reading that and the thought was when it we have dust it would peak up and it would give us some alert and it did work for a while it was it had some good successful tests of it uh what I didn't anticipate though was the the uh the atmosphere out here is really hard on instruments Uh this this box was actually bright orange when we got it and you can tell it's not bright orange anymore and I didn't have it ventilated properly and the sensor started failing and we could never quite figure out how to get it to work again. I think there was something in the wiring that went bad and then just as things piled on we kind of decided to go in a different direction. I I would love to get the get some of those going because Phoenix did actually test these before something like this in their area.
>> Well Jeremy, what are they called? I mean, I don't even know what a measuring dust what what what is this?
>> All right, let me I have I have my notes up here. Let me check here.
Uh, it's called Oh, a PPD.
I'm trying to figure out what that acronym stands for.
>> That's okay. I >> it's essentially there's a small laser in there and a light another light and it compares it compare how the receptors of each and it gives you some estimate of how much the particle concentrations are in there. Um yeah and it when it was working it worked it actually worked to tech fog which I thought was kind of cool.
Um but unfortunately I I I probably would need to harden this a lot more so it could survive out in the open for long periods of time. Um, I think for us with what we've learned since then, the best thing this could be used for would be for uh we do have a few problem areas that seem to always have dust problems when it's windy.
>> Okay. Where's that?
>> Like uh I7 between Edson and Colby is one spot and then where the interstate kind of corrects itself to the south between KBY and Mingo basically around the Mingo area. That's also another problem area where we seem to get just plumes by themselves. I think if I could if we ever get time to invest in this again and get get it hardened, that would be a good place for because those are the plumes that we generally can't predict all that well. Um they're the ones that surprise us. Uh you know, the classic haboobs and stuff, we gotten pretty good at figuring out when those events are coming and can get ahead of them. um and even the larger plume days, but it's it's those ones where it's just one field blowing. They're always kind of the the nothing we've found that will be able hasn't really been able to help us with that yet.
>> Okay. Did your electronics guys uh make the uh sensors?
>> Uh no, these are actually you could just buy them. Uh we got the specs from the WFO Phoenix. They had experimented with this years ago. Um these are all stuff you could buy off of just like micro computer stores.
>> Okay.
>> Things like that. I mean, this was designed more for indoor air quality things, too. Um, but, uh, yeah, they they we were it was all pre-assembled stuff. We put it together and wrote the code for it. And, uh, when it was working, it was it was very it was very neat. And we, uh, we build out old parts. It was actually used at one of the old beehives from the co-op program.
It was in there. And it was just, uh, >> okay, I got a 14-year-old kid who wants me to ask you this, Addison. and he wants me to ask you what is the official definition of a dust storm.
>> Ah that's a very it's a very good one.
Um generally speaking it's any event where the dust reduces vis visibility to a quarter mile or less. Um it doesn't necessarily have to be like the big wall of dust like we see sometimes in the desert southwest and in this area. It can be just a big plume of dust originating from one source. Uh so the definition wise it's just visibility of a quarter mile or less and when we say or less it's usually zero. Uh and then uh there's really really not even a time time restraint for it. Um generally >> so okay so the blizzard is basically a quarter or less but that's based on wind speeds. Do you have a wind speed that gets it going? What? uh not not in the actual definition but but from our own observations generally speaking we need to have 50 55 mile plus gusts before we start getting serious dust going around um it's crazy how much it matches our severe criteria actually uh there's something magic about that number that >> okay I'm a new meteorologist I'm going to the NWA meeting Jessica's got a big thing what what about dust what would you teach if you were giving a seminar, what would you teach the meteorologist how to forecast dust?
>> Uh, I would be focusing on the pre-environment actually. Um, like I said, we we don't we're not really at a state where we can tell you which fields are going to be really susceptible to any blowing or not. Uh, what we have found is a lot of these events, especially the bigger events, always seem to be preceded by red flag days.
You know, hot, dry, and windy leading up to it. Uh the event I the event I was really got me interested in actually five days prior to that event the source region had a 10 inches of snow and it dried out that fast. Got Yeah. So it's it's not this long. It doesn't always have to be a long term. You're not >> What month was this? Go back. 10 inches of snow and then you have a dust storm.
>> Yeah. April 18th, 2018, I believe. Um and uh yeah, it was I remember working that event going, "Oh, we don't have any dust threat with this cold front." And yeah, that we did. And and that's what the thing was. It's uh you have to be on lookout for days where it's day after day of just being sunny and dry and windy because that will bake the top layer of soil so fast. And then from there, once you can identify that the soil has been kind of prepped, it's just a matter of looking for um wind speeds obviously is important, but a boundary layer depth is another key one. If it's too deep, it just you'll get plumes that loft and they'll be really bad right next to the plume, but a couple miles down the road, they'll be lofted in the air and it won't be a problem. They'll just be kind of haze. Um, if you get a really shallow boundary area, like behind a cold front, then the dust can't go anywhere and it gets concentrated really quickly and then you get the wall. Um, so that that's how I'd really approach it. Uh, we do have some parameters some guys like using here.
Um, but I'm I'm more of just looking at the pattern. You know, is this a haboo type pattern? Is this a plume type pattern? If it's plume, how deep's the boundary layer? How far away can we go?
We've actually used highsplit on some days to give some DSS to people about is it going to impact this road or not? Um, and it's been successful to some degree.
Um, you know, we kind of made it up as we go, but >> Okay. So, Kim has a question. We'll to Kim.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. I just wonder, Jeremy, so in western Kansas, what what are the primary impacts? Is it traffic issues, dangerous, you know, breathing for people who have that kind of like asthma or elderly or is there some danger to livestock? What what what are the impacts you see?
>> That that's a great question. Um, we have been primarily been focusing on the travel part because that's where we've had all our fatalities. Um we've had uh the last 10 years we've had 10 dust fatalities, one flash flood fatality and two winter fatalities. So and the 10 dust was all been in the last four years. So it's uh when they happen it's bad, >> but at the same time we've noticed is we've noticed that too that you know I love dust storms. I'll go out and watch them but then I can't it's I struggle to breathe for like two days afterwards and that can't be good that we're breathing in all this junk all the time. Um, I've been we've been wanting to reach out to some health departments to see if we can collect some data on like hospital admissions after these events.
>> Um, but as as of right now, the the best we can do with that on the health side is just help tell people, hey, wear this might be a good day to wear a mask, seal up your windows, it's going to be bad air quality. I'd really like to expand on that more, but right now the focus is on on the traveling people because they're the most vulnerable.
Um, and I can't imagine someone driving up here from Florida who probably doesn't never heard of a dust storm before and you run into one of these big walls of dust and this what what you should do in those situations is kind of counterintuitive. You know, pull out way off the road and turn off your lights isn't what people first think, you know.
Uh, every year we have people arguing with us that no, you need your lights on, you need to be able to see. I'm like, yeah, if you're on the road you need to be able to see, but if you're off the road, you certainly don't want someone following you off the road.
thinking you are the road. Um, and people don't realize just how quickly visibility goes to nothing.
>> Yeah.
>> I had a video and it's probably not worth showing on this because it's like two minutes long, but it's of a police officer coming up on that big uh event we had in March March 14th last year.
Um, and you know, you could see the dust in the horizon and when he gets into it where all the accidents were, you you immediately can't see anything like you know there's accidents out there. you hear the radio chatter saying we have people trapped and things but they were right there and you couldn't see the car right next to you. Um so it's crazy how that how dangerous how quickly that gets.
>> Okay. So you started off you said well you have to see if it's going to be a haboo or it's going to be a plume. You want to go through how you forecast those because that's unusual. That's not the typical thing we forecast.
>> Yeah. Um what I look really we generally look for on the uh on for that the delineating between those two types of events is almost always boundary layer depth and also change in boundary layer depth. Um generally speaking the plume days the atmosphere is pretty well mixed. You know we might have a 3 kilometer deep boundary layer all day. You can kind of picture that as the thermals go they loft the dust up in the air and it gets dissipated. you know, a deeper layer for the dust to distribute into that will lead to just kind of the plumes lining up with the wind. The haboo days and it's it's really kind of interesting because it's synoptically haboo days are usually almost always strong cold front days almost every time. Uh unless you're in this time of year, the summer then thunderstorm outflows work the same way.
And uh so those are kind of that's generally how we differentiate between the two is what's the forcing kind of mechanism of it. Is this going to be large scale gradient winds um with no big change or is it going to be very warm and dry and sunny? I going to harp on sunny all the time and then all a sudden a strong cold front comes and that deep boundary layer that dust have been distributed through shrinks down to maybe a kilometer and the concentrations shoot up and the dust can't get out of that. I've done some high-split modeling of it and you you watch trajectories and they the parcels just can't get out of that frontal zone for quite some time.
um and just kind of scour along the uh ground there. That's generally how we look at it. And I know it sounds kind of simple, but I'm a big proponent of trying to keep things on the simple side. If we're thinking too hard about it, you you fall into the weeds of well, is it this or is it this, you know? Uh I've been trying to simplify that for the people here.
