Passing of Ron Przybylinski

[John Farley]

I wanted to let folks on Stormtrack know that Ron Przybylinski, who was the head meteorologist at the St. Louis National Weather Service office, passed away yesterday. Ron was a great guy, and on a personal level, I was always appreciative of his welcoming and encouragement when I was a noobie chaser running around the St. Louis CWA trying to photograph tornadoes and severe weather. Ron was a leading researcher on QLCS storms and radar analysis of these storms, which account for a substantial proportion of tornadoes in the St. Louis area, and undoubtedly added greatly to the understanding of these storms. He will be missed by all in the weather community, especially in and around the St. Louis area. I have not yet seen an obit in the Post-Dispatch, but will post the link when I do.

 

[Jeff Duda]

LSX doesn't even have a news headline about it on their site. I guess they don't want to publicize it?

 

[John Farley]

Just to correct what I said above, Ron's title in the St. Louis NWS office was Science and Operations Officer. For those of you not familiar with him, you can read more about his contributions to meteorology in this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Przybylinski

 

[Jim Cross]

LSX has a news headline up now.

 

[Tom Stolze]

Link for those interested.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lsx/?n=przybylinski

 

[Brian Hartmann]

I am saddened to hear this. I recall meeting him at a regional NWA severe storms conference in the late 90s, either in Des Moines or Lincoln, and he was a very nice gentleman, who was very welcoming to this particular newbie as I was trying to learn all that I could.

May he rest in peace.

Brian

 

[John Wetter]

Ron was a great scientist AND a great person! He was exactly what you want a SOO to be... Someone doing science and taking it to the forecasters to help them in their daily work. For all of the work he did and being a huge part of BAMEX, just in the last year or two I'm happy to finally be seeing some dividends with the NWS; instead of just throwing their hands up when you say the phrase QLCS, that people want to actually do something about it and figure out how to warn these things. That's quite a lasting contribution to make!