One of the first things the new president is asked to do is come up with a theme for the annual meeting. I knew immediately some of the ideas I wanted to emphasize. As a social scientist (more specifically, a hazards geographer) with a background in meteorology, there are several goals I want to accomplish with the annual meeting. One is bringing together different disciplines that have tackled some of the challenging issues that arise especially when weather becomes dangerous. I’ve worked with many meteorologists over the years, including lots of former students, who work at either the National Weather Service or in weather media, so another goal is to stress the various sectors of the weather enterprise, continuing a trend to better integrate broadcasters and other meteorologists throughout the whole meeting. I also want to continue efforts that ensure the diverse experiences and perspectives of our members are reflected in the meeting. Lastly, even as COVID continues to rear its ugly head through the omicron variant, I hope we can safely and more fully enjoy the togetherness that an in-person meeting affords us. Reflecting on these ideas, I thought of the word “together.” The problem was too much overlap with previous themes. Taking the advice of the wise Betsy Kling, I consulted a thesaurus and found one word that really encapsulates the different goals. Thus, my theme for the 2022 annual meeting is simply “Convergence.” Here are some neat things about the word convergence. Generally, it's the act of coming together, “moving toward union,” according to Merriam Webster. To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition, it’s the act of converging, moving toward the same point. Convergence also has subtly different meanings depending on which field is using it, but most definitions have a similar root in the act of coming together. In meteorology, a simple definition is a movement of winds or airflow together in some fashion. The National Science Foundation defines convergence research as "integrating knowledge, methods, and expertise from different disciplines and forming novel frameworks to catalyze scientific discovery and innovation." Convergence in psychology deals with a movement of the eyes that "enables the slightly different images of an object seen by each eye to come together and form a single image." (dictionary.apa.org/convergence) What I find appealing about convergence is that it reflects a quality that is more than additive. It is more than the sum of two or more parts. Something new is created whether you’re talking about a line of thunderstorms resulting from converging winds or a new framework or method for looking at a problem through interdisciplinary research. So, my hope for the annual meeting is to provide a forum where people, ideas and perspectives can converge and produce something that couldn’t have taken place without it. COMET Quarterly Announcement, Winter 2021 David Russi Translation Coordinator, UCAR/COMET Greetings from Boulder, Colorado! At long last, COMET has completed the Flash conversion project! This project updated literally hundreds of lessons in our training catalog to eliminate Flash and ensure their future usability. In many cases, especially for the older lessons, the conversion also resulted in a refreshing interface update, making the lessons feel newer. This project has not kept us from continuing to create and produce new materials. Below you will find links to four new MetEd lessons published by COMET in the past quarter, on aviation forecasting, an impact-based forecast (IBF) approach to typhoon forecasting, lightning awareness, and the application of probabilistic principles. We also published one lesson in Spanish on IBF, as well as five lessons in French and one in Portuguese. All of us at COMET thank you for using our training materials and send you our best wishes for a safe and enjoyable Holiday Season, and a Healthy and Happy New Year. New COMET Lessons in English Meteorological Observations for Aviation Forecasting Typhoon Risks in Taiwan: The Impact-based Forecast and Warning Services Approach Lightning Awareness Using GOES-R GLM Products and Ground-based Observations Applications of Probabilistic Principles New COMET Lesson in Spanish Pronóstico basado en impactos: identificación de peligros y construcción de tablas de impactos New COMET Lessons in French and Portuguese The easiest way to see the five new lessons in French (four on hydrology and one on air quality) and the one new lesson in Portuguese (GLM lightning detection) is to display a listing of lessons in French from our MetEd lesson. catalogue: www.meted.ucar.edu/education_training/. Currently, these materials are freely available to everyone, courtesy of our primary sponsors: NOAA's NWS, NESDIS and National Ocean Service programs, EUMETSAT, the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the Meteorological Service of Canada, Bureau of Meteorology, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation.
We plan to announce the meeting city and dates in the next few weeks. Details are being finalized. Members will receive an email with more information soon.
Meet the 2022 NWA President, Kathy Sherman-Morris! Past-President Nate Johnson will join to discuss all things NWA for the upcoming year. The webinar will take place Friday, February 4th at 12pm ET. Click here to join the webinar. If you are unable to attend live, the recording will be available on our Youtube channel. NWA Seal Holders will receive 0.5 CEU for attending. Please submit a short paragraph of what you learned with your recertification materials.
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Renew your 2022 NWA membership here.
Meteorological Satellite Applications Award Grant
Undergraduate students are invited to write an original paper on meteorological satellite applications. Themes of the papers may include original research, case studies, or a survey of applications. The recipient of the award will receive a Grant of $500 and be invited to present their paper at the NWA Annual Meeting. More information can be found here. Deadline to apply is March 22, 2022.
We invite you to nominate individuals, teams or organizations whose outstanding efforts in operational meteorology and related sciences deserve special recognition. More information can be found here.
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