The seventh meeting of the 2012-13 year took place at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Jackson. During the meeting, Jessica Van Meter of Mississippi State University gave a presentation about early dismissal policies at school districts across the region. Her presentation was titled, “School’s Out for Weather: Early Dismissal in Public School Districts on Potential Severe Weather Days”.

No minutes were submitted for this meeting.

The seventh NWA/AMS meeting of the 2012-2013 year took place on Tuesday, May 14th at WFO Jackson, MS. The meeting was called to order at 12:30 pm with lunch provided by the treasury fund.

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The sixth meeting of the 2012-13 year took place at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Jackson. During the meeting, Dr. Michael Brown, Mississippi State University professor, presented research and findings from the April 27, 2011 Smithville tornado and on land scarring associated with the April 24, 2010 Yazoo City tornado.

Meeting Minutes

Call to Order
The sixth NWA/AMS meeting of the 2012-2013 year took place on Tuesday, April 23rd at WFO Jackson, MS. The meeting was called to order at 6:00 pm with pizza and soft drinks provided by the treasury fund.

Rolls
The recording secretary, Eric Carpenter, passed around a sign-in sheet for attendees. 18 people were present.

Minutes Approval
Eric summarized minutes from the previous meeting held at WFO Jackson, MS in February. The minutes were approved.

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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.

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The second meeting of the 2012-13 year took place at the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. During the meeting, we took a tour of the MEMA facility.

Meeting Minutes

Call to Order
The second NWA/AMS meeting of 2012-2013 year started at 7:10 p.m. and was opened by newly elected NWA President, Joanne Culin. The Chapter meeting was held at Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) in Pearl, MS.

Rolls
The new recording secretary, Eric Carpenter, passed around a sign-in sheet for attendees to sign. 18 people were present, including four officers.

Minutes Approval
Eric summarized minutes from the previous meeting and formally announced Joanne as the new NWA President. We thanked Vincent Webb, former NWA President, for his service during the past couple of years.

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The first meeting of the 2012-13 year took place at the National Weather Service Jackson office. During the meeting, nominations and elections were held for the chapter year.

Meeting Minutes

Call to Order
The first NWA/AMS meeting of 2012-2013 year started at 7:05 p.m. and was opened by Chapter Corresponding Secretary Eric Carpenter. The Chapter meeting was held at the NWS office in Flowood, MS.

Rolls
Treasurer Joanne Culin left out a sign in sheet for attendees to sign. Ten people were present, including four of the returning officers.

Minutes Approval
Treasurer, Ms. Joanne Culin, advertised collection of dues and gave the incoming balance report. Once officer nominations were done, dues were collected by the new Treasurer, Mr. Jason Brand. As usual, dues are $20 for adults, $10 for students. In Ms. Nancy Lopez’s absence, Ms. Culin took minutes.

New Business
Mr. Eric Carpenter opened the meeting with everyone going around the room and introducing themselves. After this was complete, officer nominations began. A few of the officer positions from last year were being vacated and depending on how the election went, additional ones were vacated as well. The first position vacated is the NWA President. Nominations were made and Joanne Culin was elected as the NWA President. Ethan Huston retained his position as NWA Vice President. Nancy Lopez takes over the role of NWA Corresponding Secretary. On the AMS side: Loren White retains the President position, Barbie Bassett remains Vice President and Alan Gerard remains Corresponding Secretary. Jason Brand takes over as Treasurer, Eric Carpenter moves into the Recording Secretary role and Daniel Lamb remains the social media/webmaster.

Meeting ideas were then discussed for the year. Prior arrangements had been made to go to WJTV this year and that seems to be set for a time in November. Additional ideas include: MEMA, Grand Gulf, Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg (both seem to be an issue due to travel but otherwise there was interest in both). A potential topic for January would be to talk about dual-pol radar since that will have just been installed at the Jackson radar. An idea for a cookout in the warmer months with a speaker was suggested. Some offices do a webinar due to rising travel costs for speakers and this would be an option to consider.

