The fourth meeting of the 2014-2015 year took place at the National Weather Service office. Our speaker was Dan Byrd of National Weather Service Jackson.
Meeting Minutes
Call to Order
The fourth NWA/AMS meeting of the 2014-2015 year took place on Tuesday January 13th at the NWS WFO in Jackson, MS. The meeting was called to order at 7:05 pm.
Rolls
Roll was taken by Corresponding Secretary, Daniel Lamb. There were ten people in attendance.
Minutes Approval
Recording Secretary, Eric Carpenter, read minutes from the previous charity event held with the Mississippi Food Network. The minutes were previously approved and emailed.
New Business
Treasurer, David Cox, reported that we had $300 in the chapters’ treasury as of this meeting.
Eric gave an update on the chapters community/charity efforts. Additional socks have been donated to Grace Place, where they will be distributed to the homeless in an effort to prevent frostbite. Several hundred pairs of socks have been donated thus far. Grace Place is always in need of more socks and donations will continue to be accepted.
AMS Chapter President Alan Gerard followed by introducing Dan Byrd, special guest presenter and forecaster from WFO Jackson, MS. Dan’s presentation covered IMET protocol and his vast experience serving as an Incident Meteorologist (IMET). He shared with us stories of serving as the go-to-forecaster and weather briefer on Incident Management Teams (IMT) at large wildfires located primarily the western U.S.
When large wildfires become too complex for local fire departments to handle, they require an on-site IMT to bring them under control. In such cases, Dan may be called out on a moment’s notice to serve as an IMET and provide on-site weather support for up to several weeks. Dan typically rents a minivan and finds this is more comfortable than sleeping in a tent as it can get very cold, even in mid-summer, in the higher valley bases of the western mountain ranges. He puts a lot of work into getting the briefings prepared, but there is a lot of pressure on him to get them presented in no more than a minute. He is always impressed with how fast the base complex can be set up and taken down and at how competitive the market is for providing food and other services to campers. Being within close proximity to a wildfire is always dangerous business, and Dan’s worst fear is that a big fire column will collapse on itself and produce a huge head fire that spreads out quickly.
Video of one of the most dangerous fires that Dan worked at can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqa-TJpYgDI
Adjournment
The meeting concluded at approximately 8:30 pm, and it was adjourned.
Minutes submitted by Eric Carpenter, Recording Secretary.
Dan Byrd talks to the group about the NWS IMET program
For more pictures from this meeting, click here.
Central Mississippi Chapter of the NWA and AMS 