Announcing the 2011 FERMILAB/WGN Tornado & Severe Storms Seminar on Saturday, April 30, 2011

By Meteorologist Tom Skilling

Greetings to each of you! We have an extraordinary program planned for our 31st Annual Fermilab/WGN-TV seminar which takes place this year on Saturday, April 30th. I'm very excited about this year's program and the speakers who will join me at noon Saturday, Arpil 30th and again for a repeat of the entire program at 6 p.m. The event will take place at the Ramsey Auditorium on the grounds of the Batavia-based Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory.  Please feel free to attend either the noon session or the 6 pm session. We'd love to have you join us!  Hope to see you there and again here are the key details.

Where: Fermilab - Kirk Rd & Pine St, Batavia, Illinois, 1.630.840.3000
When:  Saturday, April 30th @12pm and again at 6pm

For a complete listing of guest speakers and topics of discussion continue reading below!

Putting these programs together the past 31 years has been a real labor of love for each of us involved in the seminar's preparation and production. The program is absolutely free! There are no tickets required--just show up! Seating is first come, first-served, so we recommend you get to the Fermilab grounds early--about an hour or hour and a half before the start of each program. As in recent years, we'll be giving away a number of NOAA Weather Radios.  Be sure you sign up at the Lake County Skywarn Booth as you approach the Ramsey Auditorium.

There's so much to talk about and share with you this year--and our speakers list is spectacular! We have an incredibly active 2011 tornado season underway and showing no sign of easing anytime soon which we intend to update and discuss. But, we've also been through quite a winter which has included one of this area's worst blizzards on record. The extraordinary Blizzard of 2011 was one for the books--the third worst snowstorm since records began in the 1884-85 snow season. Despite one of the best advance forecasts of such a storm ever, thousands ended up stranded on Lakeshore Drive--among other thoroughfares across the area. Why was that? And how was it that the storm was so accurately predicted so far in advance? We'll have insights from the National Weather Service's Dr. Louis Uccellini, Director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Camp Spring, Maryland as well as Dr. Jim Angel, our Illinois state climatologist at the Midwestern Regional Climate Center in Champaign, who will join us to discuss the work he and his colleagues have done on the impact; economically and in human terms, of February's crippling storm.

Jim Reed is one of the most respected storm chasers and extreme weather photographers on the road today. An author and all around wonderful human being, it was Jim who guided our WGN team as it encountered a multiple vortex tornado which chased us at speeds over 60 mph last May in northeast Oklahoma.  You'll meet Jim and find his presentation riveting.

We have a whole series of other presentations planned at our April 30th programs--and here's a rundown of them--both the speakers and the subjects of their talks. Both the noon and the 6pm programs run 3-4 hours with a break mid-way through.

I'm often asked if our program is suited to younger children.  Probably not. There will be all manner of "storm- in -progress" slides and videos which may frighten some young people. We've found in most past programs at Fermilab that 4th graders and older are best equipped to handle the content of our presentations.

Here are our speakers and the topics that will be discussed. Check them out!

Tom Skilling, Chief meteorologist, WGN-TV  Join us for a front row seat as we take you on a video excursion through a wild year of weather. The presentation will include our all-too-close encounter with a multiple-vortex tornado which chased us down an Oklahoma highway at 55mph. We'll also take a look at February's horrific blizzard--arguably the area's single most crippling snowstorm in decades. The blizzard, despite a week's worth of advance warning, still stranded thousands in howling 70 mph winds under drifts up to 5 to 6 ft. on Lakeshore Drive for up to 14 hours. We'll also review early returns from the already formidable 2011 tornado and severe weather season underway which is seriously outpacing the 2010 twister season to date.

Tom plans to take you on a video excursion through it all--and will even include eye-opening and horrifying video clips of the devastating Japanese tsunami in progress, as it takes apart one seaside community in the space of just 9 minutes.  The presentation will include a look at the revolution underway the past half century in meteorology which has allowed better forecasts and tracking of tornadoes and all manner of weather.