The next order of business was to discuss the current webpage. When the web duties were transitioned from Joanne Culin to Daniel Lamb, many of the previous pages were lost or ill-formatted. Daniel has recreated the best he can with the webpage but suggested another format would be better if duties were transitioned again due to the cumbersome way the webpage is created. He suggested using a blog format through WordPress, which would be no charge. In addition, for 20 dollars a year, we could set up an actual website which Daniel Lamb offered to pay for as long as he is the webmaster. This would be an independent site that would not be linked to either AMS or NWA and would be linked on each of their chapter websites. Chapter agreed this was a good idea. Discussion was held about the name of the website and something similar to the social media handles was decided upon (Central MS NWA/AMS).

The discussion turned to Hurricane Isaac and how the storm evolved and some of the services that were given with the storm. The Hurricane Isaac NWS website was shown. Discussion was held about the track and how it wobbled, with model guidance being inconsistent between the ECMWF and the GFS. It was noted that the NHC 5 day cone of uncertainty has not been very good this year with Isaac, Debbie and perhaps Beryl. Isaac was not a big tornado threat but rather caused a bit of wind damage. One problem with the wind was that it was a long duration of 40+ mph winds while a brief thunderstorm may have strong winds near 60+ mph but a shorter duration. This helped lead to more downed trees, as well as saturated soils.

A question was raised to mainly the media about the usefulness of the Hurricane Local Statement. Ethan said he liked it in that it was an easier way to get a summary of the thinking about the storm, with concise thoughts. Brad pointed out that it is a pain for forecasters to create and some examples of the length of the product was shown. Jason noted that it was helpful to have so many JAN forecasters in the chat as opposed to some other offices. It was asked how the media took the issues with getting the forecast package out on time due to the HLS/NHC products not being ingested quickly. Ethan commented that they understood this could be an issue due to the timing of the NHC advisory issuance times. He suggested it would be good to put out the main forecast package and communicate on chat the new information or that it would be updated shortly with the new information.

Adjournment
The meeting concluded at approximately 8:35 p.m. Mr. Eric Carpenter stated that Joanne Culin would type up the notes in his place and all officer positions would take over with the next meeting. The next meeting date is being planned for October.

Minutes submitted by Joanne Culin, President-elect.

Chapter members have a discussion during the September 2012 meeting.

For more pictures from this meeting, click here.

The final meeting of the 2011/2012 year was held at the Russell C. Davis Planetarium in Jackson, where there was a private showing of the movie New Horizons.

Meeting Minutes

Call to Order
The June NWA/AMS Chapter meeting of 2012 was called to order at 7:10 p.m. by Corresponding Secretary Mr. Eric Carpenter. The Chapter meeting was held at the Russell C. Davis Planetarium, 201 E. Pascagoula St. in Jackson, MS 39201.

Rolls & Old Business
Recording Secretary Ms. Nancy Lopez took attendance, and the sign-in sheet confirmed 25 attendees but a head count totaled 35 guests. There may have been a few new guests not signed in. Also invited to the meeting were the JSU-sponsored (Jackson State University) weather campers, as well as friends and family members. Weather campers hailed from California, Georgia, Texas, and Indiana to name a few states across the U.S. that visit the University for a five-day workshop that was scheduled this week.

Minutes Approval and New Business
Treasurer Ms. Joanne Culin gave an update on the financial report for 2011-12. The balance was $188 and $125 of the funds will be used towards the cost of reserving the theater. The group reservation cost $250 to rent the theater for two hours. Guests contributed $4 to cover remaining costs, and it was estimated 35 guests were available to pay by head count. She reminded the group on $20 dues for regular membership and $10 for student Chapter membership and that cash or check is acceptable. She collected dues at the meeting and even some dues for next year’s fund.

Condolences and prayers were extended to Dr. L. White’s family on the passing of his daughter. After a recap on the last Chapter meeting, the group watched a private showing of the New Horizons movie. This movie was an introduction of a spacecraft to help study Pluto and stamp out the mythology behind the planet. Viewers were able to view the night sky and constellations as if launched into it. Studying Pluto is key to understanding life on the planet because of the water component. This viewing was the first movie for one child, who was only three-years old! Everyone clapped to that occasion and to the movie.

