General Meeting Program Review of May 2005

      by Ina Lou Marquiss

 

Inside Look at the Severe Weather Lab of Norman
     All of us have heard of the Severe Weather Lab located in Norman and part of the University of Oklahoma. It is well known throughout the state as well as nationally. On Thursday, May 12th, PC Users who attended the General Session, were able to hear a very interesting talk on the lab and what it does.
     Travis Smith, a research Meteorologist at the Lab spoke to the group and gave us an inside peek as to how it developed. He told us about the Vax and the Unix systems of the early 90’s. And the work of Dr. Louis Wicker who scanned the skies with radar and put them together to make pictures of the future status of the atmosphere.
     He reported some of the the many improvements that have been made since the 70’s. These included the Vortex II on the 2000’s, Doppler Radar, and when the first Nordac made it into the Doppler radar. The Doppler is able to sense the wind speed inside a storm. He showed pictures of the deadly May 3, l999 tornado.
     Travis told the group about how interesting and how much fun it is to work with the wonderful equipment that is in the lab. And how they are constantly working on better and more accurate forecasts using things such as computers that take pictures of the atmosphere for up to 20 days. The forecasts usually are not good for more than 3 days. He spoke of the communications with the National Weather Service who issue warnings. He analyzed that the 1999 tornado would have been much worse without the TV forecasts they were able to make.
     The Lab is known throughout the world. National Geographic ran an article about the Totable Tornado Laboratory. The Lab is now and will continue to study and learn what causes tornadoes. A Smart Radar mobile lab is what is used now. Things that are developed in the Lab are used by forecast centers. And the fact that Doppler radar can sense the wind speed inside severe storms is another plus to modern weather forecasting. It was a very interesting talk about a very interesting subject.    

     We thank Travis very much for a very interesting talk and discussion.
Next month, Gene Barlow will be here to talk about "Hard Drive Management".

 

Winners of the presentation:

 

MS Streets & Trips w/GPS	Concord 3363 Digital Camera