>> Yeah. Kiss, right? Yeah. So, James A, you're up.
It sounds a lot like these impacts are very similar to snow squalls as far as for travelers on interstates. But my my kind of question on forecasting this is you've outlined a bunch of ingredients that you have to have in place, but at what these are ingredients that also seem to be in place for fairly long durations. What what starts the trigger for one of these things going >> uh for the especially the haboo type?
It's when that front arrives finally.
>> Okay.
>> Um >> we've been able to forecast days in advance of the haboo forming >> with reasonable accuracy because you can just tie it so closely to that frontal passage. Um the plume type stuff it's more once the winds start, you know, sustaining at 40 miles an hour or greater with the gust in there, you'll start seeing them pick up. Um, generally speaking, if the boundary layer is deep, and when I say deep, I mean two kilometers are probably greater, those generally don't become much problems unless it's right next to a road because, you know, you get you get a couple miles away from it, it's it's all lofted and the vertical visibility might be like six miles, but it's not terrible. Um, those are harder to actually forecast because we don't know exactly where those plumes are going to form. Um, that's kind of the easiest thing with the haboo, right? Um, it's going to collect dust as it moves.
So, as long as we can track what's forcing it, we can we can message to that. The plumes are a lot more reactionary. We kind of have to see them on satellite or get reports of them and then infer where they're going to be. Um the >> How many days do you have 40 mile per hour winds in Goodland? Because I'm going to bet it's a lot more than I have in Tulsa.
>> Yeah, it's uh it's uh qu I don't know the exact number, but people tell us it's windy out here. We get kind of used to it. Um, but like we just had a bunch of wind events this year where we had 80 mile hour winds, right? Didn't even bother the trees here. Like the thunderstorm come through and like trees are fine. Like you have to be built a little bit differently, I guess, to survive out in the high plains. Um, but uh yeah, it's so it's not an uncommon thing. That's what gets us so so often is if the winds come out when they're the ingredients are ahead of ahead of it, bad things can happen. And honestly, the one parameter I'm really interested in and we are studying it a little bit more is evaporation. Like we used to do the evap fan pan here and then we quit because oh it's not worth it. You know, we I I'm suddenly a believer in that again because we started testing it a couple years ago just to do it again.
And you can see on those good dust days the evaporation rates are insane. Like like I can see how finally because we were like >> that's a good answer. During the fall and spring, we would it literally like we'd have like an entire month of wind advisories and uh it kind of got like the wind warnings >> perpetual wind advisory.
>> Yeah. So wind warnings are same as everybody else. We still do those but yeah wind advisories we just >> what speed what speeds your wind uh your high wind warning >> 40 mph sustained 58 mph gusts or greater. that is they happen more frequently but it's it's rare enough where we can still do those as warnings but the 45 50 mile hour gust days those happen all the time.
>> Okay Jessica you're up. Hey Jeremy, what does the coordination between your office and your county emergency managers, your for first responders to message the threat um impact and actions that you need citizens to take during these?
>> We really focus on on more of getting the the like you said the responders and the county officials aware of what's coming so they can kind of proactively help things. Uh, you know, last year that that March, I think it was March 13th, I said the wrong date where we had that 71 car pileup, we kind of thought we had done everything right. We had products out, we had advisor, we had advisories and warnings out ahead of time and it didn't seem like it helped and we went and we really kind of reviewed what happened and uh and we realized, yeah, we need to make sure that the people who can make nothing reissue is going to close the road down, right? but us getting to the person who can make that decision and letting them know how concerned we are can't get the road closed. Um, so we really focus on that now. Uh, when we're in a dust event, we're on our 800 megahertz short-range radio talking to all the we can literally get into the first responders vehicles and chat with them, tell them where we see things, where it's at. Um, a great success story was two months after that fatal accident, we had a similar event happen and we watched on a webcam them close the road within five minutes of us telling him this thing was coming. There were no accidents. it went right through I70.
Everyone was okay. So, it can it can work. Um, that's generally where we focus most of our attention outside of just the warnings. And we really simplified our products. Like we did away with the advisories because that was one of the confusion points. Some guys didn't know how to do the uh didn't know when to make the difference between advisory or warning. And then also our our users all said, "Yeah, we didn't even see that you had an advisory owl."
Um, so we strictly just do warnings now and we picked the we use the dust storm warning to because it weas we use that to get people's attention on the road and then once we get that initial hey heads up it's coming we kind of revert to the long fused dust storm blowing dust warning just to keep the almost like people do with flooding sometimes you have your flash flood warning and then your aerial flood warning. That's kind of how we treat it now and it seems like people understand that and it's been wellreceived.
Rick, did you want to say any more about WEIA?
>> Yeah. Um, I'm glad you brought that up.
I was just asking. I mean, WEIA is a dust storm warnings are relatively new addition to the wireless emergency alerts. I think it was 2018. I can't remember for sure, but um, have you had any success stories with that? Are are they do you think they make a difference? I mean, motorists are certainly the target of a lot of this messaging.
I honestly I I can't, you know, empirically prove it, but I I know that's the only way we can reach motorists, especially ones that are driving through this area, which most of them are. You know, we are rural. We have more people traveling through than living here. Um, and I I I hate to say it, I don't listen to local radio stations when I'm driving. I have my my own music on or something, but so something going off of my phone might be the only way I would be able to see it.
And uh just just from like secondhand stuff, it seems like people get it. And we we're very careful. We don't over we it like we have kind of a flowchart we do. You know, the WEIA is for the initial alert. It's coming. Then after that, we use the the general warnings just so we don't constantly My goal is everyone gets one WEIA during one of these events so we don't get overloaded.
Uh and then we just go with reg then we kind of just treat it as a regular hazard after that. We had a problem this year actually where it's never happened yet and I have to think about the best way to handle it is what do you do when you have a dust storm, a tornado warning and a destructive thunderstorm all going from the same storm.
>> We Yeah, we had a storm that was producing really brief tornadoes, >> 110 mile hour winds and a dust storm along with it, too.
>> That's a weather sherbet. Yeah, we let the convective warnings kind of take precedent there because like they'll like that one that they'll know not to go in it when they hear 100 mile hour winds and >> a lot of your tornadoes there are like locally intense dust storms. So I don't know what you do with that.
>> Uh that's a mess. But I I think that's a I think dust storm warnings, snow squall warnings, that's perfect use for WEIA because it is the motorists and that's really the only way you're going to get you're going to be able to get them at all.
>> Yeah. Because honestly, if you're at home, a dust storm doesn't I mean, short of making sure you have if you're sensitive, you know, maybe wear a mask, get extra oxygen or something, but really if you're home, you're kind of safe. It's when you're out and about is when you're in danger. And the similarities of snow skull warnings, someone mentioned that earlier. Yeah, they really are kind of it's almost the same in the big picture. It's almost the same threat. You just go from good visibility to nothing and then all the bad things that can happen once that develops.
>> James A, >> does the Kansas Department of Transportation, do they have information signs that you all can do warnings on or do you I can't I drove I70 in October and I can't remember seeing them.
They do have a few and they will put them on there if we message. Okay. Well, >> I should pay more attention when I drive.
>> Yeah, it Well, I I don't blame you.
There's They're not like They're very few and far between, right?
>> Um I I do know that uh now that we have a state uh Kansas uh now that the weather service has a MET just dedicated to the Kansas's EOC, our he's been really helpful for us getting KOT to message things correct. like he's told us whenever they hear us say the word dust now they're here they're up and they they they do stuff differently and uh it's been a real great partnership there and that that is I think one thing that will really help us when they can get the boards well in advance hey watch out these coming consider you know what to do with dust storm's coming um yeah that's there is there are a few signs but not a whole lot >> we're getting a lot of questions Jeremy all right so Jake in uh Tampa Bay wants to know why did you get rid of the dust storm advisory and what exactly is a dust storm warning is it the quarter mile etc. Yeah, it's kind of twofold why we got rid of the advisory because we had all we had four products essentially for one type of event, right? It's kind of the old frost freeze problem, right?
>> Oh yeah.
>> Oh yeah.
>> And the advisories were all like the advisories were all visibly less than a mile and then the mornings are visibility less than a quarter mile.
Then you have the whole convected nut stuff.
