The October 2010 meeting will be held at 7pm at: Telvent/DTN 11400 Rupp Drive Burnsville MN 55337 For directions and map, please see the Events page on the chap- ter website at http://twincitiesams.org/ . Bryan Howell will be speaking about the Twin Cities tornadoes of August 8, 2009 (this is a change from the original plan). Meetings are held on the third Tuesday of the month, unless otherwise noted. Please bring a nonperishable food item for donation to charity. Note: the November meeting date has not yet been set due to the Northern Plains Winter Storm Conference taking place here on the 15 th -16 th of November. The date will be announced through email and the website events page, as well as posted in the November newsletter. President’s Corner Hey, everyone! I think the weather's heading toward fall. Summer-like rains followed by spring-like flooding along with fall-like frost. Is this were I say "lousy Smarch weather?" I think we got off to a great start to our year at our September meeting. Having worked on one end of the data flow, I saw only a part of what the NCRFC 's Steve Buan talked about. I wasn't fully aware of how much of an anom- aly it was, and how close things came to an even bigger catastro- phe. There's some news I've received from the AMS which I'll share with you elsewhere in this news letter. Trust me; it's good news. Very good news. Our October meeting will be an important one at Telvent/DTN, with not only a presentation by our treasurer, Bryan, but be- cause we'll vote on Constitution and Bylaws changes to get us that much closer to NWA affilia- tion. This is something that we've been working toward dur- ing the last few months, and I think it's a great next step for our chapter. It opens up our chapter to more opportunities for growth. And, as always, if you have any ideas for the chapter, or things In this Newsletter: Upcoming meeting will be on Tuesday, October 19th Big news about the Chapter — p2 We’re getting closer to becoming a joint AMS/NWA chapter Proposed Amend- ments to our Chapter’s Consti- tution — p3 A look back at Hurricane Charley (1986) — p4 Inside this issue: Chapter News 2 Member Birthdays June-October 2 Member News 3 September 2010 Meeting Minutes 5 NewsNotes 6 Photos from the last Meeting 5 Editor’s Notes 7 Upcoming Meeting—Tuesday October 19th October 10, 2010 Volume 32, Issue 2 Editor: Meredith A. Willems Twin Cities Chapter of the American Meteorological Society Continued on page 2
Transcript
The October 2010 meeting will be held at 7pm at: Telvent/DTN 11400 Rupp Drive Burnsville MN 55337
For directions and map, please see the Events page on the chap-ter website at http://twincitiesams.org/.
Bryan Howell will be speaking about the Twin Cities tornadoes of August 8, 2009 (this is a change from the original plan).
Meetings are held on the third Tuesday of the month, unless otherwise noted.
Please bring a nonperishable food item for donation to charity. Note: the November meeting date has not yet been set due to the Northern Plains Winter Storm Conference taking place here on the 15th-16th of November. The date will be announced through email and the website events page, as well as posted in the November newsletter.
President’s Corner
Hey, everyone! I think the weather's heading toward fall. Summer-like rains followed by spring-like flooding along with fall-like frost. Is this were I say "lousy Smarch weather?"
I think we got off to a great start to our year at our September meeting. Having worked on one end of the data flow, I saw only a part of what the NCRFC's Steve Buan talked about. I wasn't fully aware of how much of an anom-aly it was, and how close things came to an even bigger catastro-phe.
There's some news I've received from the AMS which I'll share with you elsewhere in this news
letter. Trust me; it 's good news. Very good news.
Our October meeting will be an important one at Telvent/DTN, with not only a presentation by our treasurer, Bryan, but be-cause we'll vote on Constitution and Bylaws changes to get us that much closer to NWA affilia-tion. This is something that we've been working toward dur-ing the last few months, and I think it's a great next step for our chapter. It opens up our chapter to more opportunities for growth.
And, as always, if you have any ideas for the chapter, or things
you'd like to see, including potential speakers, please tell the officers. And don't forget: our Bring a Friend program is still going on.
--Chris Bovitz
(Editor’s Note: In case you’ve been living under the same rock I have been, or you would just like a laugh, see http://www.hulu.com/watch/19904/the-simpsons-how-willie-died for the original “lousy Smarch weather”.)
June Randy Hill - 6/14 Steven Scherger – 6/20 July Jacob Niemand – 7/3 Jeff Salinas – 7/4 Bill Endersen – 7/10 Tony Perkins – 7/16 August None
Member Birthdays We’re playing catch-up here. Here are current members’ birthdays (for whom we have inf ormat ion ) g o ing b ack through the summer. Please let Bryan know your birthday when you renew the next time so we can add it to our data-base! Or just send an email to [email protected].
