WeatherBrains

Tonight's first guest is the Chief Meteorologist at WJHG-TV in Panama City, Florida.  Chris Smith, welcome!  Also joining us is the Meteorologist in Charge at the NWS in Tallahassee, Florida.  Tom Johnstone, welcome!  In addition, Ginger Zee, the Chief Meteorologist at ABC News, offers her insight and her harrowing story at the coast.  Up next is weather photographer Doug Kiesling, who shared some amazing footage taken from the coast.  Storm chaser Mark Sudduth also shares his story from where he rode out the storm in Panama City and Mexico Beach as well as discusses his GoPro video from Mexico Beach.  Storm Chaser Brett Adair joins WeatherBrains and discusses his story from Mexico Beach.  The Former Director of the National Hurricane Center, Bill Read, also stops by and discusses Michael and it's impact.  In addition, also joining us and adding to the all-star guest line-up is Bryan Norcross, Hurricane Specialist at WPLG-TV in Miami Florida.  Phil Klotzbach from Colorado State University also drops by the show.  Furthermore, Leslie Chapman-Henderson, President and CEO of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, as well as fellow FLASH associate and VP Mike Rimoldi, both stop by WeatherBrains. 

This week's Guest WeatherBrain is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering School at Oklahoma State University.  Brian Elbing, welcome to WeatherBrains!

Joining us as our Guest WeatherBrain this week is a hydrologist in the Research Applications Lab at NCAR.  He has a background in hydrology, geology and computer science.  In graduate school, he found a happy marriage of these in hydrological modeling, remote sensing, and more recently atmospheric modeling.  Ethan Gutmann, welcome to WeatherBrains!

Joining us for this episode of WeatherBrains is the Chief Meteorologist at Wichita's KAKE-TV, and former Birmingham resident Jay Prater. Jay came to KAKE from Panama City, Florida, where he was the morning meteorologist for WJHG-TV. He also worked as the Managing Meteorologist for WSMV-TV in Nashville, Tennessee and WAFF-TV in Huntsville, Alabama. During his time in Huntsville, he was a weather consultant to the contractor of the Unity Module. Today Unity is in orbit, as a key component of the International Space Station. Jay’s television career began working weekends for WVTM-TV in his native Birmingham, Alabama starting in 1987.  Jay, welcome to WeatherBrains!

Joining us for this episode of WeatherBrains is the Senior Policy Fellow and serves as the Associate Executive Director of the American Meteorological Society.  Since 2001 he has formulated and led the AMS Summer Policy Colloquium, a ten-day immersion in the Washington, DC, science policy process; over 500 early- and mid-career scientists have participated in this program over the past 15 years.  Also, in 2014 he wrote and published a book entitled "Living on the Real World:  How Thinking and Acting Like Meteorologists Will Help Save the Planet".  Dr. Bill Hooke, welcome to WeatherBrains!

Joining us once again for this episode of WeatherBrains is Dr. Marshall Shepherd from the University of Georgia. He needs almost no introduction to our audience as a former President of the AMS and the host of The Weather Channel’s WxGeeks show. Dr. Marshall Shepherd, welcome back to WeatherBrains! Dr. Shepherd was a guest panelist on episode 572 and guest WeatherBrain on episode 628.

Dr. Jack Davis, our Guest WeatherBrain for this episode of our netcast, is the professor of history at the University of Florida and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the book The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea. His areas of specialization include US Environmental History, Modern US, US South, Florida History, and Sustainability Studies. He has penned two other books: An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century and Race Against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez Since 1930.

This episode of WeatherBrains is coming directly from the NWA annual meeting in St. Louis, MO. Lots of discussion on various topics from the NWA conference. Joining us tonight from the meeting are Dr. John Scala, Bill Murray, Aubrey Urbanowicz, Scott Martin, James Spann, Greg Stumpf, Alis Smith, Kevin Laws (BHM), Fred Glass, Dr. Pam Heinselman (NSSL), and Dr. Chuck Graves (St. Louis University).

Dr. David Bodine from the Advanced Radar Research Center (see link in Web sites section) in Norman, OK, is building the prototype phased-array radar. He will join us from Japan where he is working for a few months with researchers at Kyoto University. This is definitely one of the longest connections for a Guest WeatherBrain in the history of the podcast - perhaps THE longest.

Tonight's Guest WeatherBrain served for nearly 30 years in Emergency Management in Alabama including stints under five governors. He served on the cabinets of two Alabama governors. For nearly seven years, he was the Director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. Today, he is the Managing Partner at Blue Skies Business Group.  Art Falkner, welcome to WeatherBrains!