I don't think we have any skill determining whether if we're worried enough to message that this dust is a problem. We probably should just default to the dust storm because I don't I'm not going to pretend I have skill that oh that's just one mile and that's what got us in trouble March day. We they started with advisories because it didn't look so bad on the on the cameras but like blizzards how often is it it's okay it's okay here and then you go two miles elsewhere and it's really really bad. So, I just simplified the process and said if we're that concerned that we want to put something out, we'll do warnings. P >> Perry the pilot wants to know, does this affect aviation when it's not on the surface? Is it a when you're on approach? Do I have dust problems coming into Denver?
>> Uh, it could happen. Yeah, it's uh I don't know why we get more of them than than closer to the front range. I guess they'd probably most likely get like the convective ones like a dry micro burst kind of kicking one off. Um, it definitely could. Um, I know we do put we do have dust in our in our products sometimes for our aviation sites.
I'm not enough of a a pilot to know what the exact impact besides the poor visibility would be. Um, I imagine it would almost be like trying to land with a strong outflow boundary coming in an area with wind shear and all that stuff too.
>> James A, any comments? You're a pilot.
you know, if it's windy enough to do that for general aviation, I'm not not going to be up in the air.
But yeah, I'm sure >> crosswind component type issues for commercial aviation become an issue there, especially at DIA because all the runways are north south except a couple.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Couple people want to know, Jeremy, how many dust storms do you get in Kansas here? And then they want me to ask Rick Smith, how many does Rick get in Oklahoma?
I I was actually looking at those numbers and it does vary from year to year. There are some years we might have a day or two that have dust storms. This year so far we've had 10 days um with dust events going on. Uh hard part about building a climatology is how they're they're not really uniformly reported the same everywhere. You know the whole storm data problem, right? Uh dust there's a dust storm here and it disappears over here and it comes back.
Yeah. So, we've really struggled with how to quantify those. Um, I looked at the last few years of cow just when we issued warnings and had LSRs for those and it seems like it about three or four a year seems to be like like days with dust storms in them. Um, this year has been particularly high, but we were in such a bad drought earlier on especially. I just anytime the wind blew, we were getting dust it seemed like.
What's the long A couple people want me to ask you what's the longest a dust storm can go? I mean what's how can it go 24 hours?
>> Uh that's a good question. It I I mean theoretically it could you know if a low deepened and just set in one place and the winds were howling the entire time.
Yeah. I mean you could get you wouldn't have like a a constant wall but you'd have all these plumes merging together.
Um, the longest I've seen is about six hours.
Um, but yeah, if if the it's like everything else, if the atmosphere was just right and you had a steady state system that was just sitting there, it would go until the winds die off essentially.
>> Okay, next question from another viewer wants to know how fast haboobs go.
>> Uh, it's a good question. It it's all tied to how fast the thing that's causing them is going. Uh, generally speaking, you know, if there's good winds behind a cold front or outflow, it's usually moving pretty close to the wind speed of that. Uh, baboons.
I always get I I still chuckle every time I say habooms. But it's the uh if you don't if you don't if you don't laugh at that, you have no sense of humor. None. Zero.
>> I gave in and started using the word. I used to call them dust storms, but generally speaking, they'll move with the speed of what's forcing them. Um, so outflow I've seen them move as slow as 35 miles an hour. I've seen them move as fast as 60. Uh, okay.
>> Nic scale cold fronts kind of the same thing. It depends on how fast that's moving.
>> Um, >> okay.
>> So Rick and James A, what about dust in Oklahoma? What what can you tell us?
>> Yes, >> in Oklahoma now I my little laptop screen I'm not fast enough. I'm on IM trying to desperately see when the last time we issued a dust storm warning, but uh we don't issue them very often. I mean, we clearly have uh episodes of blowing dust and and things like that, but not nearly uh the frequency that they have up in the west can western Kansas.
James A, I know when you when you enter I44 from Missouri, the first thing you see on the interstate, do not drive into smoke immediately.
Do do we have any do not drive into dust, Jeremy?
>> Oh, >> no. But that might be a good idea.
>> I don't think we've had any in eastern Oklahoma, east of I35 that I can recall.
I think that's and I'm you know part of that's land use and vegetation I'm sure too >> I know when I looked at it last from my cow and I know Rick said he's looking at them now there's kind of like a ring of the desert southwest up uh up to the Texas panhandle and then along the western kind of high plains there um there definitely is a despite whatever reporting discrepancies we have there is kind of this that's kind of the general area and it doesn't really extend that much to the east I I mean, we had the rare one last year where Chicago had a dust storm and that was actually started I think it started out in our area but uh those are very very rare and uh there is kind of seem like a favorite. The high plains especially the southern high plains and then the southwest.
>> Speaking of the high plains, two people want me to ask you is the high plains weather conference ever coming back?
>> Oh that is a good question. Um, we haven't talked about it in a while and just because the staffing situation we were all in made it like Goodland wouldn't have been able to participate.
We were so short. Um, we were >> I don't want you >> I don't want you to get in trouble, but for our audience, how many staff are you down right now?
>> Right now, >> right this minute, tell James Span what is your Goodland staffing?
>> We're only down two right now. We're actually, we've gotten really strong. Um we doubled our staff the last six months essentially.
>> Okay. What were you at the beginning of the year? How many were you down?
>> Seven and uh out of 12. So yeah, it was it wasn't a pleasant it hasn't been a pleasant time.
>> What percent shift were you working?
>> Uh I can't remember. We actually developed something. I wasn't on it all the time. Um initially I was like essentially a shift worker. Um, and we we cut some shifts and we kind of cut down to the bone and that gave us some more freedom because >> we realized it's better for us to be available to fill in for severe weather and stuff than beyond.
>> Gotcha. So, >> yeah. All right.
>> I think we cut ourselves down to three or four shifts standing and then we fill in gaps as needed.
>> Okay. Rick's got an update on dust. Do you want to repeat, Rick? We have breaking news.
>> Yeah, breaking news. Um, I found a lot of blowing dust advisories. We still issue the blowing dust advisories uh in Nor in the Norman area, but I I can't find a dust storm warning. So, >> okay.
>> Which is fine with me.
>> So, Jeremy, let's Okay, what Jessica and Kim asked you, let's get back to that about transportation. You have big old I70.
So, do you do briefings with K DOT? Do you talk to them a lot? Are they in your chat room? A couple people wanted me to know, are they in your chat room? Are you talking to them? How often does I70 close? That's another question.
>> Uh we do talk to them. We have a Pathfinder room for Kansas and one for Nebraska, although we're kind of on the fringe of the Nebraska main roads. Um we do put updates there. Uh we do include them in all of our briefings and webinars. And if we if we think there's a dust storm coming, we generally do a webinar so people can ask questions. Um I don't know how often they close it. I know it's a big deal when they do. um that March uh tragic event closed the interstate for almost 24 hours. Both it was just to east and west was closed because they had to clean up the accident and uh I know that was a huge cost at that. Um I would say maybe three or four times a year they'll close the road briefly. Um it's usually not for a super long time in dust events, but um and it's usually based on our confidence actually. If we tell them, "Wow, we're really worried." Uh we'll go right we'll talk to the sheriffs and stuff and usually they'll make that first call and then KO will take over. A >> an NWA member just messaged me wants me to ask you, have you ever presented at an NWA meeting on the dust?
>> I have not. Uh, I do think uh my Sue is going to try to do some I don't know if she was able to get get registered for the the one in Omaha, but I know she's she's trying to get out and and spread spread out what we're doing and what we're looking at and our ops do to it. I know she's I think she's trying to go to AMS, but I think she also was is going to plan to do something for the end of when she gets a chance to. Um, I don't want to dump too much on her. She's she's real busy for being a two three years. the amount of people she's trained. Uh, she's put me to shame.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Are you the dust capital of America or who is?
>> I I don't think we are like >> I would think Phoenix. I'm just asking a question.
>> Yeah. We can't we can't really beat the deserts, you know. Um, they're going to always have the the soil ready or the sand ready. No.
>> James Alt, that is so funny. Tell everyone what you said.
>> You asked what the You asked what the dust capital America was and I said I think it's in my living room.
>> Oh boy.
>> That settles it.
>> You win.
>> Two golden retrievers can beat 40 mph winds.
>> You've seen dust.
You ever had snirt? That was my first year in Goodland. We had a snirt storm.
It was snow and then blowing dust and it was the grossest thing you've ever seen in your life.
>> Oh.
Really? Tell us about snirturt. Is that got to be a show title? Say that again.
>> It was a snirt storm. That was our newspaper called it. We kind of liked it. It was We had a little bit of snow.
It wasn't too much, you know, like maybe an inch or so in some spots and it was blowing. Wind was it was windy so it drifted and then the dust started blowing. So all those nice little drifts suddenly turned, you know, brown and everything was just brown and dirty and muddy. It was It doesn't happen very often. And it's only >> they told me to be they told me to beware of yellow snow, not brown snow.
>> Wow. Wow.
>> Beware of all the >> show's going down the tubes.