This will appear monthly.
September Matt Friedlein – 9/10 Melissa Stambaugh – 9/25 Tina Taggart – 9/28 October None
Member Birthdays
Chapter News
We've all worked hard last year to put up one of the best years in recent chapter his-tory. I'd especially like to thank last year's officers Matt Friedlein, Bryan Howell, and Kevin Huyck and committee heads (and everyone who led efforts) like Diane Cooper, Tony Sudano, and Doug Dok-ken, the science fair judges, and everyone who helped out. Thanks, everyone. We must be doing something right. Let's keep it up.
– Chris Bovitz
Constitutional Amendments and ByLaws Vote
Please attend the October 19th meeting so you can vote on our proposed ByLaws and Con-stitutional Amendments. See the article in this newsletter for the Constitutional Amend-ments, and check out Septem-ber’s newsletter for the pro-posed ByLaws. Yes, we will be voting on both at the October 19th meeting. These changes will pave the way for our join-ing the National Weather As-sociation. We are this close to finalizing that.
— Meredith Willems
AMS Recognition
I recently got a call from the new AMS president, Peggy Lemone. She said that our chapter was selected as the Outstanding Chapter of the Year! To me (and I hope to you, too), this is a Big Deal™. The statement, coming out s o o n , w i l l c i t e u s f o r "outstanding community out-reach, professional develop-ment, opportunities for mem-bers, and commitment to in-creasing membership with a 'bring a friend' mantra." There will be a presentation cere-mony at the national AMS meeting in Seattle in January.
President’s Corner (continued from page 1)
October 2010 Page 2
Twin Cities Chapter of the American Meteorological Society
Do you have an idea for a weather story? News from the field? Professional updates? Interesting information? Did you attend a conference and would like to share your experience? We need your contributions! If you have questions or contributions, please contact [email protected].
the local population of students with an inter-est in meteorology and the atmospheric sci-ences, professionals in the field, and inter-ested individuals from the community. The Chapter will provide the community with a social and scientific point of contact for mete-orological, hydrological, and other related sci-entific disciplines in research and operations. Amendment IX (Revised wording for Article XIII, paragraph 2) In the event of dissolution, the respective Na-tional Chapter(s) shall be advised of actions taken to dissolve this Chapter by the presiding Chapter President at dissolution.
Please come to the Chapter meeting on Octo-ber 19th, 2010 to vote on these proposed amendments as well as the proposed ByLaws.
Proposed Constitutional Amendments to the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Meteoro-logical Society. These amendments are proposed due to the expected affiliation with the National Weather Association. They were presented for the first time at the September 21, 2010 meeting.
Amendment VI (Change the name of the document) Constitution of the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and National Weather Association. Amendment VII (Revised wording for Article I) This chapter shall be known as the “Twin Cities Chapter of the American Meteorological Soci-ety” or the “Twin Cities Chapter of the National Weather Association”. Hereafter in this docu-ment it will be referred to “The Chapter”. The American Meteorological Society shall hereaf-ter be referred to as the “National AMS Chap-ter”; the National Weather Association shall hereafter be referred to as the “National NWA Chapter”. Amendment VIII (Revised wording for Article II, paragraph 1) The Chapter shall strive to enrich and support
Proposed Constitutional Amendments
Member News
Meredith Willems has started in the Master’s program in Technical Communication at Metro State in St. Paul.
If you have news, professional or per-sonal, that you’d like to share here, send it to Meredith Willems at [email protected].
Nobody sent in any personal or professional news for this month, so you’re stuck with mine. (Please send some!)
The hurricane season of 1986 isn’t one that’s often discussed in the United States anymore. In total, there were only six Atlantic hurricanes between early June and late November of that year.1 The first hurri-cane of the year was named Andrew, but it’s not the fa-mous Hurricane Andrew. That Andrew was still six years in the future. The 1986 season is actually an annual topic of conversation in the British Isles, because of the third At-lantic hurricane of that year, Charley (not to be confused with the Hurricane Charley of 2004, whose name has been retired).
