2010 Fermilab/WGN-TV Tornado and Severe Weather Seminar

[Jesse Risley]

The annual "Fermilab" Tornado & Severe Storm Seminar hosted by Tom Skilling will be held at Fermilab's Ramsey Auditorium on Saturday, April 10th, 2010, at 12:00 noon and repeated again at 6:00pm.


The programs are free of charge, require no tickets and feature seating on a first come, first served basis. This is always an excelled production, but it will be packed.


http://www.asktom.org/

 

[rdale]

Anyone streaming it? Where's SevStud when you need them

 

[Ryan Wichman]

I went to this a few years back. It was a really nice venue and great to see so many of the public wanting to come out and learn more about severe weather. However, that is exactly who it is geared toward -the public- so anyone who has been in these forums for any length of time would likely not get a whole lot out of it. Still it was a fun experience, glad I went at least once to check it out.

 

[Danny Neal]

Interesting, we just had this talk with Tim Marshall in Denver. We asked him if he was coming back to Chicago like years past and he said he had heard nothing from Tom. Would be great to see Tim come back to his hometown again and speak. Nevertheless I will probably try to make it there.

 

[Skip Talbot]

I recommend getting there at least an hour if you want a decent seat or need a few seats together. Last year Chad Cowan did a talk about the Storms Of... video series a couple years ago. Tom Skilling's presentation is always great, and there usually are a few chasers there. COD had a little table setup outside the auditorium.

 

[Jim Zandonai]

I think will be streamed..if not mistaken it was last year too. I was there last year and ended up in the over flow room..so get there early indeed.

 

[Richard Nelson]

I plan on attending this year as well. Agreed it is a good program geared towards the general public, with very little if anything for the serious weather (geeks) enthusiasts like us, but it is fun never the less. No offense meant to anybody with kids here, but my only gripe with this venue, are the people who bring their little tykes to this 4 hour long program, only to disrupt evryone else with the kids fussing, and or screaming. I really wish they would promote this as a no one under 8 program.

 

[Michael Wurzburger]

Currently at the 12:00 showing. Jim Allsop just about ready to talk. Pretty good so far. Lake county skywarn is here and is sponsering with midland to give away 20 weather radios

 

[Patrick Bartholomew]

Unfortunately,I couldn't make it down there today since I am working this weekend. I have traveled to this show for a number of years though. I would love to hear anyone's impressions of this year's seminar especially since it is the 30th year this program has been produced.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Great presentations especially the explanations on how the new dual-pole radars will work.

 

[rdale]

Did I hear that the presentations were posted online somewhere?

 

[Skip Talbot]

I would love to hear anyone's impressions of this year's seminar especially since it is the 30th year this program has been produced.

Excellent presentations by all the speakers.

I especially liked Gino Izzi's reassessment of the Plainfield, IL F5 event using the WRF model. He used the observations from day 3, day 2, and day 1 (morning of) before the event and input them into the model to see if it would give better indications of the tornado threat. Analyzing the model output led him to a similar forecast as what was originally forecasted. Northwest flow aloft with strong instability yet weak low level shear indicated mainly a linear event. The model's simulated reflectivity seemed to agree, consistently creating bow echo like returns in southern MI or northern IN that moved SSE with nothing that resembled a more classic supercell or over the SE WI/NE IL area where the storm actually tracked. The difference between then and now, Izzi concluded, is that the 88D and better reporting networks would have led to better warnings on that storm if it occurred today, even if the models didn't forecast it.

Ed Fenelon's talk on the dual-polarization of the 88D network was also extremely interesting. He had some great examples of how that's going to directly aid chasers with the radar's ability to pick out hail cores and sort precip returns from non-precip returns.

Dr. Louis Uccellini from NCEP had some interesting points about the climate and you could read into it a bit to see how the Plains tornado season might be effected. He and Skilling didn't hold back during the questions, as they were pressed on global warming and conspiracy theories.

Dr. Mary Ann Cooper is also going to make me think twice about getting out of the car while I'm under the storm. Her talk on lightning injuries was pretty interesting.

Those were the highlights for me, but everyone did a great job. I'd say the material presented was even better than previous years that I had attended. I was a little disappointed to see less tables/booths outside the lecture hall though. I'll definitely be back next year.