>> Jeremy, so um does I mean with allegedly they're taking the grids away in a year, right?
>> That's what I understand. We don't because >> Does WPC know anything about dust?
>> We haven't really broached that topic yet. Um I I've >> I mean there's probably things we can share.
>> I don't want to get you in trouble. I'm just making a comment. Okay.
>> Um because I've kind of embraced that, you know, our messaging is way is way more than the grids are. So, like I actually kind of embrace, you know what, let's let's stick what we're really good at, and that's telling people what we're thinking.
>> That's a great answer.
>> And uh >> yeah, >> I I think we can probably help. Like honestly, there's things we could probably do to let them know, hey, when this happens, do this or um or it might just be something we don't is that something that needs to be in a grid because really >> there's no no one traveling is looking at a grids, right?
>> Do you have a dust grid? It it goes into the weather grid.
>> Just in the weather grids.
>> Yeah.
>> And and just D BD or what?
>> Yeah. Patchy areas are definite blowing dust.
>> Okay.
>> We we do use it, but one of the things I I I'm a pretty big believer in is the people we need to reach with dust messaging and stuff. The grids aren't really the format for that anyway. Like I I'd hope they'd re look at our point and click and see dust, but especially if you're traveling through here, I I doubt that would be that what happens. Um I think we can the one thing I know that seems to work pretty well is we don't get these dust events unless the winds are particularly strong. So if we just if they know that ahead of time going, "Hey, if your grids are forecasting this, at least chat with us and we can give you what we think." You know, um I think that'd probably be the easiest way about it. Um, but yeah, it's Yeah, I heard when we go to Apopes on the cloud, we just GF isn't a thing anymore. So, um, >> I really don't understand what's going on. So, um, >> yeah, it's big.
>> Personally, I I I like some things and it pains me because I was a grid guy. I love I could do a lot of neat things with grids as a computer coder and stuff, but I'm kind of hoping it forces us to actually finally make the evolutions we need to make and really kind of embrace stuff we've all been doing anyway, but really make that the for the the highlight of what we do.
>> The age of your staff has really changed, hasn't it, Jeremy? What What I mean, when I was there, it was a lot older. I bet you've come way down.
>> I am definitely the old man here now, which is weird for me. Uh they like to tell me every time I leave a shift how much the average age of experience goes down. They really enjoy telling me that stat. Uh yeah, we are we're very young and I I got to tell you these this new crew I have is great. They're so willing to change things and try new things and put up with my silly ideas. Um I'm I'm really pushing uh debriefs now. I want debriefs to be part of our operational model. like every day >> good.
>> Um we're not there yet, but we're getting there and they're all embracing it like, "Oh yeah, sure. We'll fill out this little form and we have an event and we can look at it what happened and um that alone I think would be such a positive culture change for us and pay benefits everywhere else." So >> yeah, I'll tell you one really cool thing about Goodland is they you have a a system to pick up everyone during a blizzard. I mean, this is so cool, James A. So, I thought there was a blizzard when I was there in March of 19 maybe.
And u I thought, well, how's everyone going to get to work? And Jeremy says, we've got it covered. We have a Go ahead. What do you have?
>> Uh, in the past, we had a sheriff sheriff office would help us get out to the office. Um, we have a new sheriff now, so I'm not sure if that still stands. Um, the sheriff we used to have was my he actually was the godfather of one of my kids, so we were pretty close.
And uh but uh this there are people that can help get us out if we need it.
There's this town is pretty good at helping us and we're not like John, you were here. You said we're not that far out of town. If they would just >> Everybody Everybody lives in town except for um >> our WCM.
>> Yeah. Oh, he's became WCM. Great. Great pick. He lives out in the boonies, right?
>> Yeah. He's like 20 minutes out. Everyone else is within five minutes. Um, so it's it's usually not too bad. I could walk to work if they would just make it finish the road so I don't have to go around a big circle to get here. But um, so it's we had someone try to walk out here in a blizzard once and uh, that was interesting. And >> I know that story. Yeah, you told >> you he came from Florida and he tried to walk. I I wish you would have listened to us first. Why you don't do that?
Little hard to know which way you're going after a while.
>> I was like a little child when I had a blizzard. I'd never been in a real blizzard. The definition and the house shook all night long like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It's really right. That noise, the wine, the wind wine.
>> Yes, I know that. Well, >> anybody else got any dust questions?
James >> Eagle?
>> No, sir.
>> Okay. All right, Jeremy, you're now a panelist. We're going to bring our NWA crew in. Okay.
>> Good. And I hope I answer all your questions. And uh this was kind of fun.
I was I was very nervous, but this was a good time.
>> There's no gotcha questions. We wanted to learn about dust because I was just stunned that that's your biggest hazard, >> right?
>> We were kind of surprised as well too until >> Hey, hey, John. I've got a quick I've got a quick Goodland story because that's my picture of the week, too. But we were in Goodland and a podcaster from Europe who was driving through all 48 states stopped with us and he asked, "Is it always this windy here?"
I'm like, "Yeah, yeah."
>> Yeah. I don't think I had a calm day in two months I lived there. Right, Jeremy?
I mean, do you ever I mean, how often do you see less than 10? Honestly, >> it's not the norm. Actually, the last few days it's been pretty The winds have been pretty calm, but of course it was 100 degrees today. One day you probably want some winds and not, you know.
>> Uh, so that's my big pitch. We're not humid, so it is actually pleasant.
>> John had two months of his house rocking. What a party animal.
>> Yeah, I had fun and good. So, thanks, Jeremy. Um, all right. We're gonna welcome my friend Kim Runk. Uh, he had 40 years of public service. Uh, he's a brother, blue, air force man like me.
Uh, he got distinguished career award.
That's hard to get. He ran the director of the operations proving ground. He was uh he helped me a lot at the m at the MSD chief, the um chief of the meteorological services. Helped me do some goofy things. I appreciate that.
The weather service does decision support. He ran the boot camp. Kim's just a great dude. He's also the El Presidente of the National Weather Association.
Let's welcome my friend Kim Runk.
Everybody, >> thanks John. I'm I'm still trying to process Snerk storms, but uh so so let me just, you know, shift into gear to talk about NWA.
>> Who who heard about Snert before he said that? Anyone on the panel? James, >> I have never heard of a SNERT storm in my life. Never.
>> I'm afraid of the acronym. I know.
>> Me, too.
>> Yeah. Also, we'd like to welcome Jessica Stump. Uh she is the public safety solution engineer meteorologist at Baron's Weather and she had 10 years in emergency management. Uh most recently the director of emergency management for Greenville County, South Carolina. A beautiful place by the way.
um coordinated. Oh my god. Tropical storm Hela. Yes, it's still a mess, right?
>> It It's getting better. Uh but when you pick up over 2 million cubic yards of vegetative debris from the side of the road, you know, you're you're cleaning that up for quite some time.
>> Yeah. Unbelievable.
Um holds a bachelor of science from Penn State. Jen should be happy. Go ahead, Jen. Give her give her some love. a former broadcast meteorologist and uh she is also the program chair of the big meeting at the National Weather Association where James span will bring down the house in Omaha this year.
Welcome Jessica.
>> Thank you so much >> Kim. What's happening in the NWA for our listeners?
>> What's happening?
>> Well, I want I also want to say Jessica is like the prototypical person the NWA is is after. Uh I I I think the NWA is uh it's in a healthy exciting place from my perspective. Um like many professional organizations we've we've been navigating some changes and some challenges um you know shifts in workforce um emerging technology and some uncertainty about how those kinds of things are affecting uh you know career pathways. of course financial struggles really ever since the pandemic. But um instead of being reactionary, we're just we've been really making an effort to listen to our membership and to sort of plan thoughtfully. Um the NWA is has a has a very proud history. So we want to preserve and honor that. But at the same time um we we recognize we need to face new realities and sort of you know think through navigating ahead. We've we've actually been working for about a year and a half to um to rethink our mission and vision.
Um primarily because we originally were um our our our very mission statement was to pursue excellence in operational meteorology, right? And so we heard from a number of people that well I I I don't really consider myself operational meteor. I'm not sure that's the place for me because I'm not that. Right. So, um, we've we've tried to intentionally shift that focus and broaden it to include, you know, the the entire all all sectors of of meteorology research and emergency management and um, of course continue operations and broadcasters and that sort of thing. it.
So what our focus now is just find ways to create value for our members. Um try to provide more opportunities to learn, to connect, to to contribute and um I just strengthen partnerships both across the weather enterprise and with other allied organizations. For example, two quick examples. Um, last year under the uh under Becca Ma Maer as president, we signed anou with the um International Association of Emergency Managers. Um, and but but we want that to be more than just, you know, a piece of paper that, hey, yeah, we, you know, we align with your mission or something.
