January 17, 2013 Meeting

The fourth meeting of the 2012-13 year took place at the NWS office in Jackson. During the meeting, Ariel Cohen of the Storm Prediction Center was the featured speaker.

Meeting Minutes

Call to Order
The fourth NWA/AMS meeting of the 2012-2013 year took place at WFO Jackson, MS. The meeting started at 7:00 pm.

Rolls
The corresponding secretary, Alan Gerard, passed around a sign-in sheet for attendees. 15 people were present.

Minutes Approval
President Joanne Culin summarized minutes from the previous meeting held at WJTV-TV in Jackson, MS in November. The minutes were approved.

New Business
Joanne started the new business at about 7:10 pm with a short discussion about ideas for future meetings. She then introduced our guest speaker for the evening, Storm Prediction Center forecaster and WFO JAN alumnus Ariel Cohen. Ariel is somewhat unique in that just a handful of years in the NWS he has worked at WFOs, SPC, and the National Hurricane Center; Ariel talked about his experiences at each one of these NWS entities. He started by giving an overview of the NWS’ structure, and then turned to the NHC. Ariel discussed the different products that NHC issues, and used the past storm Ana to show the kind of different products issued by NHC. He also showed how three different NWS centers, NHC, the Ocean Prediction Center, and the Hydrometeorological Prediction center work together to produce a surface analysis for the western half of the Northern Hemisphere. Ariel then discussed research he did while at NHC on high wind events in the Gulf of Tehuantepec. After his presentation on NHC, Ariel turned to SPC, and discussed his role as a forecaster at SPC issuing mesoscale discussions and fire weather outlooks. He finished his presentation by showing virtual tours of NHC and the Norman Weather Center.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 pm.

Adjournment
The meeting concluded at approximately 8:45 pm and was adjourned.

Minutes submitted by Alan Gerard, Corresponding Secretary.