AMS WeatherFest 2013

The reason I became a meteorologist was because I was scared of Tornadoes growing up in Oklahoma City.  There was a local television meteorologist in Oklahoma City at the CBS affiliate, David Grant, who to me was the only calming voice when the storms started howling.  Television meteorologists are one form of weather outreach in the nation's weather community.  Without constant public outreach, the nation's pre-teens who become the nation's teenagers, who become the nation's young adults who become parents, career-holders and taxpaying citizens, what the preceding generations learned about weather and environmental awareness and safety is lost.  That is why public events like WeatherFest, this time held at the location of the American Meteorological Society's Annual Meeting, are so important to communities nationwide.  WeatherFest is for families, educators, and weather afficianados, who this year, though a free event, got MUCH more than they paid for from a well known national broadcast meteorologist who emceed the event.

The Weather Channel's Nick Walker showed another side of himself than what his viewers at The Weather Channel see of him.  Nick is an accomplished songwriter and singer within the weather industry.  Nick, a broadcast meteorologist of 30 years currently working at The Weather Channel, formerly working in Seattle, worked the perfect balance of national personality, emcee, and weather-tainer to the attendees of the event at the Austin Convention Center.

Wearing some kaleidoscope glasses, TWC meteorologist Nick Walker, Certified Emergency Manager and WeatherCall's Bob Goldhammer and meteorologist, FEMA EMI instructor and WeatherCall's Brad Huffines took a few moments to have a bit of fun.  Between 700 and 800 attendees visited this year's AMS WeatherFest, with a strong attendance from exhibitors ranging from local high schools to NASA, the National Weather Service, and the University Center for Atmospheric Research's COMET program.

Even though there are always moments of fun at conferences and conventions, much of what will be discussed at this Week's 93rd Annual AMS Conference will focus on how to make the warning messages to the public more effective.  This is why WeatherCall is here this week, to be a part of those discussions to make the nation's warning process more effective, timely, accurate, and direct.  WeatherCall's subscribers know when they get a WeatherCall phone call notification of an NWS warning, the weather will almost always turn bad.  But most of the nation does not have that much trust in other warning products offered by private sector companies due to a lack of accuracy, specificity and timeliness.  While we demand the highest standards of all of our WeatherCall products, we are trying to influence the industry to move toward faster and more specific warnings.  So even while having a moment of fun, we take the nation's weather warnings very seriously.

Hopefully efforts like WeatherCall's and other companies will raise the bar nationwide for all warning delivery products, which brings us back to efforts like WeatherFest and learning to trust the process and the products of the nation's weather industry.

Brad Huffines

Meteorologist/National Notification Consultant, Media/Industry/Web, WeatherCall

Adjunct Instructor of Emergency Public Information / Meteorolgy, FEMA Emergency Management Institute