So, we're trying to do some things together um so that so that that partnership is really meaningful. And then secondly, uh, one of the things that the members said that they would like to see what two big ones were engagement opportunities outside the annual meeting. They love the annual meeting.
Um, you know, we're able to do some some sort of innovative different things. Uh, because our size is small enough to let us do that. Um but um they also wanted to know if we could u find ways to collaborate and create partnerships where we could more formally advocate for the weather enterprise. And I think everybody on the board and and almost every member feels like yeah it's important internally that we provide services you know to meet people's needs but also that we do some things that are aimed at strengthening the whole enterprise. And so we've recently formed a partnership with the American Weather Enterprise Association, which is a trade organization um that is in at on Capitol Hill. They're they're going and visiting congressional members, senators, their staffers, you know, speaking before uh before relevant committees so that we can we can directly advocate on Capitol Hill for pro- job and uh you know pro pro- weather, you know, pro- strength or uh in the industry uh kinds of policies.
So, um, so anyway, that's that's where we are. Um, and and we're trying to build those elements into the annual meeting. So, um, Jessica has as as the primary chair of the planning committee has really taken that to heart and we've been trying to work together, you know, to make sure that the annual meeting covers those kinds of things that the that the the members themselves said they would like to see more uh more of.
Um, so I don't want to steal her thunder. Um, if if you want to let her speak maybe to >> Sure. to what's what's happening with planning of the annual meeting.
>> What's going on? I was the program chair once before and I know it's a lot of stress. Tell us about the annual meeting, where you are, what's going to happen.
>> It it's it's a lot of work. Um, you know, myself and co-chair Chad Merrill have been uh really taking to heart what the theme of this year's annual meeting is, and it's weathering the storm together. And so as that theme uh came about, you know, I really wanted to talk to Kim and really understand what his vision was uh for this meeting. And you're going to notice this theme really working its way through the entire annual meeting because it's not just about the science of the storm. It's about the whole weather enterprise and how we come together to weather it. So, this includes your broadcast and digital meteorologists, your operational meteorologists, emergency managers and first responders, um, aviation, government agencies, social scientists, researchers, students, and more. And we're putting all these folks in the same room. And so, the together part really shows up structurally throughout the meeting because we are being very deliberate about um, you know, the abstracts that we gathered and how we're kind of structuring the meeting um, as a whole. So on Sunday, we're going to begin with our student and broadcast sessions. And then that's going to be followed by three full days of oral presentations, keynote speakers, special sessions, workshops, posters, and showcases. We've got master classes, and even a tabletop exercise in the mix. Um so we're we're pulling together a lot of um interesting elements. And speaking of the keynote piece of this, um this is one of the the bigger ones that we really are excited about is Monday morning our opening keynote session will be Ken Graham uh director of the National Weather Service along with Josh Morton who is the president of the International Association of Emergency Managers. So both of them will be sharing the stage on Monday morning for our opening uh keynote. So um that's really exciting for us. But you know from my perspective and you know someone who has kind of sat at the intersection of multiple uh pieces of this weather enterprise you know from broadcast to emergency management now back into the to the private sector with Baron I can see why you know cross- sector and you know pulling all of these different folks into the meeting is really important in highlighting all of these as well.
>> That's really cool. Tell us about the tabletop exercise. Uh so for for those of you uh who were in um Huntsville in 2019, uh there was a tabletop exercise that occurred uh using the um April 27th, 2011 tornado outbreak. But the the key here was that you couldn't play a role that is typically yours. You had to play a role that is not yours. And the reason why that happened was it it gave you a different perspective about what others in this enterprise are dealing with and trying to understand the information and the work that they're trying to do as well. So we are planning something similar to that. I don't want to give away too many details just yet as we are still um in the planning process, but we do really think it's important uh that throughout this weather enterprise that we all really try to understand um others perspectives and the work that they do.
>> Awesome. Awesome. I hear James Span may be speaking at a session on severe weather. Is that rumor true?
>> That rumor is true.
>> Notice the long pause, John. The long pause there.
>> The fe we Kevin Laws and James Span. strike fear in the hearts of those people that plan these meetings because they don't know what they're going to get. But it will be important >> and it will be good and it will make the weather enterprise better. It will be good. I promise it will be good.
>> I'm not worried. James, I just didn't want to steal your thunder here. I just didn't want to steal your thunder. Okay.
>> Jessica about had a Cameron Nixon technical difficulty there.
>> And James Spans, >> we're we're just working on the security.
Yeah.
>> Security security to room number >> all of you.
>> That's right.
>> So, how many abstracts did you get, Jessica?
>> We received over 70. Uh I think it was a 77 is where we where we round it out.
>> Okay, good to know.
>> And that that does include the posters and showcases as well.
>> Does that count the broadcasters or are they in a different pile? That does include >> that includes Yep, it does. Okay.
>> I mean, one, you know, one of the issues as, as you know, John, um, for for decades, we were able to count on pretty strong support from Noah, especially weather service, but also OAR and Nestus, and >> through no fault of their own. I mean, you know, there have been really serious budget cuts and and and staffing cuts and that sort of thing. So um so that there's not as much money to you know to provide support for people to >> to go and so that diminishes the number of abstracts that we get from the weather service as well. But >> it it's also kind of helped because it forced us to realize you we we got to diversify you know our our membership.
We we relied very heavily on that and I hope that this will be temporary and it'll return, but hope's not a plan. So, >> no, you're right. I I mean, I'm I'm thinking Jessica, in 2008, I bet you we had >> 200 abstracts >> and I bet you 85% of the talks were Noah.
>> Does that seem about right?
>> Not counting the broadcasters. Betsy Clling, what I remember, ran the broadcasters herself. I don't I did nothing.
>> Yeah, she still does.
>> Oh, she still does.
>> Yeah, >> that's awesome.
>> Yep. We worked with her to separate out which one she wanted and then we went ahead with the rest.
>> Oh, yeah. She's a rock star.
>> But, but I will say this. I think it's important for people to know that um while Sunday hosts the broadcaster workshop and the student and early career uh sessions, you don't have to be part of those groups to attend and you know to get some value out of it. And I think some people do feel like well gosh I'm I can't go to the broadcasters. I'm not that's not that's not true at all.
There's some really cool valuable interesting stuff and anybody is welcome to go. So if if if somebody is wondering about whether to go be because there might not be something for me on Sunday, I just want to dispel that rumor.
>> Okay. Um a student here at UL wants me to ask you tell me why I should join the NWA. Kim, >> a student.
Okay. Um well, we are an organization that uh crosses all sectors from uh from operations to research to uh broadcasting to emergency management um and and students and um I feel like our secret sauce is that people say it really feels like a community there and uh there's there's really a sense of family and networking and connection.
So um well at our you know if you if you come to our annual meeting you'll you'll connect with people guaranteed and um some of those people become you know lifelong colleagues and friends and it will also provide you exposure to to potential jobs to maybe even or if you're still in school or getting ready to go to graduate school to I I know two people um who in the last three or four years um identified their master's thesis through the Ron the research operations nexus. Um so there's just opportunity to connect and grow >> um and and sort of advance your own interest in your own career through the National Weather Association.
>> So I was just gonna go ahead Jessica. I was going to say, do you mind if I add on to that because I have been involved with the student session the last couple of years, especially when it comes to panels and the feedback that the student session is getting has been extraordinary. Um, students feel like it is very helpful for them because it's not only listening to people talk all day uh about what they're doing or just different things in the weather enterprise, they also go through, you know, speed mentoring sessions and resume building and interview tips. And so you're you're getting a lot out of that one day in the student session. Um and like I said, we've gotten really great feedback from the students on it.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
>> Yeah. Yeah. The student session, we had the first one here. I'm so glad you're still doing it. Well done. Yeah. Well done. So, you brought up Ron uh after the great Ron Ron Presbolinsky, my friend. You want to tell everyone about Ron?
>> Sure. U Yeah. as as you mentioned uh longtime Sue Ron Presbolinsky Sue in St. St. Louis science and operations officer um was was uh his heart was really with NWA and uh I he was a longtime friend of mine too. We we go back to the early 90s or so. Um, sadly Ron passed away from cancer, but he really had a heart for making sure that research transitioned into something practical, something operational.
And um often um he he tried to create um events uh or just occasions for for people to connect with between operational people and people doing research and just talk about what are some really emerging opportunities.
um you know for for people doing research already or exploring ways to do research that could translate into something meaningful and practical in the forecasting realm. And so, uh, at his passing, the the, uh, the NWA probably 10 or 12 years ago, uh, began this session at the annual meeting. Uh, and it's basically a a a tabletop kind of a thing. And usually we we create about five um topics and then just have a a collection of people invite people to sort of sit around those roundts uh making sure that there's representation from you know a variety of sectors and and they explore those topics in kind of a rotation uh over an hour and a half.
