Good morning from the campus of Mississippi State University and the Southeast Severe Storm Symposium.
What a night last night... we gathered up a group and went to Pap's Place in Ackerman, about 20 miles southwest of Starkville, for one of the greatest meals in the history of the symposium. It was great being with weather legends like J.B. Elliott and Chuck Doswell. J.B. continues to eat at a record pace this weekend. Ribs, catfish, chicken, veggies, and much more. I mean this guy is an eating machine. I won't even get into the dessert plates. If you are ever in Choctaw county Mississippi you need to hit this place. It was a real hit.
Very nice crowd here today... looks like about 200 from over 10 states. A nice collection of people from TV, the NWS, the academic world, EMA, and students from a number of colleges in addition to Mississippi State.
All symposium notes will be short, and typed during ongoing presentations.
First speakers this morning are from the National Weather Service in Birmingham... Kristin Hurley and Michael Scotten are now doing a presentation on Hurricane Ivan.
Interesting facts on Ivan:
A buoy 65 miles south of Dauphin Island recorded a wave height of 52 feet!
Birmingham's pressure dropped to 987 mb during the storm, our lowest pressure on record.
NWS BMX created a Hurricane Operations Coordinator (HOC) during the event; they were assigned to coordinate with the media and EMA officials.
NWS created an inland local hurricane statement (HLS) during the event. These are usually used only at coastal NWS offices during tropical systems.
NWS BMX gave a live radio interview to the South African radio network. At least 15 news conferences were given to the media.
Weather balloons were released at 6 hour intervals during the event..
Staffing at BMX during Ivan: three forecasters, one HMT/Intern, one ELTECH, and one ITO during an 8 hour shift.
NWS BMX used Yahoo instant messenger to communicate with the media. Worked VERY well for us and them. Each NWS workstation has Yahoo IM installed.
After Ivan five employees from WFO BMX had trees down on their property.
NO fatalities from Ivan in Birmingham's county warning area.
Krissy was working at the NWS Southern Region HQ during Ivan and is sharing some of the operational issues out at Fort Worth.
Southern Region initiated a plan to balance internet traffic during Ivan... so the maximum bandwidth would be allocated to the SRH servers.
SRH had 20 million visitors to their web sites during Ivan. 4.1 trillion bytes of information were served.
WFO Mobile suffered only minor damage.
Loss of life and injuries were minimized during Ivan thanks to combined work of NWS, media, EMAs, Red Cross, local governments, etc.
More to follow...
What a night last night... we gathered up a group and went to Pap's Place in Ackerman, about 20 miles southwest of Starkville, for one of the greatest meals in the history of the symposium. It was great being with weather legends like J.B. Elliott and Chuck Doswell. J.B. continues to eat at a record pace this weekend. Ribs, catfish, chicken, veggies, and much more. I mean this guy is an eating machine. I won't even get into the dessert plates. If you are ever in Choctaw county Mississippi you need to hit this place. It was a real hit.
Very nice crowd here today... looks like about 200 from over 10 states. A nice collection of people from TV, the NWS, the academic world, EMA, and students from a number of colleges in addition to Mississippi State.
All symposium notes will be short, and typed during ongoing presentations.
First speakers this morning are from the National Weather Service in Birmingham... Kristin Hurley and Michael Scotten are now doing a presentation on Hurricane Ivan.
Interesting facts on Ivan:
A buoy 65 miles south of Dauphin Island recorded a wave height of 52 feet!
Birmingham's pressure dropped to 987 mb during the storm, our lowest pressure on record.
NWS BMX created a Hurricane Operations Coordinator (HOC) during the event; they were assigned to coordinate with the media and EMA officials.
NWS created an inland local hurricane statement (HLS) during the event. These are usually used only at coastal NWS offices during tropical systems.
NWS BMX gave a live radio interview to the South African radio network. At least 15 news conferences were given to the media.
Weather balloons were released at 6 hour intervals during the event..
Staffing at BMX during Ivan: three forecasters, one HMT/Intern, one ELTECH, and one ITO during an 8 hour shift.
NWS BMX used Yahoo instant messenger to communicate with the media. Worked VERY well for us and them. Each NWS workstation has Yahoo IM installed.
After Ivan five employees from WFO BMX had trees down on their property.
NO fatalities from Ivan in Birmingham's county warning area.
Krissy was working at the NWS Southern Region HQ during Ivan and is sharing some of the operational issues out at Fort Worth.
Southern Region initiated a plan to balance internet traffic during Ivan... so the maximum bandwidth would be allocated to the SRH servers.
SRH had 20 million visitors to their web sites during Ivan. 4.1 trillion bytes of information were served.
WFO Mobile suffered only minor damage.
Loss of life and injuries were minimized during Ivan thanks to combined work of NWS, media, EMAs, Red Cross, local governments, etc.
More to follow...