If you seek to advance your knowledge of severe weather, there will be several conferences and events over the next few weeks. Some will be close to home, some far away.

National Storm Chasers Convention.
February 18-20 at the Holiday Inn Denver International Airport

The pre-eminent event for storm chasers. Some of the leading speakers will be Chaser Erik Rasmussen, Howie Bluestein, Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel, Tim Marshall, Tim Samaras and Dr. Josh Wurman, who operates the Doppler on Wheels program. One of the highlights of the event is a marathon chase video session on Saturday night that will run into the wee hours of Sunday morning. I will have the pleasure of attending for the third straight year.
www.chaserconvention.com

Fourth Annual Southeast Severe Storms Symposium.
March 4-6, 2005 at Mississippi State University in Starkville

This event has grown into a significant national draw for broadcasters and meteorologists, as well as the general public. This year’s lineup is the best ever, with famed tornado researcher Chuck Dowell, Dr. Richard Knapp of the Tropical Prediction Center, severe weather expert Jon Davies and our very own James Spann with a dramatic presentation you will not want to miss. I hope to attend this event.
http://www.msstate.edu/org/nwa/symposium.htm

2005 National Severe Weather Workshop.
March 3-5, Midwest City, Oklahoma

Sadly, this event is the same weekend as the Mississippi State symposium. The NSSW will feature an outstanding lineup of presenters that will be dealing with the future of the severe weather watch and warning process.
http://www.norman.noaa.gov/nsww2005/index.html

More tomorrow.

Sorry... no Friday afternoon video today.... due to circumstances WAY behond my control... will post some notes shortly!

The Friday morning video update is on the server:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Thanks to everyone for coming out last night to our opening night for the Storm Alert 2005 tour in Ashville. Great crowd and very nice people! Next week we are in Northport at the Civic Center on TUESDAY night at 7:00... make plans to bring the family and join us.

Beautiful weather here through Sunday. Lots of sun; temperatures go in the 50s today and 60s over the weekend. That is the easy part. Beyond that we wade into very murky forecast waters.

Mild weather stays in place early next week as the upper air winds will not allow the Polar front down here initially. Not sure if we will see much rain on Monday or Tuesday, but Wednesday could be the wet day. Maybe some thunderstorms involved if the European is correct.

The mid-month chill should begin by the end of next week, and a troublesome split flow seems to be the pattern. Northern branch will get cold air down in here, an undercutting southern branch will bring the potential for a cold rain at times, or maybe even some wintry weather issues. We will have some fun but difficult forecast situations during the Feb. 10-20 period. As J.B. says, life goes on and we love it.

Headed to Garden City to speak with the kids up there in Cullman county; be back later for the afternoon update.