It might be, you know, 15 minutes or so per conversation. And last year we did it over a lunch, which was really popular as well. So, we're going to try to make that happen this year.
>> Good deal. Wonderful. So, why should a broadcaster go to the NWA meeting in Omaha? What's your pitch on that?
>> Um, you know, uh, James Adela is on the board and a broadcaster, um, I'll yield to him.
It is a great way to expand your perspectives to learn to continue to develop your curiosity about the science and to stay motivated and also to network. That's a lot. Sorry.
>> That's right on. I agree.
>> Perfect.
>> It is good. It is good. Do you have emergency managers come to the meeting?
Uh I mean Jessica, your resume is very impressive. Um do you get other emergency managers come? Do you try to get the especially in Nebraska, Kim? The ones near and around Omaha.
>> There are other emergency managers that do come and I believe there's even one on the board right now.
>> Yes, that's right. Melissa Seismore is emergency manager in Nashville, Tennessee. She's on the board. Um and yeah, we um Jessica and I were just talking earlier today and um we have for a few years offered uh discounts for emergency managers to come, but to be honest, I don't know that we've done a very good job of giving them good reasons to come. So, um that's that's another reason though that we we really want to do more collaborative work with IAM. Josh Morton is, as Jessica mentioned, is going to be there. um he and Ken are going to help facilitate the table talk and um and so we want to do some more things that bring you know provide them reasons to come in and collaborate and contribute uh to the association and you know some pathways both to membership and to leadership.
So, um, but yes, we we are very excited.
They're they're important partners in everything we do in the weather industry.
>> Jen, >> so Kim and Jessica, I just wanted to say real quick, last year was my very first ever NWA. Um, I enjoyed it so much. It was I was a little overwhelmed at first and I had some great, you know, feedback from everybody. Jen, you're going to be great. You're going to fit right in.
It's going to be a family. So, for those of you who are maybe going to your first one and you're a little nervous about it, I'll tell you it's it's a lot of fun and you're it it is overwhelming at first because there's so much to do and there's so many people, but it's such great networking. And from that, I've been able to do some networking for Tornado Talk and and have um be able to to spread the word about it, but also a student volunteered with us this summer and I met her at NWA. So she was been able to contribute to our memorial project and so it was just awesome. So I can attest great networking, meet some wonderful people and uh I highly recommend if you can make it to try to go.
>> I don't know about the rest of you but I kind of feel like it's a family reunion each year.
>> I mean, you know, just even spanning the course of my career, I've got, you know, my broadcast friends, I've got my emergency management friends, I've got my Baron weather friends and private sector friends. So, it's it's, you know, it's I think it's I look forward to it just to see everybody every year and, you know, catch up and see what's new and share ideas.
>> I agree.
>> I I agree. I've been a member since the beginning of time. I really love the NWA. I wish I could go this year, but I'm on a mission to go help Jen take over from Mr. Goulus and passing the baton.
So, Jen will be become Grisoulus Jr. Oh boy. I don't think I could ever do that, but I'm going to do what I can to I'm going to try to protect his legacy for sure.
>> You can. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Thank you.
>> So, okay. That's a really >> Sorry, >> Kim. Real quick. So, I want youngsters to come to this meeting.
>> Weather weenies, 14y olds, 16y olds, 17 year olds. I hope you market it. Up in Nebraska, you could have a young Jeremy Martin who was going from his trailer to go get protected. H how are you gonna how can we recruit the youngsters? James Span can speak and tell everyone to come, but how can we get more youngsters to come in there? The next generation.
Yeah, we we that's a good question and um it's it's not an it's not a simple one because once once you're engaging in potential memberships in a professional organization with with kids who are, you know, 13, 14, 15, there are there are just some some things some issues legally that you have to sort of, you know, work through um and establish policies for. But I agree and and one of the things that has been discussed recently is uh you know there used to be an education committee and um and and there is sort of an education focus on the NWA foundation but they're primarily associated with that their focus is more like scholarships and grants and that kind of thing. So, we've been talking about the possibility and and have have someone who who's interested in possibly leading it um with with an education committee that works toward providing resources and um that that are aimed at like secondary school and middle school teachers. And then that could maybe be sort of a a mechanism to to reach out to to younger people who are interested. But yeah, if you're a weather enthusiast, if you're a teenager and a weather enthusiast, you're you're definitely there's a place for you in the NWA and you're you're certainly welcome at at any annual meeting for sure.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> I don't know if that answered your question.
>> No, I think it did. And I think Omaha I think Brian Smith just died >> and he was at Omaha for >> Yeah.
>> Was he I think he was the original WCM, wasn't he?
>> I think he was. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. That was sad. Another area is you know we used to 30 years ago we had a lot of air force and navy um members and that has dwindled quite a bit. So um in fact I' I've I've got a meeting set up with the chief scientist of Air Force weather and we're going to try to talk about the potential for you know what could we do to be of value to you to your uh you know to your uh uh constituents I guess. Um but um at any rate, yeah.
>> Yeah. Do you see the note in there from James A? You got with the old global weather offet. I don't I do they know about it?
>> Well um yes there in fact there's a I think there's a talk from somebody at off um but global it's not global weather anymore. It's a it's a very they kind of reorganized the way they do detachments you know some time ago. whatever they're called.
>> But um but we we need to we need to reach out and find a way to to make sure that we can you know be inclusive of them and what what what do we need to do to be of value to you? Yeah. So, and that's really that's that's sort of guiding everything we're doing just to try and find out from members what would be of value to you so that we could you know engage year round not just in the annual meeting and uh and and provide something meaningful and of value to across sectors and then to strengthen our partnership across sectors and with other organizations so that we can just I want to pass off to the newer volunteers coming, you know, that we we've got a healthy and resilient organization.
>> So So one more time, let's promote the annual meeting. Uh Kim, for people that want to go, uh when, where, let's go through the runs, hits, and errors for those people that maybe are listening to the show and they'd like to go for the first time.
>> Thank you, James. Yeah, I I should have done that. I appreciate that. Yeah. So the annual meeting this year is in Omaha, Nebraska. It will be from October 17th to 21st.
Um the the 17th is really mostly exhibitors and you know board people and that sort of thing. But on Sunday the 18th all the way to Wednesday the 21st, uh there will be uh a an agenda that's chock full of exciting presentations, some creative posters and showcases, a variety of interactive workshops that are designed to help you sort of learn collaboratively and just network with uh with colleagues from every sector of our profession.
um and everything that you need. Also, I will say you can you can save significantly by taking advantage of the early bird rates which will be available through August 26th. So, everything you need to know about how to do that is at nwas.org under the annual meeting tab.
>> And I'll agree with what Jessica says.
It is like a reunion. It's uh as you as I get older, I know so many people and it's it's just nice to see them in person where you can just spend a little bit of time with them and it's just a marvelous event and nothing on AMS. I love going to the AMS meetings. I was in Houston, but there's just something about the NWA meeting where you just feel connected with people and I think that's very important for those of us in in the weather enterprise right now. So, nobody hang up on us yet. Nobody hang up on us yet because you will have to come up with a pick of the week before we wrap this thing up. And at the moment, we're going to break and we're gonna hear from Tony Rice and his astronomy report. We have Jyn this week in tornado history. So, Jen, do you want to do this big breaking news after your audio or at the end of the show? How do you want to do this?
>> We're going to do uh my audio, then let's go right into breaking news and then we'll tease the next three shows.
>> Sounds good. All right, don't whatever you do, don't go away. Much to come as Weather Brains rolls along.
Looking beyond the atmosphere, here's Tony Rice with your astronomy outlook.
>> One of my recent side quests has been improving the email that I send to about 500 broadcast meteorologists, National Weather Service personnel, meteorology students, or just plain weather and astronomy fans. In each email, there's two graphics showing the positions of the planets just before sunrise and just after sunset. They're accurate, but but they don't even begin to convey the beauty of the night, or in this case, the dusk and dawn sky. So, right now I'm squarely down the rabbit hole of rendering a more realistic sky gradient.
Turns out this intersection of meteorology, physics, astronomy, and computer graphics is a lot more complicated than just blending a really dark blue at the top down to a lighter twilight blue or even sunset orange at the horizon. The reason is atmospheric scattering. Sunlight starts out essentially white, but as it passes through the atmosphere, the shorter blue wavelengths are scattered much more efficiently than the longer red wavelengths. That's scattering at work.
It's why the sky appears blue during the day and why sunsets become increasingly red as the sunlight travels through the much longer path through the atmosphere.