Afterwards, a Happy Birthday wish was extended to the Chapter’s media/webmaster Mr. Daniel Lamb. This is the last Chapter meeting of the 2011-12 year, with the next opening meeting being planned for September 2012. Ideas and topics are welcome to Mr. Carpenter, with one possible member talk lined up.

Adjournment
The meeting concluded at approximately 7:48 p.m.

Minutes submitted by Nancy Lopez, Recording Secretary.

Corresponding Secretary Eric Carpenter introduces the IMAX movie “New Horizons” at the Russell C. Davis Planetarium.

For pictures from this meeting, click here.

The meeting was held at the National Weather Service Office in Jackson. Our guest speaker was Dr. Laura Myers, a social scientist from the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University.

Meeting Minutes

Call to Order
The March NWA/AMS meeting of 2012 was called to order at 6 p.m. by Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Eric Carpenter. The Chapter meeting was held at the National Weather Service office, 234 Weather Service Drive, in Flowood, MS.

Rolls & Old Business
Recording Secretary Ms. Nancy Lopez took attendance, and the sign-in sheet confirmed 20 attendees. The Chapter e-mail list was updated, and the meeting was announced on Facebook and Google Plus by Social Media contact Mr. Daniel Lamb. A twitter account is available at: @CentralMSnwaams. Mr. Lamb may be taking on the webmaster role as well for posting materials, and NWA Vice President Mr. E. Huston approved it.

Minutes Approval and New Business
Treasurer Ms. Joanne Culin gave an update on the financial report for 2011-12. The fund had decreased to $88 to pay for travel for the January speaker. She reminded the group on $20 dues for regular membership and $10 for student Chapter membership. She collected $90 at the meeting.

Other news was AMS President Dr. Loren White mentioned NCAR will be coming in a couple weeks to Jackson State University, and that dates for a weather camp will likely be for the end of June. Mr. Carpenter announced NWA President Mr. Vincent Webb started working at Fox 40 as fill-in.

After the group was briefed on the January talk, the floor was turned over to special guest speaker Dr. Laura Myers. Dr. Myers is a social scientist with Mississippi State University but works heavily with NWS offices. She is a Principal Investigator in disaster response planning and gave a Power Point presentation on “Severe Weather Survey Analysis 2011-2012”. Dr. Myers studies what people do during disasters and works with a variety of groups in the weather enterprise, and has studied in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. Her applied research is to study perceptions and actions during severe weather events. Given the April tornado outbreak of 2010, she created a survey last fall to inquire to the public about severe weather while the event was fresh. The study was funded by SERRI and the Department of Homeland Security, and an online survey was offered during two sessions from mid-Nov 2011 and mid-Jan 2012, even though surveys are still coming in. She received a good sampling. Over 1810 surveys were completed with 43% from Mississippi, 20% from Alabama, and 13% from Tennessee. More males (58%) answered vs. females (42%), but all ages responded over 18 years old. Most identified themselves as Caucasian with some college with moderate to high incomes. Ninety percent who answered experienced storm damage, and 75% lived in wood homes with the rest being other materials or hotels or apartment structures. She found structural protection affected the decisions in response as well as how the message or warning on severe weather was received. TV was the #1 way of how Mississippi found out about weather while Alabama relied on NOAA radios; Tennessee used both. Cell phones and sirens weren’t as relied on, but she did state that NOAA weather radio is the most effective source for taking action. Conclusions on her study was that content of message and timing of message with proximity and path of storm or lead time is key, as well as education to the public. She found working through myths, i.e. “tornados do(n’t) track there”, is still needed. She offered her contact info and would love our feedback on how we utilize this info: laura.myers@ssrc.msstate.edu or (828) 243-2952.

Adjournment
The meeting concluded at approximately 7:45 p.m. An April meeting is possible depending on Dr. White’s NCAR visitors.

Minutes submitted by Nancy Lopez, Recording Secretary.

Guest speaker Dr. Laura Myers presents her research on social science and severe weather.

For pictures from this meeting, click here.