Dr. Louis W. Uccellini, Director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)  Dr. Uccellini will present a talk: "Forecasting The Blizzards of 2010-2011".  Warnings for Chicago's third largest snowstorm on record in February 2011 and New York City's record blizzard in December 2010 were issued with plenty of lead time; yet not all heeded the warnings.  This talk will explore how forecasters approached these storms and offer insights into how the warnings were received as the dangerous storms approached major metropolitan areas.

Extreme weather, including blizzards, tornadoes and severe thunderstorm outbreaks, are being predicted with greater accuracy and longer lead times than ever before. This past winter's blizzard in Chicago, the third largest snowstorm on record, was flagged as a potential threat for the Great Lakes region 5 to 7 days before the storm struck. Yet uncertainty in the track forecast remained even as the storm was predicted to become a large and dangerous blizzard that would impact a large area of the northern Midwest. The ability of this country's forecast system to provide forecasts of extreme events (like the blizzards and the recent major tornado outbreaks) has been decades in the making and is based on revolutionary advances in observing, numerical prediction models, computers, and the abilities of the forecasters to work with and fully utilize these sophisticated models and observations to issue warnings with increased confidence and specificity.

Global and local observations are becoming increasingly reliant on satellites and radar networks.  And today's forecast models run on supercomputers which are able to readily access over 3.5 billion observations per day and perform 70 trillion mathematical calculations per second---a speed which will double or triple over the next 4 to 5 years.  There may be no one who who has played such an active role in this revolution in weather forecasting than Dr. Louis W. Uccellini who, as Director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (or NCEP as it is known in the meteorological profession), oversees the operations of 9 centers including the Storm Prediction Center, Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, National Hurricane Center and the Environmental Modeling Center (which plays a key role in the development of the computer models) and of the NCEP Central Operations (which maintains and runs these models on the operational supercomputers on a daily basis).  Dr. Uccellini will discuss the Chicago and New York City blizzards with a comparison showing that while the forecast and warnings highlighted the potential threat associated with the onset of these storms highlighted days before their arrival, improvements are still needed to provide predictive information and decision support required for more decisive action.  Finally, Dr. Uccellini will take your questions at the end of the presentation..

Dr. Jim Angel, State Climatologist, Midwestern Regional Climate Center February 2011 Blizzard's astounding impact: Tab on storm $400-million in snow removal costs and in lost business, nearly 7,000 miles of highways buried beneath a foot or more of snow, over 10-million impacted

The February blizzard's economic impact has come in at just under half a billion dollars in northeast Illinois alone, according to the Midwestern Regional Climate Center's Dr. Jim Angel. Angel is Illinois' state climatologist in Illinois. Just under 10 million Illinoisans alone experienced 12-inch plus accumulations and an extraordinary 6,993 miles of Illinois highways were buried beneath 12 inches.

Jim Reed, Award winning photographer "Storm Chaser: A Photographer's Journey" - Join award-winning extreme weather photographer Jim Reed as he discusses his favorite images from his critically-acclaimed book and how he captured the photos

It was veteran storm chaser Jim Reed with whom Tom Skilling and WGN producer Pam Grimes and photographers Steve Scheuer and Jordan Guzzardo traveled into the Plains last spring for a trip which led to an encounter with a multiple vortex tornado which chased them down a northeast Oklahoma highwa. The storm flipped semis and cars on their sides. WGN viewers were along every step of the way for the ride. One of the world's most accomplished and award-winning extreme-weather photographers, Jim Reed has dedicated 20 consecutive years to documenting America's changing climate for editorial and fine art clients that include National Geographic, The New York Times, and Corcoran Gallery of Art.  In 2010, Jim served as WGN's field guide on the Emmy-Award winning "Chased by Tornadoes," leading Tom to his first on-location tornado. Author of the critically-accalimed book, "Storm Chaser: A Photographer's Journey," Jim has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Weather Channel, and many other TV shows. Check out Jim's Nikon Podcast on iTunes! You can follow Jim on Twitter: @jimreedphoto


Jim Allsopp, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, NWS Chicago  Tornadoes in the Chicago area: How often have they occurred and how do events like the current La Nina, which the cooling of the equatorial Pacific, have an impact on local tornado occurrence?