But his molecules aren't the whole story. Larger particle aerosols contribute what's called mi scattering spelled mie. Unlikely scattering, mi scattering doesn't strongly favor blue light. Instead, it scatters all wavelengths more evenly producing a hazy sky. That's why a crystal clearar day in the Rockies has a deep cobalt blue, while a humid summer afternoon often looks more pale or even milky. Early attempts to represent this relied on a simple empirical model to approximate the behavior of this scattering. One of the biggest advances came in 1993 when Tomoyuki Nishida and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo published a paper describing a physics-based model of atmospheric scattering. Rather than simply fitting colors to the observations, they rightly modeled the atmosphere as layers of gas and aerosols and numerically integrated how sunlight is scattered before reaching the viewer.
That work became the foundation of modern sky renderers.
1999, Pritham, Shirley, and Smiths built on Nashita's work with a daylight model that is faster to compute. It became the standard model for many rendering engines such as Blender. In 2012, Jose Wilkkey created an analytical model for full spectral skydome radiance. This particularly improved the appearance of skies near the horizon where there's high turbidity and across a wider range of atmospheric conditions. So, the depiction of sunrise, sunset, or even blue sky that you see in today's rendering software and thus in movies or even sky charts shown in your favorite astronomy magazine, those are all built in part on these models. They take into account the structure of the atmosphere and the scattering process that creates the skies we observe every day. If you're interested in receiving this email, drop me an email at tony at what's up in.space. Let me know where home is and I'll add you to the list.
That's your astronomy outlook. Follow me in RTP Hokei for more spacey stuff like this.
>> This week in tornado history, we look back at July 21st, 2003, and the collapse of one of Pennsylvania's most recognizable landmarks. That day, a powerful storm system crossed parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, producing 20 tornadoes, according to the Storm Prediction Center. In Mcken County, one of those tornadoes entered Kenzoo Gorge. Standing across the gorge was the Kenzu Bridge vioaduct. Built in 1882, the bridge rose 301 ft above the valley floor and stretched more than 2,000 ft from one side to the other. Once the largest railroad vioaduct in the world, it was undergoing a major restoration project when the storm arrived. The tornado developed about a mile west of the bridge and followed Kenzu Creek through the gorge. Trees were snapped and uprooted as it approached the vioaduct.
Then, in less than 30 seconds, much of the over 120year-old structure came down. Nine of the bridg's 20 support towers were destroyed. Investigators found that some towers were lifted from their foundations and shifted before collapsing, while others fell in different directions, leaving a clear cyclonic pattern in the wreckage. The bridge had already been weakened by corrosion, including rusted bolts at the tower bases. Engineering studies concluded that winds of about 94 mph were enough to trigger the failure. The tornado continued another 2 and a half miles through the gorge. More than 1,000 trees were damaged and one state park employee was injured. Additional tornado damage was later found near Farmers Valley. Official records suggest the same tornado may have redeveloped, though the 6 and 1/2 mile gap in damage raises the possibility that a second tornado formed. The Kenzoo Bridge was never rebuilt. Today, the fallen towers remain in the gorge while the Kenzoo skywalk extends over the surviving section. A lasting view of both the bridgeg's history and the storm that changed it. Learn more about this event at tornadott talk.com.
>> We interrupt this program for CBS radio net alerts bulletins.
>> All right, so I've built up the suspense enough. James, I've been really excited to share this. Before I get into it, last week um John Gordon said that I was on a secret mission because I missed the show. And um just want to let everybody know, just kind of recap here. It was almost a year ago that I sold my house and I became a nomad so I could do tornado talk and do the research for the uh virtual tornado memorial. And it's it's my heart. It is the way that I'm serving. I really feel like that God has called me to do this to try to find the names of all those who have died in tornadoes and I'm looking for over 22,000 names. I think that is underestimated. So, I hit the road and one of my first trips was to the NWA and then I made my way over the past uh you know 11 months to different places in Georgia, Tennessee uh doing the research. I've learned a lot on the road. Um, one of the things I learned is that I'm not young and um, I get tired and I'm trying to do things so fast and I'm not absorbing my my atmosphere that I'm in and lo loading the car, unloading it into a hotel, putting everything back in the car, doing it again in an Airbnb, being in a place where I'm having to drive an hour one way and then an hour back. I'm losing time doing all these different things. And I got back home in April of this year and home is in Ohio.
I stay with my mom and and uh my family's here and it's it's a spot for me just to kind of take a breath. I started thinking about uh what am I going to do? How do I sustain this?
Because the passion's there. What do I do? I thought back to our episode 855, June 6, 2022. We had Admiral David Titley on the show from rvweather.com and I asked him all kinds of questions and I was very very excited and so this is four years ago I'm we had him on and I I went back and watched and I said, "Do you think I could get an RV? What do you think? Do you think I could do it?
Do you think I could pull it off?"
Because he is a full-time RVER with his wife. And he goes, "You can totally do it." So I said, "Okay." Hey, he I said, "Well, do you know anybody that I could talk to?" So, he put me in touch with, and now he's a Penn Stater, which is awesome. He put me in touch with another Penn Stater. Her name is Jennifer, and she is a single lady who pulls an Airstream. And so, I talked to her, and she I told her what I was looking at, and she said, "You won't know until you go and sit in something." So, I said, "Okay." So, I went and I sat in it, and there it is. and I'm sitting in it right now.
So, this is my breaking news and I am taking this whole >> uh nomad life up a notch.
>> And so, this is the camper van. And if I'm I'm showing a picture for those who are listening and it's um a Winnebago and I loved it when I sat in it and it has and I'll kind of do a little pan around here in just a second, but this was a National Park Foundation edition. And I said, "What are the chances that you can take that logo off and let me put a different logo on there?" And they said, "We can take that off for you." So, I actually have one of our Patreon supporters is working on a Tornado Talk logo that's going to fit on that panel and it's going to say underneath our tagline of Chasing Tornado History and have a little QR code that goes through our website. And um I'm excited. I am nervous. I've been I've only had it for a week and I'm sitting in it right now and uh I've learning a lot just in the past week. It this thing has all these kind of bells and whistles and it has a kitchen and it has a bathroom back here and I got to learn all the RV type things. But I can I think I can do it.
David Titley thought I could do it. I know I can do it. And here are the things that I think is going to be important. I'll be able to drive this and no matter where I stop that logo is there and I'm going to talk to people and I'm going to get their story and I it will cause all kinds of conversations and it happens no matter where I am anyway at these Airbnbs and um I'm meeting people and talking to folks and I think it's going to really be able to expand that. So I am in my mom's barn at the moment. She has a big arena and I am plugged in to her barn. I can run everything right now except for the air conditioning, but luckily I'm in Ohio and it's not awful right now. But uh I'm going to just pan over real quick. It's a little messy, but right there back there is the bathroom and then on this side is the little kitchen and then there's the the driver's seats. So everything's right in front of you. So I'm learning how to plug everything in. I'm learning just all the steps and then there'll be a whole litany list of things to learn as I'm hitting the road, guys. But I'm excited. So, when you say, "Where's the nomad?" I'll always be probably in the van, but I'll be from all these different places. And I hope I can slow my roll. I'm I'm rushing through everything trying to get to the next spot, trying to get to the next spot.
And the bright side, too, is I can do all of my radio work from this spot. Um, I don't have to worry about vaulted ceilings at an Airbnb and all my voice is going to bounce off the wall. I mean, there's not a lot of space here. So, the soundproofing is awesome until I'm in a windstorm. So, I better hold off going to Goodland for a little while. Um, I'm going to have to deal with the elements.
So, um, it was awesome to have somebody like David on um, in 2022 just to kind of talk to him. He got me excited. So, obviously, this has been something that's rooted in my heart for a while. I was just a little nervous to take that leap. Um, but I think it was the the right thing to do. And I announced it to our Patreon supporters yesterday. They have been so great. I've had so much encouragement and I could not wait to tell you guys and especially you, James, because you've been so supportive of this memorial project and I I really want to see I I'll do this for the rest of my life. I want to find as many names as possible of the people that died in tornadoes and tell their stories. So that this is my big big news.
>> This is outstanding. I I say this all the time. You know, it's my wish for everybody. My wish for everybody on the show right now and for everybody listening, everybody watching that you can wake up and do what you love to do every single day. You can't wait to wake up and do what you do. And don't you think this is your calling, Jen?
>> No doubt. No doubt. I I have felt that way for a while. And I think it's been percolating in me. You know, I've always had this nagging feeling. Is there something more that I'm supposed to be doing? Tornado talk has been around for 10 years and but it's only been over the past three that we started traveling and doing the stories and and finding all the research out in the field and it's something about being where the tornadoes happened to walk the footsteps of those um and we've been able to do that. We're going through paths and taking photos and uh taking pictures of buildings what they look like now and where they are versus 100 years ago when a tornado happened. And it's just it's my calling and my passion. I'm so excited to to meet people and I really feel that by learning these stories and learning the history will help us as a weather enterprise help people prepare for storms. I really do.
