Meeting Minutes
Southwest Michigan AMS/NWA
13 May 2021
West Michigan Aviation Academy
5363 44th St
Grand Rapids, MI 49512
Vice President Cort Scholten called the meeting to order shortly after 7PM. All of the board members were present except for the president, Warren Wheeler. Total
attendance was 12 people. Due to COVID this is the first meeting we have had in person since 20 Feb 2020. Our last meeting was via Zoom 17 Dec 2020.
Cort Scholten presented the list of winners of last winter’s forecast contest and has now posted via email the criteria for the summer contest.
Coldest temperature at the GRR airport
Actual: -12 degrees, February 17
Winner: Kim Howell, -9 degrees
Snowfall total at GRR
Actual: 46.1 inches
Winner: Cassey Derry, 52.5 inches
Snowfall total at MKG
Actual: 41.8 inches
Winner: Cassey Derry, 52.5 inches
Snowfall total at LAN
Actual: 45.6 inches
Winner: Steve Derry, 46 inches
William Marino reported our cash on hand is now $652.44 after expenses of $182.34 in 2020 for our web site and mailbox. If you paid dues for the year 2020, that money will be applied to 2021.
I was the speaker for the evening with a talk on “Is the Weather Becoming More Extreme”.
It is always a pleasure for me to talk about extreme weather and it is apparent that when you take a
look at the actual data from past weather events, which I showed on my slides, you can see they are
not becoming more severe. If anything, weather events of the past were more extreme than now.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr from the University of Colorado at Boulder presented testimony before the US Senate EPA committee back in 2017 on this subject.
Here are his take home points, which I think are exactly correct.
Our meeting adjourned around 8PM. We are planning on having the next meeting sometime in June with our Vice President, Cort Scholten, speaking on the typical small scale tornado events we usually see in West Michigan.
Respectfully submitted
Craig James Woods, Secretary