WeatherBrains

This episode features a focus on the upcoming National Weather Association annual meeting August 25 to 30, 2018, in St. Louis, MO. Joining us are Janice Bunting, Executive Director of the NWA, and Pat Spoden, Hospitality Host for the meeting as well as handling The RON! The RON is a special session to try to connect researchers and operational meteorologist.

Tonight's Guest WeatherBrain is a weather legend, having spanned four decades as a broadcast meteorologist. He is a Fellow of the AMS. Joe Witte, welcome to WeatherBrains!

For this show we talk with Chris White and Bill Hark who will be discussing the Virginia ChaserCon. There is a link below to information about the ChaserCon. Aubrey has the lead in grilling the guests.

Tonight's Guest WeatherBrain is a meteorologist at the Naval Research Laboratory. Dr. David Peterson, welcome to WeatherBrains!  Last year was a record year for wildfires across the globe, and their impact on the atmosphere remains highly uncertain. Thanks to new research from expert scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the world is gaining more insight into what drives these massive and escalating events. NRL meteorologist Dr. Peterson explained his findings from his recent research, "Wildfire-Driven Thunderstorms Cause a Volcano-Like Stratospheric Injection of Smoke," during a press conference at the European Geosciences Union's annual General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, held from April 8 to 13. "Our research shows that the stratospheric impact from five wildfire-driven thunderstorms, known as pyrocumulonimbus or pyroCb, was comparable to a moderate volcanic eruption," Peterson explained the NRL pryoCb research team's findings and that it's an interdisciplinary collaboration with scientists from both the Marine Meteorology and Remote Sensing Divisions within NRL. The significance of volcanic eruptions in the climate system has been recognized for several decades, but pyroCb research is relatively new, originating at NRL in the early 2000s, according to Peterson.

Our two guest WeatherBrains tonight will help us all take a stroll down memory lane by looking back at some of the first years of The Weather Channel.  Tonight's Guest WeatherBrain #1 is a legend in meteorology. He was the first Director of Meteorology at The Weather Channel, Chief Meteorologist at WSI, and was Dr. Dewpoint on the Intellicast website. He is currently Co-Chief Meteorologist at WeatherBell Analytics. We're happy to have Joe D'Aleo.  Joining us as Guest WeatherBrain #2 is Al Lipson. Al was a Lead Forecaster at The Weather Channel in the early days. Apparently Al was a bit of a wise-cracker.

Joining us as Guest WeatherBrains this week we have Ariel Cohen and Ryan Bunker from NWS Topeka, KS. Ariel is the Science and Operations Officer (SOO) at WFO Topeka. They bring a whole host of additional people to the show. They will be discussing the topic of mentorship and career advancement.  Kevin Selle invited Aubrey's partner in crime while in Norman last week to the show, so joining us from WOOD-TV, Grand Rapids, as our Guest Panelist we have Ellen Barca.

Joining us on this episode of WeatherBrains are guest WeatherBrains Benjamin May and Joe Tankersley. Ben came to marketing as a senior executive at Chateau St. Michelle winery. He left this to develop public safety-related "edu-tainment" programs at Disney in Orlando.  Teaming with Disney Imagineer Joe Tankersley, they managed to get together a huge pot of funding and create a program that successfully improved preparedness behaviors for hundreds of thousands of people. They teamed with FLASH, and through that, connected with many of the big names in our field. Through those connections, both men continue to be involved with NWS safety campaigns.  Also joining us from KMBC-TV in Kansas City is guest panelist Nick Bender. Nick is the morning meteorologist there and the proud father of a new baby boy.  Also,  Ellen Bacca of WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, MI joins us.  Welcome to WeatherBrains!

Today's WeatherBrain is Steven Zubrick, the Science and Operations Officer at National Weather Service in Sterling, VA.  Steve has previously appeared on WeatherBrains; welcome back to the show!   Also, joining us as Guest Panelist is Tanja Fransen, Meteorologist In Charge of the National Weather Service in Glasgow MT.

This week's Guest WeatherBrain is a Philom. We will find out exactly what that means in a moment. He is the seventh editor of Farmers' Almanac, which is significant, given that it was founded in 1818. Peter Geiger, welcome to WeatherBrains!

We couldn't get Google Hangouts to function for our guest this week, so this week's WeatherBrains is a discussion amongst the regulars about what is on their minds.