>> And I I think when you put names behind those numbers and stories, >> yes, >> it it makes a difference. It's motivating. It it's very very motivating and that these are precious people that died. We all have a responsibility of of trying to stop this from happening in the future and and it's the whole thing is great. So that this I did not expect this. You kept it you kept it a good secret, Jen. Thank you.
>> You bet. No, I appreciate it and I I appreciate everybody's support. And uh so before we get to the next three episodes, Sean uh Kim wanted us to talk about because she's at she's at where the AMS she's at an AMS thing right in DC.
>> Yep.
>> And she's going to be part of a panel uh getting ideas for an NTSB type thing for disasters. and she actually wanted to see if our listeners had any ideas or questions um to send them to us and I will forward it to her. But she would really like to know, you know, what does our audience audience think about this?
Um you know, so many folks have weighed in on, you know, tornadoes and the flooding concerns and and what have you.
You know, what does our audience think?
So, please send those in to email weatherbrains.com and I promise next week I will uh have a full email segment. So, John, let's look at what's going on. We actually have an extra show this week.
>> Yeah. Um, what a great show tonight, Jeremy.
>> Awesome. Awesome.
>> The NWA folks, my friend Kim and Jessica. So, Thursday, that's just in a few days. I think he's the best briefing meteorologist in the world. Matt Kelch.
Remember him? Kim?
Best briefing I ever ever attended.
>> I do. He's he's great at at flood and flash flood material, too.
>> Oh, yeah. He's going to be on uh he's going to talk about the Big Thompson Canyon disaster from 50 years ago, 50-0.
And he's also going to throw in uh the Fort Collins flood, late 90s, 97 maybe.
Uh and then um uh we have a week off August 3rd, the Georgia Tech severe storms research folks, Michael Peterson, Jessica Lasago, and then an exclusive on Weather Brains, an all Hawaii show. The Hawaiians will be on Weather Brains. We have the WCM, John Brainder, and we have the Hawaiian News Network, HNN, not HLN, HNN. We are going to have the Hawaiians on the world famous Weatherbrains.
What's that email, Jen, that people can send notes to?
>> It is email at weatherbrains.com.
>> Mahalo.
>> And again, just ju just to be sure that everybody understands, we're going to do a Thursday night special this week and that I'm off next week. So, we'll do two shows this week. And that's the reason for the schedule change. We'll be we'll be back on the regular Monday night schedule on August 3rd. All right. Picks of the week. Picks of the week.
Everybody's got to come up with something good weather related. Uh this can be a website, data source, app, anything remotely related to weather.
Let's get James Adelite in because he has to do the 9:00 news. James, what you got?
>> Well, mine is a family picture in front of the world's largest easel in Goodland, Kansas. 80 feet tall and it was taken during a strong wind. Um, and uh, it is uh, got a little reproduction of Vincent Van Go's three sunflowers in a vase painting on top of that easel.
And uh, that easel is made of the strongest stuff ever because it stays upright in Goodland.
>> It has to be. Wow. All right. So, Jen, what is your pick of the week from your new headquarters?
So I pick is the weather brains episode 855 nocturnal MCS mode with Admiral David Titley.
>> Awesome. All these links will be up on the website weatherbrains.com.
John Gordon, what's your pick of the week, sir?
>> Yes, sir. Eagle, I have a double uh first one is the national parks. There's this really cool article with all the problems at the parks this year. flash floods, debris flows, fire, smoke, pestilence, locust, no all the bad things at the at the at the national parks. And my other one, Kim, used to be the best mic in Las Vegas history. They had debris flows.
Okay, so this person in Europe sent me this from Ilgroin, Switzerland. It's only a minute and it's worth your time.
boulders the size of I don't know maybe 50 feet going down a canyon and it's not good. It looks like Spielberg. Check it out on Weather Brains.
Awesome. Again, these links will be up on the website weatherbrains.com.
Uh my pick of the week, it's that uh an amazing tropical site by Torber Berg. If you've ever been to that, it's polarwx.com/tropical.
But he's got some really good graphics and some really unique products like this multi-model grand ensemble. It's really good. So, it's a great supplement to the NHC site. And again, we'll put that link up on weatherbrains.com.
Jeremy Martin, Goodland, Kansas. It's your turn, sir. Give us a pick. We know you've got one. It's going to be good.
>> Okay. Yeah, I was nervously trying to figure out what I was going to decide on here. Um I don't have a picture of the eel. I'm glad someone brought that up.
Uh, I do want at some point in my career to survey the storm that knocks that down just just because how does it stay up? Big wind sock. I don't want anyone to get hurt. I just want it I just want to be able to say I witnessed that. Um, but uh something something we really like is NASA Sport their satellite services. They have they have a great uh dust tracker AI. Um especially especially good if you're not used to looking at it on on satellite. It gives you probabilities of what it's detecting. Uh we've used it to some degree. It's especially useful at night and uh it's a great tool to have if you're if you want if you're like me and you like watching uh satellite images for dust. It's a great tool.
>> Awesome. And again, all this will be up on weatherbrains.com. Jessica, what is your pick of the week?
>> I've also got two. I hope that's okay.
Um one is >> the more the better.
>> Okay, great. Um in the spirit of cross collaboration and you know what's going on with the annual meeting and just the emergency managers planner in me um I one first pick is the SC emergency manager app and I know it's geared towards South Carolina but it's a really good emergency preparedness tool uh to make a plan make a kit and I'm a very big believer that if you get kids early involved in emergency planning and what to do in these uh weather disasters and situations the outcome this is going to be much better. Um, the second is I recently returned from the EZRI user conference uh this past week in San Diego and I feel like a lot of meteorologists are also map nerds. Um, so I really enjoyed this conference because there was a lot of cool things to see in terms of mapping including weather data, flood inundation, burn scars from wildfires, things like that.
So if you ever have the chance to go, there's about 17,000 to 20,000 people that go to this every year. So if you're a weather nerd and a map nerd, might be a good place for you to check out.
Outstanding. Two great picks. Okay, President Kim, what you got for us? Go.
>> Well, I'm an old-timer. Uh, as John mentioned, I my career went more than 40 years. So, I even remember uh when we used to do hand analysis of surface charts and upper air charts. Um, so I was working on a historical project recently and I discovered maybe a lot of people know about this, but Noah has a has a page called it's at library.noah.gov/weather-climate and they've got all these digitized daily weather maps of surface and 500 millibar going back to 1899 and they're still digitizing. I think it only goes to somewhere in the early 70s now. I'm hopeful that they'll, you know, move that into something more uh recent records, but it's to me it's it's pretty fascinating to, you know, if you're just wondering, well, what was the what was the pattern when the Titanic sank or I I I don't know. Um, but anyway, it's a it's a pretty cool repository of some old historical weather maps >> and John the first one.
Yes, I analyzed the first upper air map ever. Yes, it was me.
>> Wow. We We absolutely knew it. Well, this was a uh this was a great great show tonight. Uh again, love the >> really quick. Kim, why don't you promote your book really quick? Kim Wrong, Presidente.
>> Please, please.
>> Well, John and I were privileged to work together on a regional leadership program. I was I was involved in the weather service on developing two of those. And when I retired, um a few people that I still sort of connect with said, "Hey, you ought to, you know, write down some of the lessons you learned over 40 years uh related to leadership." And um I I don't claim to be an expert in leadership. I I've been passionate about leadership development and I've and I grew a lot of reward out of you know sort of helping other people identify their strengths and plug in. So um just tried to honor I I honestly was very reluctant in in a way because I just thought I I don't know if I can contribute to the literature but enough people family and friends encouraged me and so I wrote a book to try and honor that. uh it's called connect five leadership uh because everything that I um after I sort of thought through you know what are the key elements there were five areas one is character one's communication uh one is coaching one is collaboration and the other one is change or leading change um so it's sort of all into everything that I wrote about with some example stories and some personal failures and successes um sort of fit into that framework. So it's connect five leadership available on amazon.com. Thanks >> and we will put a link to that on the website as well. That's outstanding. But it's been a good show tonight. If you're new here, we're typically on the air Monday nights at 7 o'clock central, 8:00 Eastern. But remember, we have a Thursday night special this week. Uh if you want to get in touch with us, you know the deal, send us an email. I know we've not had uh email segments of late, but we're going to have a big one next week. Email at weatherbrains.com. Any comments on the show topics, show suggestions, we'd love to hear from you.
Uh so on behalf of the entire Weather Brains crew, I'm James Span. Thanks for listening. Have a great week and God bless.
>> Thanks everybody.
>> Thank you.
>> Great show.
>> Great.
>> Great show. Good.
>> Thanks, Jeremy. Good stuff, Kim.
>> Thank you so much.
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