Symposium Focuses on Future Southwestern Weather Forecasting

Lori Stiles
Sept. 19, 2000


More than 120 professional weather forecasters and university researchers from the United States and Mexico will attend the Southwest Weather Symposium in Tucson Thursday and Friday, Sept. 21 - 22.

The National Weather Service and the University of Arizona department of atmospheric sciencies are hosting the symposium at the Hilton Tucson East, 7600 E. Broadway.

The conference focuses on advances in weather forecasting models, techniques and technologies that can improve forecasters' ability to predict tornadoes, flash floods, dust storms, fire weather, damaging downbursts, and severe hail, wind and lightning in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.

This region has unique weather problems because it lies at subtropical and tropical latitudes and also combines semi-arid and arid atmosphere over mountainous terrain.

The meeting agenda is on the symposium web page http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/swws/swws.html

A 3:15 - 4:30 Thursday afternoon panel discussion focuses on the future of numerical weather prediction, said David R. Bright, meteorologist for the Tucson office of the NWS and a conference organizer.

Panelists include UA atmospheric scientist Steve Mullen (panel moderator); Louis Uccellini director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Center for Environmental Prediction; Col. Charles French of the Air Force Weather Agency; Joseph Klemp of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Co.; and Stanley Benjamin of NOAA's Forecast Systems Lab in Boulder.

They will highlight forecasting models developed specifically for the U.S. Southwest, the best use of computer resources (highest resolution models vs. lower resolution models that are run more frequently), the role of universities in developing forecast models, and how such models will be used in the future of the National Weather Service, the U.S.Air Force and the private sector.

Government, military and university scientists will present more than two dozen topics in a 5 - 6:30 p.m. Thursday poster session.

The meeting is funded through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) "COMET" program, the Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and Training. The NOAA National Weather Service and the UA are also funding co-sponsors.

**(EDITORS: Thursday's panelists will have time for interviews beginning with the 4:30 p.m. break.)**

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