I enjoyed the SLS portion of the AMS conference a great deal. There were a lot of good talks and some great posters. Also enjoyed getting to meet one the ST posters whose posts I particularly enjoy reading.
I particularly enjoyed the historical talks by Dr. Doswell and by Steve Weiss. It's fascinating to hear about where severe weather research and forecasting has come from. I had never heard that there had actually been bans on tornado forecasting during the prohibition era.
I was kind of interested in one of Dr. Wakimoto's talk on non-mesocyclonic tornadoes. Could somebody who was at the talk maybe clarify for me what he said about hurricane induced tornadoes? I got the impression that he was putting them in the same breath as mini-supercells, which I've associated with cold core systems through the central plains. While both are characterized by lower CAPE, low tops, and very high shear environments, I wonder if there are not some thermodynamical differences that create a fundamental physical difference that makes the two types of storms somewhat unique from each other. If there is no climatology on tornadoes at elevations that are lower than 250-300 feet, that may be something I look into someday. Any thoughts? My time living in Tallahassee gave me some very interesting storms to watch that were very different than plains storms.
The poster section was also quite terrific. I was particularly impressed with the posters by the posters by the Tulsa NWS office.
And as usual the tornadoes of the year talk by Joe Schaeffer of the SPC was very enjoyable. No matter how much attention I pay during the year I always love revisiting the hurricane and tornado seasons. Of course visiting that forced me to miss out on the second half of the Davies-Jones talk.
