More than 4,ooo people converged on the convention center yesterday for WeatherFest 2011. The tenth year of the interactive science and weather fair kicked off with a festive ribbon cutting.
Par for the course, kids were an eager and active presence, crowding the exhibits that featured games and hands-on demonstrations.
With almost sixty exhibits, the weather extravaganza provided numerous ways of finding fun in science education. More WeatherFest videos are posted on our Ametsoc YouTube channel.
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A Passion for Mentoring
by Emily Morgan, University of Miami-Florida
Saturday afternoon, I literally almost bumped into Kenneth Carey, who quickly introduced himself as one of the AMS Beacons. He followed my fellow students and me up to our next seminar in the Student Conference. He was very charismatic, very animated, and quite welcoming to a first-time student. Within the first few minutes, he launched into his passion for mentoring and both what it means to him and what effects he has seen it have on others. It was very interesting to hear him laud this communal support separate from any one organization; it really made his argument sincere.
Presenting on “Success in the Job Market,” Mr. Carey welcomed students with a display of many opportunities, urging them to be resourceful and keep their eyes open for opportunities in both federal and private sectors. The most interesting part of his presentation was his list of “10 Skills to Succeed.” All were sound points:
10. Pursuit of excellence.
9. Persistence.
8. Ability to work with others.
7. Innovation.
6. Decision-making.
5. Ability to get things done.
4. Networking.
3. Balance, relaxation.
2. Writing.
1. Public speaking.
Mr. Carey provided much advice for honing these skills, but following this slide, he spoke again about mentoring, whether being a mentor or the mentored. Because of his passion or his persistence, I was sincerely moved by his presentation. It seemed that his only goal was to benefit the meteorological community by encouraging its members to occasionally think of the whole, rather than its parts. Often we can get lost in our own goals and forget that the student beside you has them as well. More so than improving on decision-making (Point 6) and persistence (Point 9), I have become convinced that sharing and working together with my colleagues (Point 8!) will bring me success.
Teaching Excellence: Mentor Realizes Dream Award
Henry E. Fuelberg, a professor of meteorology with Florida State University, is this year’s recipient of the AMS award for Teaching Excellence. The Front Page sat down with Dr. Fuelberg to learn more about him, his research program at FSU, and the devotion he has to seeing his team of students excel in their budding careers as meteorologists. He noted after the interview, available below, that of all the prestigious honors the AMS bestows, “this was the award most important to me.”
Fuelberg will receive his award at the AMS Awards Banquet Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Washington State Convention Center, Halls 6A-B-C-D.
Comrades in Communication
The weekend’s workshop on “Integrating Communication, Weather, and Climate: More Than Just ‘Talking About the Weather!'” was the result of a collaborative effort between the AMS and the National Communication Association (NCA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of communication throughout society. The NCA will continue to be a presence at the meeting throughout the week, helping to contribute to the unique interdisciplinarity this year in Seattle.
Congratulations, Student Sleuths!
The student conference contest had a happy ending, it just ended a little sooner than mere mortals would expect. Torey Farney, of Cornell University won First Prize before 4 pm Saturday by managing to anticipate the answer before the announcement of the last clue…something to do with mathematically narrowing the range of possible answers and inspired guesswork. Or was that ESP (Earth Science Perspicacity)? His prize was a free travel and registration for next year’s Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
Camaron Plourde, of Embry-Riddle University, also answered early, winning Second Prize (an Amazon Kindle); and Leah Werner, of Embry-Riddle, won Third Prize (an Amazon gift certificate).
Not that they were the only ones to answer correctly. Some 80 percent of the attendees solved the quest.
Meanwhile, in a related drawing, Gavin Chensue, Univ. of Michigan won a copy of the AMS book, Eloquent Science, by David Schultz; and Adam Atia, City College of New York, won a copy the recently published AMS book, History of Broadcast Meteorology, by Robert Henson.
Thanks to AMS’s co-sponsors in the Weather Quest, Atmospheric Science Librarians International and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for the great prizes.
Got Game? Your Planet Hopes You Do
If you’ve been following Bill Hooke’s blog, Living on the Real World, you know the AMS Policy Program director has been exploring the analogies been contemporary life and various types of games.
Yesterday’s post likened life to a Massively Multiple On-line Role-Playing Game:
On the real world as in the videogame, as time passes, and as gamers surmount one set of challenges after another, the pace quickens and the level of difficulty jumps. On the real world, as we’ve gone from say 1 billion people to 7 billion, each one of which on average may be consuming resources at ten times of her ancestor a century earlier, and as social change had accelerated, the level of difficulty has hit unprecedented heights.
Saturday at the AMS Student Conference, Hooke challenged attendees to become the “Greatest Generation,” by becoming engaged in a modern world that is increasingly insulated and virtual and to equip themselves to thrive on a real planet with real, escalating problems.
In both gaming and life, “it’s easier to lose than to win,” Hooke said, but in life there are “no do-overs, no pause button.” So keep in mind that the videos below may be mere electronic do-overs, with pause buttons, of the complete luncheon talk, but this indeed happened in the real world today in Seattle, before 400 people, with some real answers and real hope for a future informed by science and good policy.