Charley became a system of note on August 12th, when satellite images showed a cir-culation with showers over the eastern Gulf of Mexico.1 The circulation was initially located to the west of Tampa, Florida, and it crossed over the pan-handle of Florida by August 15th. On August 16th, Charley finally reached the threshold for a Tropical Storm, and it turned to the north. Charley reached hurricane status on the 17th, and its center briefly passed along the eastern shores of North Carolina be-fore turning northeastward. By the 19 t h , Charley was headed straight out to sea, where it downgraded into an extra-tropical storm with gale force winds.1,2 Despite its brief history along the eastern sea-board, five deaths and $15 million in damages were at-
tributed to Charley in the U.S.1
As Charley traveled eastward across the North Atlantic, it managed to take a path along the shipping lanes.1 Charley remained an organized rain-maker, but its winds never regained hurricane strength.2 After five days at sea, the rem-nants of Charley approached the Brit ish Is les from the southwest. Monday, August 25th, was the date of Britain’s
late summer bank holiday, and of course, that’s the day when the extra-tropical storm came ashore.3 Scotland, which was-n’t observing the bank holiday, only saw light rain from the storm.
In the United Kingdom, 1986 was a relatively wet year to begin with.3 Charley dropped two or more inches of rain across most of Britain and Wales. (Together, Britain and Wales covers more than 58,000 square miles. Wiscon-sin is approximately 56,000 square miles in area.) Wide-spread areas actually received more than four inches of rain, and the greatest ra infa ll
amount in Britain was 134 mm. Such heavy and wide-spread rainfall amounts from a single event went unmatched in the United Kingdom during the Twentieth Century. Rain-fall amounts in Ireland were even higher.2 The Irish village of Kilcoole witnessed more than eight inches of rain, and three to four inches of rain were common in the areas around Dublin. Flooding also proved a serious problem across the entire region for several days. Supposedly (I can’t acquire the original news articles on this), eleven people died in the U.K. and Ireland from the storm and the ensu-ing floods. While it isn’t overly common for Atlantic hurri-canes to retain such energy when approaching the British Isles and Europe, it isn’t impos-sible either.
— Anthony Stender
Sources:
1. Lawrence, Miles B. Annual Sum-mary: Atlantic hurricane season of 1986. Mon. Weather Rev., 115 (1987), 2155-2160.
2. McWilliam, Brendan. Weather (weather eye): the unwelcome visit of Hurricane Charley. The Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland), Saturday, August 25, 2001, at p.24.
3. Grindley, John. Rainfall in the United Kingdom in 1986: Hurri-cane Charley storms in to set remarkable record. The Times (London, England), Monday, February 23, 1987.
A Look at Weather History: Hurricane Charley, August 1986
“Such heavy and
widespread rainfall
amounts from a single
event went unmatched
in the United Kingdom
during the Twentieth
Century.”
October 2010 Page 4
Twin Cities Chapter of the American Meteorological Society
Chris Bovitz called the meeting to order at 7pm and an-nounced that this would be the last meeting as an AMS chapter, and we would soon become a joint chapter of the National Weather Association. He also announced that the 2010-2011 chapter year would be his last as President, and someone will need to step forward to lead our organiza-tion. Officers Chris Bovitz and Matt Friedlein were present; Bryan Howell and Chuck Schoeneberger were not pre-sent. Introductions were made of everyone else present.
The May minutes were read and a motion passed to ap-prove.
The Treasurer’s report was made: the chapter’s finances total $82.90 in the bank and $175 in cash.
Chris outlined our new mem-bership procedures. Member-ship will now be on a 12-month rotating basis. Once you pay, your membership is good for 12 months. (If you pay early, 12 months will be added on to your current membership.) Members can pay by going online to the chapter’s website and using the forms on the “Be a Mem-ber” page, or by paying Bryan with a check or money order. Bryan’s address is on the web-page, or members can pay him in person at meetings.
Matt then discussed becoming a NWA chapter. Some impor-
tant points: (1)we will be ask-ing the NWA to host their 2014 annual meeting in Minneapo-lis, (2) NWA focuses more on private and public meteorol-ogy, operational meteorology, hydrology, and weather enthu-siasts instead of research, (3) St. Cloud has a NWA chapter , (4) dues to the national NWA are only about $38 compared to the more expensive AMS national membership of ap-proximately $85, and (5) local membership in an NWA chap-ter is separate from national NWA membership.
Chris then spoke about the Constitutional amendments necessary to achieve joint NWA membership. These need to be adopted before we can become a NWA chapter. He presented the Constitutional amendments, and the vote was tabled until next month. The amendments wil l be posted in the October newslet-ter (Editor’s note: see article on Constitutional Amendments in here) and the vote will take place at October’s meeting.
Chris also talked about the proposed changes to the By-Laws which were posted in the September newsletter, specifi-cally the changes in dues col-lection and ByLaws renewal. The vote on the new ByLaws will also occur at October’s meeting.
Our next meeting will be at Telvent/DTN on October 19th. The presentation will be on the August 8, 2009 Minneapolis
tornado.
