Jason Sippel and Frank Marks participate in the National Tropical Weather Conference – Hurricane Research Division

The National Tropical Weather Conference was held on South Padre Island 6-9 April. Alex Garcia, a television meteorologist with San Antonio’s KABB-TV, is one of the founders of the conference. “The idea for the National Tropical Weather Conference came about when the Bahamas Weather Conference ended,” Garcia said. “There was no organized effort to educate and update broadcast meteorologists about the upcoming hurricane season. I saw the need and along with my partner, Tim Smith, decided to develop a new conference that would bring together the top hurricane forecasters, social scientists, insurance professionals, resilience experts and others to address the needs of broadcast meteorologists and businesses. We started nine years ago with just ten meteorologists. We have grown about 800% as excellent reviews of the conference expanded.” Tim Smith adds, “The National Tropical Weather Conference has become the one conference which broadcast meteorologists in communities affected by hurricanes should not miss. It’s all the content they need in one convenient, affordable, fun package.” Smith is also no stranger to the broadcast meteorology world; he’s the Chief Meteorologist for KRGV-TV in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, an area that is no stranger to tropical cyclone threats. Former National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read was also a founding member of the conference and serves as the MC for the conference.

Alex Garcia, a well-known television meteorologist with San Antonio’s KABB-TV, is one of the founders of the National Tropical Weather Conference. “The idea for the National Tropical Weather Conference came about when the Bahamas Weather Conference ended,” Garcia said. “There was no organized effort to educate and update broadcast meteorologists about the upcoming hurricane season. I saw the need and along with my partner, Tim Smith, decided to develop a new conference that would bring together the top hurricane forecasters, social scientists, insurance professionals, resilience experts and others to address the needs of broadcast meteorologists and businesses. We started nine years ago with just ten meteorologists. We have grown about 800% as excellent reviews of the conference expanded.” Tim Smith adds, “The National Tropical Weather Conference has become the one conference which broadcast meteorologists in communities affected by hurricanes should not miss. It’s all the content they need in one convenient, affordable, fun package.” Smith is also no stranger to the broadcast meteorology world; he’s the Chief Meteorologist for KRGV-TV in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, an area that is no stranger to tropical cyclone threats. Former National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read was also a founding member of the conference and servs as the MC for the conference.

Frank Marks received the William M. Gray Award “for his outstanding leadership in tropical cyclone research.” Other award recipients were Vijay Tallapragada, Chief of the Modeling and Data Assimilation Branch of NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center; Dan Kottlowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist at AccuWeather; and Margaret Orr, chief meteorologist for WDSU in New Orleans.

IJason Sippel summarized the history of reconnaissance data usage in numerical models for improving tropical cyclone forecasts.  He described how the data usage has changed over the years to today and emphasized how this usage has recently changed. He closed with a look at the next-generation hurricane model (the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System) and how it will help us to improve data usage and forecasts even further.