National Storm Chaser Convention 2016 (ChaserCon)

[Ben Holcomb]

According to the Facebook Page for ChaserCon, the dates for 2016 have been set in stone. The 2016 convention will be held at the Embassy Suites in Norman, OK and will take place on January 22-24.

I would highly suggest staying at the Embassy Suites for this event. It is quite a nice hotel with plenty of food options within walking distance including Chipotle, Qdoba, Wing Stop, Starbucks and Chuck E Cheeses for our younger more immature crowd. It's located right next to the best (my opinion at least!) grocery store in Norman (Crest Foods) and with easy access to I-35. Try and get an east or south view room and you can wake up to the dual pol and phased array radars out your window

Getting to the Hotel

There are many options for traveling to Norman. Unfortunately it's not as easy to get from the airport to the hotel as it was from Denver, so if you're flying you'll probably want to/need to rent a car or take a taxi or uber. A taxi will be around $50 each way after tip. We also have shuttles in town called Airport Express which could theoretically make it a bit cheaper. I'm not sure what an uber/lyft would cost, but I'd guess in the $20-30 range. The drive from the airport to the hotel is approximately 20-25 minutes in normal traffic.

Flying into OKC

Flying into OKC isn't so bad. It's a "right sized" airport in my opinion, and is easy to navigate. We have direct flights on Delta to Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Detroit. Southwest flies direct to Houston, St. Louis, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago-Midway, Dallas-Love Field, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. United flies direct to Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington-Dulles, Newark and Houston. US Airways flies direct to Charlotte and American Airlines flies direct to Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago and Los Angeles. Finally, we have direct flights to Seattle/Tacoma on Alaska Airlines. Hopefully your city is listed above, but if it's not, you will have to connect in one of those cities to get here. It's really not so bad.

Air Fare:

I suggest two places to search for airfare. The first is http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ which will compare all of the airlines airfares. The second is to check southwest.com since they do not allow aggregators to post their prices. Some sample airfare prices for that weekend (roundtrip):
New York City: $344
Chicago: $285
Orlando: $348
Washington DC: $294
Los Angeles: $279
Seattle: $250
Detroit: $340
Atlanta: $271
Phoenix: $336
Las Vegas: $368
Philadelphia: $362

Most of all, I hope to see you all down here in Norman. It should be a great ChaserCon!

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Hotel rates of $109/night have been posted. You can take advantage of them by going to http://embassysuites.hilton.com/en/...OKCESES-CHS-20160121/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG

You can also use the Group Code "CHS" on the Hilton page for the Norman Embassy Suites.

http://embassysuites3.hilton.com/en...otel-and-conference-center-OKCESES/index.html

$109 is a very good rate for this hotel. It is nicer than any of the ChaserCon hotels so far.

 

[Bill Hark]

They have the full ChaserCon agenda now. Go to the following webpage and scroll down for the pdf file link.

http://www.chasercon.com/node/14/

Bill Hark

 

[Stephen Levine]

I would love to go and have wanted to attend this conference for some time. There are two issues: The first is that I work at a community college and it's our busiest registration month of the year besides August. This precludes any vacation time.
My second concern is the strong possibility of serious travel issues due to the mid-winter time frame and location. As we know, ice, sleet and sometimes snow are common in Oklahoma (even N.TX) in January. Even were the time available for me, I would hesitate to spend all that money on hotel reservation and lose it due to transportation issues. The stakes would be worse if I also booked a flight.
Is there a different month of the year our community might find possible, with less risk, while also being outside our main storm seasons?

 

[Todd Lemery]

Quite honestly, I can't think of a better time for the convention even if I can't attend. It's pretty dead as far as storms go and the risk for poor weather is really low too. The only other real options are December, where most Americans are doing Christmas activities and February, which has similar weather conditions to January. Either way, not many days are a washout for traveling

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Considering it had been held on Valentines day weekend for as long as I can remember, I would say I welcome the new weekend.

As far as a different time of year, I think winter works best for Roger and Caryn and the speakers. Even if it was in the summer, that gives the speakers less time to come up with a presentation.

 

[John Wetter]

I agree that this is the best time of the year to hold the conference. Though I can't make it this year, I attend about every other year as the speaker line-up is always top-notch.

 

[Pam McGill]

If anyone is still looking for a hotel room for this convention, Sooner Legends Inn & Suites has rooms available at a group rate. The Group Block Code to use when making your reservation to get this rate is CC2016IC. You can either go to the website @ www.soonerlegends.com, or you can call the front desk @ 405-701-8100 & still use the same group code. The rate is $89.00 plus tax, per room, per day & the Hot Breakfast Buffet for up to 2 people per room, per day has been included in the room rate. You will have a choice of either a Standard King or a Double Queen Room.

 

[David Brookshier]

If anyone is still looking for a hotel room for this convention, Sooner Legends Inn & Suites has rooms available at a group rate. The Group Block Code to use when making your reservation to get this rate is CC2016IC. You can either go to the website @ www.soonerlegends.com, or you can call the front desk @ 405-701-8100 & still use the same group code. The rate is $89.00 plus tax, per room, per day & the Hot Breakfast Buffet for up to 2 people per room, per day has been included in the room rate. You will have a choice of either a Standard King or a Double Queen Room.

Pam Thank you for this!, I've been hunting for hotels for awhile now and this one appears to be the best option.

 

[Pam McGill]

You are most welcome. Our rooms are really nice & the food is really good too. If you know of anyone else, please send them this way if you can. There are still rooms available.

 

[Todd Renshaw]

Anybody want to share a ride from the airport? My flight gets in at 11:40 p.m. Friday. DM me and I'll give you my number.