Southwest Michigan AMS/NWA
March 22, 2017
Calvin College DeVos Communications Center
1810 East Beltline Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546
Since our President, Brandon Hoving, was out of town, Warren Wheeler, our Vice President called the meeting to order at 7:10 PM. The other board members present were William Marino, Treasurer; Craig James Woods, Secretary; and Linda Paige, member at large. There were 39 people who attended the meeting. A total of 8 people signed in as first time visitors, 2 of them decided to become members.
At the beginning of the meeting, Warren reviewed that a change in the yearly dues was approved by the board to $20 per year for regular members and $10 per year for students. Also, the board had approved a proposal to increase the number of board members to 5, with Linda Paige being voted in as member at large and keeper of the web page.
William Marino gave the Treasurer’s report and indicated that as of the beginning of the meeting, our account showed a total of $599.01. This takes into account all of the expenses the chapter was paying for our speaker, but does not include any dues new members paid after the meeting was adjourned.
The speaker for the meeting was Dr. Karen Kosiba, a senior research meteorologist with the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colorado. Her research mainly focuses on characterizing the low-level wind structure in tornadoes, supercell storm dynamics, and quantifying the boundary layer winds in hurricanes. Additionally, she is passionate about science education and recently has participated in outreach activities at museums and in schools across the country.
Her talk at this meeting was focused on how tornadoes form and what are the winds at the surface inside of them using data obtained mainly from her work with the Doppler Radar on Wheels. The ultimate goal of the research will be to answer the question as to why some supercells produce tornadoes and others don’t. Considerable time was devoted to answering questions from those in attendance.
To conclude, Warren advised that the next meeting of our chapter will be in May with the exact date yet to be determined. There will be a speaker from the Michigan Department of Transportation to give a presentation about weather sensors being installed in Michigan roadways.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 PM.
Respectfully submitted
Craig James Woods
Secretary