88th Annual AMS Convention

On January 18-23, 2008, I was fortunate enough to take a quick trip down to New Orleans, LA for the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting and convention. It was a great opportunity for networking and to learn more about the field of Meteorology. The first few days of the trip was geared specifically towards college students. It included all kinds of information from speakers about graduate schools, the private sector (companies who specialize in personalized forecasting for other companies), the state of the job market in the meteorology field, and even the Chief Meteorologist from a television station in Alabama! Every speaker shared their own experiences and offered priceless advice for those of us looking to advance our careers. At the end of the first day, a career fair allowed Universities and Companies to do some recruiting and the students to get information about various programs. I took this opportunity to talk to Melissa Tuttle Carr from The Weather Channel. She was so nice and went above and beyond when answering my questions! Hopefully I'll be able to work my way up to that level someday!

The days following the student conference consisted of lectures, an exhibition hall full of displays, and networking with all of the great minds of meteorology. Meteorologists from all over the country spent months researching and writing papers to be presented at the conference. Each person had 15 minutes in a conference room to present their information to anyone who would listen. I am still floored by the quality and quantity of the research presented. It was the proverbial candy store for weather nerds! I have to say though, there weren't as many female presenters as male presenters. Hopefully some of us female interns can change that!

After all of the chaos during the day, we had some down time at night to explore the city of New Orleans! Quite the place to study meteorology! You could still see some remnant of Katrina, but I was amazed at how the city has rebuilt. It really was a beautiful city!

At the end of the day though, it's good to be back in Denver. This is my first full week back at school and I'm looking forward to it. It will be nice to get back to a routine. I'll see you with Lisa in the Mornings!!!!!

More Snow for the Mountains!!!

Well, it has been one wild winter!!! What started out to be a dry and snowless winter has certainly made a turn for the best. In November the state was only at 77% of normal snowpack with the mountains being around 50% of normal. Now the state is doing really well with total snowpack at 123%. Silverton is currently reporting over 200 inches of snow, holy cow!!!!! Even though down on the plains we haven't seen all the snow, the mountains are enjoying it all.... So here's my advice..... GO HIT THE SLOPES!!!!!

Even though this winter is turning out to be a great one for us here in Colorado, it has turned out to be a severe winter in the midwest. On Monday January 7th 38 tornadoes were reported from Arkansas to Wisconsin with 7 more tornadoes today. These storms have proved to be fatal as 3 people have been killed from these dangerous storms. Storms this severe are possible during the winter, however it is very rare to see a severe outbreak like this.