The Northern Plains Winter Storm Workshop was men-tioned; this will be at St. Cloud on November 15-16, 2010. (Editor’s note: see the News-Notes article) Our November meeting will also occur (as yet TBD) during that week and have a presentation on the June 17, 2010 tornado out-break. There was discussion about getting stories from storm chasers that were out that day and getting their sto-ries to Matt Friedlein to in-clude in the discussion.
Chris then mentioned the Northern Plains Convective Workshop being held in the spring of 2011. He mentioned that we sent money to help the Sioux Falls chapter host this event in 2010. The Na-tional Weather Service runs the event, not our chapter, but we can see what we can do to help the Chanhassen office with their hosting duties.
The Spring 2011 Skywarn Workshop was also discussed, and it was generally agreed that our chapter should at-tempt to have a dinner meet-ing with Skywarn’s guest speaker the night before.
Matt mentioned the chapter’s poster for the annual AMS meeting. Lisa Schmit will be attending from the WFO. This poster can be reused, such as at events like Government On
Minutes from the September 2010 meeting
The Chapter will
have a poster at
the annual AMS
meeting in
Seattle in
January, 2011.
Volume 32, Issue 2
October 2010 Page 5
Continued on page 6
The fifth annual Northern Plains Winter Storm Conference is set again for St. Cloud…right in our backyard! This two-day event is hosted by the St. Cloud State University meteorology department, as well as their student chapter of the National Weather Association. It will be held this year on November 15th-16th. This conference has had multiple speakers from the Twin Cities AMS over the past several years
and is a fabulous opportunity to learn the lat-est and greatest about this region’s cool sea-son weather. For more information, follow the conference web site at:
http://www.stcloudstate.edu/eas/npwsc/.
If you have news of a professional conference or other gathering that would be of interest to our members, send it to Meredith Willems at [email protected].
There was also discussion about the Minnesota Storm-chasing Convention which will take place in February 2011, and whether the chapter
Display and the Skywarn Workshop. Matt would like to ask for help developing the poster. The poster is most likely due in November.
should try to get a speaker from that.
A motion was made and car-ried to adjourn at 7:35pm.
Minutes from the September 2010 meeting (continued)
NewsNotes
October 2010 Page 6
Twin Cities Chapter of the American Meteorological Society
Steve Buan giving a talk on Spring 2010 flooding.
A precipitation map of the Nashville flooding event.
Another month has flown by, and we’re getting ready for the October meeting. This will be an important one; please plan to attend and vote on the proposed ByLaws and Constitutional amendments. These will help pave the way for our becoming a joint Chapter of the National Weather Association.
I’m sure you saw the announcement that our Chapter was named Outstanding Chapter of the Year by the AMS. (If you haven’t – go back and read the Chapter News article!) This is quite an accomplishment! This Chapter will always be what we make of it, and your efforts to sustain a vital, vibrant chapter are paying off. Speaking of efforts - plan to bring a friend to our next meeting, or the one in November.
You may also have noticed a new regular col-umn – Member Birthdays. Our database is still a little thin, so please send your birthday informa-tion in to Bryan when you renew your member-s h ip . O r s e n d h i m a n ot e a t t re a s [email protected]. I know many of us are approaching our annual “due date” for mem-bership. You can mail your dues in or give them directly (in a check or money order) to Bryan at a meeting. Sounds like a good reason to go to a meeting! Go to www.twincitiesams.org and the Be a Member page for details.
There are a few pictures included in this issue. (I’m hoping to return this newsletter to its for-mer pictorial glory, but, as I said last month, it’s a work in progress.) I’ve stolen, er, included
photos from the September meeting, which Chris has posted on the website. Steve Buan gave a very interesting presentation on the Spring 2010 flooding and had valuable insights into what Spring 2011 may bring.
As usual, Anthony Stender sent in an interesting contribution, this time about a hurricane turned extratropical storm making its way across the Atlantic. I always like reading his stories. I would also like to read your stories, too! If you have an idea for a story, or have personal or profes-sional news to share, please send me a note at [email protected]. I don’t want to resort to getting “creative” for the Member News column, so please let me know what’s going on with you. I’m sure news about former members would be welcome, too. I heard from a few people after last month’s newsletter came out – thanks! And keep the feedback coming. This newsletter is for you.
If you’re looking for other ways to contribute (and who isn’t?) our Chapter will be creating a poster for display at the national AMS confer-ence in Seattle in January 2011. If you’d like to help with this worthy project, send a note to M a t t F r i e d l e i n a t v i c e p r e s i [email protected] or Chris Bovitz at [email protected].
Hope to see you at the meetings! Goodbye until next month. Stay warm!
