The meeting was held at the National Weather Service Office in Jackson. The guest speaker was Irv Watson, Science and Operations Officer at the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, Florida.
Meeting Minutes
The fourth regular meeting for the academic year 1997-98 was held 1 April at the NWSFO at Jackson International Airport. President Paul Croft called the meeting to order with 24 members present.
President Croft announced the meteorology category winners of the Mississippi Science and Engineering Fair Region II held 18-19 March at Jackson State. Kristen A. Ellis of South Park Elementary School, Vicksburg, was the elementary division winner with her project entitled “Tornado!” and Anne Marie Smith of Chastain Junior High School, Jackson, was the junior/senior high division winner with her project entitled “Mother Nature.” Jackson chapter members Lynn Burse, Paul Croft, Greg Garrett, and Rusty Pfost volunteered to be judges for the event. The local chapter awarded $20 to the elementary division winner and $25 to the junior/senior high division winner.
Nominations for next year’s officers were held, with elections to take place at next month’s meeting. A nomination was also made for the new Susan Oakley Public Service Award, which will be presented at the next meeting.
The program for the meeting was then presented by Irv Watson, science and operations officer at the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, Florida. For much of his career with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Watson has been involved with meteorological research and has participated in the VORTEX experiment conducted in 1994-96. Watson showed some of the findings of his participation in the VORTEX experiment, including vertical Doppler radar scans of tornadic supercells from the research aircraft and Doppler radar products from the Doppler on Wheels. He explained about the weak echo hole that is a signature of a developing tornado in high-resolution Doppler products and showed a number of tornado slides.
Minutes submitted by Rusty Pfost.
Central Mississippi Chapter of the NWA and AMS 