Several years ago Jim Allsopp did a study on the frequency of significant (F2 and greater) tornadoes across the eight county Chicago metro area. In 2010 Valparaiso meteorology student Tony Lyza expanded the study to the entire 23 county area served by the Chicago NWS office and also looked at correlations between tornado frequency and the El Nino/Southern Oscillation cycle.

Brian Smith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, National Weather Service, Omaha, Nebraska "Killer Wind:  Do not ignore Severe Thunderstorm
Warnings"

Brian Smith, veteran National Weather Service meteorologist and severe weather specialist at the Service's Omaha forecast office, and former student and longtime research assistant to famed University of Chicago tornado researcher Dr. Ted Fujita, will look at derechoes and downbursts, explain what they are, how they happen and the dangers they represent.  Brian has irrefutable evidence they are just as dangerous as tornadoes and makes the case that Severe Thunderstorm Warnings should be taken just as seriously as tornado warnings and not ignored.

Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, MD, University of Illinois-Chicago The lightning injury rate in the U.S. is down but lightning injuries and deaths remain high in tropical and sub-tropical countries. What is being done to change this?

Due to the hard work of many people, the lightning injury rate in the US has declined substantially.  However, there continues to be significant numbers of injuries and deaths in tropical and subtropical countries around the world.  We cannot export the US solutions to areas where thatched roof homes and labor intensive agriculture is still the norm but must come up with other solutions including innovative educational ways to reach the people.  Dr Cooper will discuss some of the developments and outreach that is happening in these areas.

Ed Fenelon, Meteorologist in Charge of the NWS Forecast Office-Chicago Rip Currents: Killers on the Great Lakes--but what are they and what do you do when they strike?

Rip Currents caused the drowning death of 30 people last year on the Great Lakes, and on average claim 100 lives per year in the United States.  Sadly, most if not all of these lives could have been saved had people known the right thing to do.  Just what are these powerful water flows that occur at our beaches, and what do we need to be teaching our kids before they go in the water?  Ed Fenelon will talk about what ripncurrents are, and about a new partnership between beach managers, first responders, community leaders, the media, and the National Weather Service to reduce rip current drownings at our beaches.  Through advances in rip current research we are now able to predict days when rip currents may form.  By being informed before deciding to go to the beach, and following the advice of lifeguards and beach signs when there, we can ensure many happy returns to the water.  Rip Currents -
break the grip of the rip!  More information at ripcurrents.noaa.gov

Here's where our potential Sunday/Monday snowstorm will be landing tomorrow: New Venice, aka California. What were once streets are now canals; hills have become muddy slip-and-slides; some areas have gotten more than a foot of rain. About 17 feet of snow has fallen on parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains, according to the U.S. Hydrometeorological Prediction Center.

And some residents of Orange County are getting shocking wake-up calls, according to the Associated Press:

Paul Wright, whose best friend died in an Orange County mudslide in 1997, said he was awakened by the sound of rolling boulders at 3 a.m. and hurried to get his family out of his home.

"There's huge, big boulders, 'Boom! Boom!,"' he said. "I lost my house in the Laguna mudslide, so I'm erring on the side of caution."

So what's all that look like from a wrathful god's perspective? Something like the above infrared satellite image of the estimated precipitation over California for the past three days, provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (larger size). The very dark blues areas show where more than 14 inches of rain have fallen during that time period. It makes me feel good about this storm coming for us; I doubt it will match up to this kind of meteorological fury.