Weather Quest Sleuths: Start Your Smartphones!
Students participating in the 2011 Weather Quest: Use your smart phone to 
read the qr code on the right to get Clue #5:
If you have a smart phone, but not a qr code reader, you can download one from http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-software/ .
If you don’t have a smart phone, you can go to this URL to access the clue: http://library.ssec.wisc.edu/tempfiles/clue5.htm
Good luck!
The Weather Quest Team
Making Yourself Known…from Someone Who Knows
Al Blackadar, AMS Honorary Member and Past President and veteran of countless AMS meetings, shared this story to us this week. It proves the power of serendipity as well as the value of getting to know people in your field–precisely the point of Annual Meeting week and in particular events like the new Reception for Young Professionals this coming Sunday:
I happened to be in Boston one morning in 1948 or thereabout with a late-afternoon train reservation to return to New York. I was then an instructor at NYU working for a degree and hoping to find a start on my career. On an idle thought I wandered over to 45 Beacon Street to see the ruins that had just been acquired for the future AMS headquarters and unexpectedly met Ken Spengler and Tom Malone, then President of the AMS. I accepted an invitation for a tour and lunch, neither of which had been previously scheduled. Next morning, back at home in New Jersey I was awakened by a surprise phone call from Tom Malone asking me if I would accept an appointment as Editor of the AMS Monographs!
I have often mentioned this experience to my students. There are unlimited ways to make yourself known – more than you will ever expect or ever plan. Make it a habit and I can guarantee success.
Nowhere to Hide from Snow . . . Except Florida
It snowed throughout the Northeast on Wednesday, but very few are feeling sorry for everyone in that region who had to pull out their shovels. The odds are good that you or someone you know in your state has had to deal with snow lately, too–no matter where you live in the country. According to the NWS’s National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, which collects snow cover and depth data from ground reports and satellite observations, 49 of the 50 states currently have some snow cover…even Hawaii (this video was taken last month)! Only Florida has avoided a recent visit from Jack Frost.
This isn’t an unprecedented event–in fact, all 50 states had snow on the ground last February 12th, and University of Oklahoma meteorology student and AMS student member Patrick Marsh obtained pictures from every state of that day’s snow.
But “it’s not typical,” says James Peronto, public affairs officer for the NWS, who noted that recent snowfall throughout the Southeast has created the unusually white map.
“The Southern states don’t typically get significant snow amounts through the year,” Peronto said. “It takes a special kind of weather scenario to allow that to happen.”
(This quick history lesson on Southern snow illustrates how rarely such a scenario occurs.)
NWS observations show that 70.9% of the country was covered by snow as of yesterday, compared to an average of 35% snow cover in December.
Snow cover and depth analyses like these are not just for interstate precipitation bragging rights or cabin-fever consolation. At the AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, a number of science presentations will show the value of snow cover observations.
For example, Patricia de Rosnay et al. will present recent “major changes implemented” in the operational surface analysis of the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting’s Integrated Forecasting System,” including a method of combining satellite observations of snow cover for the land surface conditions for weather modeling. (Tuesday, 25 January, 1:45 p.m.; WSCC 611).
Sujay Kumar et al. (poster 42, 9:45 a.m.-11:15 a.m., Tuesday, 25 January), will discuss snow cover from active microwave remote sensing and look at the value of assimilating snow observations from multiple satellites for hydrological modeling. They point out that “Snow conditions on the land surface are … key components of the global hydrological cycle as they play a critical role in the determination of local and regional climate.”
One way in which this is true is in regions where melted snow dominates water supply. On Thursday 27 January (4:15 p.m., WSCC 611) Randal Koster et al. will “examine how knowledge of mid-winter snow accumulation and soil moisture contributes to our ability to predict streamflow months in advance.” In an experiment with multiple land surface models, “snowpack information by itself contributes, as expected, to skill attained in streamflow prediction, particularly in the mountainous west.” (They go on to show the additional importance of soil moisture conditions to long-lead forecasts, particularly in winter.)
Meanwhile, as a basis for the observations used in such studies, Ding Liang et al. (Poster 595; 8:30 a.m-4 p.m., Wednesday, 26 January) will delve into improvements for modeling of microwave emissivity of snow—an important step toward constructed improved snow cover data retrieved from satellite remote sensing.
Uccellini Is AMS President-Elect
With a huge snowstorm blowing through the northeast United States, it seems an appropriate time to announce that Louis Uccellini has been voted the new AMS president-elect. The director of the National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Uccellini has coauthored two acclaimed AMS books on just the kind of snow the Northeast received today: Snowstorms Along the Northeastern Coast of the United States: 1955 to 1985 and Northeast Snowstorms. Uccellini will take over as AMS president in January 2012.
Four new councilors were also chosen in the elections: Peter J. Lamb, Patricia A. Phoebus, William L. Read, and H. Joe Witte. They began their three-year terms in January.
The AMS congratulates all the winners!