NWS Climate Services Seminar Series

12/19/2022, Southern Regional Climate Center Updates

• John Nielsen-Gammon is a Regents Professor at Texas A&M University, Director of the Southern Regional Climate Center, and the Texas State Climatologist. Dr. Nielsen-Gammon grew up in Northern California and went to school in Massachusetts, receiving a Ph.D. from MIT in 1990. Dr. Nielsen-Gammon joined the faculty of Texas A&M University in 1991 and was appointed Texas State Climatologist by then-Governor George W. Bush in 2000. He became Director of the Southern Regional Climate Center in 2021. He is now also serving a two-year term as President of the American Association of State Climatologists. Dr. Nielsen-Gammon conducts research on large-scale and local-scale weather, climate, and air pollution, with a focus on intense rainfall and droughts. He teaches courses in weather analysis and forecasting, climate, climate change, and computer modeling.

11/8/2022, The Value of Environmental Information from NOAA’s NCEI

• Tamara (Tami) Houston is the National Partnership Liaison for the Regional Climate Services Program at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental information (NCEI). In this role, Tamara serves as the technical lead for six NOAA Regional Climate Center contracts and as an ex-officio member of the American Association of State Climatologists Executive Committee. Tamara is a member of NCEI’s Climatic Information Services Branch and serves on NCEI’s Engagement Team, engaging with public, private, and academic users from a variety of regions and climate-sensitive sectors in order to identify user needs and enhance their climate literacy. Tamara has a M.S. degree in Geography with an emphasis in Applied Climatology and a B.S. in Meteorology, both from Northern Illinois University.

8/18/2022, CPC Weeks 3-4 Outlooks: Products and Services, Forecast Basis, and Future Plans

• Jon Gottschalck has worked at CPC since 2004. During this time, Jon served as CPC Head of Forecast Operations where he was responsible for overseeing day-to-day routine production and dissemination of CPC's operational forecast products. More recently, he was named Chief of the Operational Prediction Branch within CPC, and is now responsible for outlining the overall direction of operational forecast-related activities. Jon earned both a B.S. and M.S. degree in meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University in 1994 and 1996, respectively.

• Jon will be talking about the Climate Prediction Center's Week 3 to 4 Outlooks.

7/19/2022, Severe Thunderstorms and Their Impacts: Past, Present, and Future

• Walker Ashley is an atmospheric scientist and disaster geographer with an interest in extreme weather and societal impacts. His research team uses an interdisciplinary approach, employing techniques that span the social and physical sciences—from qualitative, survey-based research, to remote sensing and GIS, to the use of computer algorithms on remotely sensed data and numerical model output generated via high-performance computing. His scholarship characterizes the spatio-temporal distributions of hazardous weather phenomena, their societal impacts, and how, ultimately, disasters will change in the 21st century. The goal is to supply government and industry stakeholders, policymakers, and the public with the information necessary to mitigate disasters and build resilience in the face of rapid environmental and societal change.

• Dr. Ashley will discuss severe thunderstorms and their impacts, both historically and into the future while blending what we know about the changing risk of t-storm perils with the evolving societal landscape and they comingle to result in disasters.

5/19/2022, Subseasonal to Seasonal Predictability and Prediction of Severe Convective Weather

• Michael Tippett is an Associate Professor in the department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University. Tippett’s climate research includes detection and attribution of climate change in models and observations, decadal prediction of Atlantic sea surface temperatures, and seasonal forecasts of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), as well as seasonal outlooks for temperature and precipitation for coming months. On shorter weather time-scales, Tippett investigates how severe thunderstorms (those resulting in tornadoes, hail, or damaging wind) and tropical cyclones are related to climate, now and in the future. Tippett received BS degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics from North Carolina State University and a MS and PhD in mathematics from New York University’s Courant Institute.

• Mike will present on S2S predictability for severe weather, including information on severe weather indices, NWP-based forecasts, and sources of predictability including teleconnections such as MJO, ENSO, and AO.

Soil Moisture Series

2/22/2022, Soil Moisture 101: What It Means and How It's Measured

3/29/2022, Practical Applications of Soil Moisture Information

• NIDIS and the National Weather Service (NWS) are hosting two webinars on soil moisture data and applications. These webinars are intended to help NWS operational forecasters and other weather & climate service providers better understand soil moisture monitoring and its practical applications.

• The first webinar, "Soil Moisture 101: What It Means and How It's Measured," will be held on February 22, 2022. This webinar will provide an overview of soil moisture monitoring and interpretation, including a review of the three main techniques for estimating soil moisture conditions: in situ ground-based systems, satellite measurements, and land surface model outputs.

• This second webinar, "Practical Applications of Soil Moisture Information," will be held on March 29, 2022. This webinar will include presentations on the use of soil moisture to inform drought monitoring and forecast products, and an example of how it’s applied by state climatologists.

2/16/2022, Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) - Updates and Tools

• Dr. Beth Hall is the Director of the Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) and the Indiana State Climatologist located at Purdue University. Dr. Hall will provide updates on the Vegetation Impact Program (VIP) as well as other tools and applications developed by the MRCC. The VIP integrates online climate monitoring information, weather and climate outlooks, and stakeholder input to provide a suite of resources that can help minimize negative vegetation impacts, mitigate climate variability effects, and develop adaptation plans to better prepare for extreme and ever-changing environmental conditions.

1/26/2022, Western Regional Climate Center: Updates and Snow Drought Tracker Tool

• The Snow Drought Tracker helps put the snow conditions in perspective with respect to drought, and provides multiple ways to view current and past conditions. Feedback and suggestions for the new tool are welcome. Dan and Ben will also provide updates on WRCC's most popular products.

11/22/2021, LCAT Live Tutorial and Use Cases

• The NWS Climate Services team held a live demonstration for NWS staff in order to highlight some potential use cases for the Local Climate Analysis Tool (LCAT) in understanding trends and ENSO relationships with surface climate, including temperature, precipitation, and snowfall. This information can be useful when communicating NWS Climate Outlooks to local stakeholders.

11/16/2021, Wintertime Impacts of Stratospheric Variability

• Dr. Amy Butler studies large-scale climate variability, teleconnections, atmospheric dynamics, stratospheric processes, and sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction. She is particularly interested in the stratospheric polar vortex and its influence on surface weather and extremes. Dr. Butler received her PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from Colorado State University. She worked at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center from 2009-2013. Since then, she has been working at the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory.
   
• Link to Slides

9/14/2021, Winter Weather Teleconnections Part 1

10/13/2021, Winter Weather Teleconnections Part 2

• Steve recently joined the Climate Services Branch after serving as the Winter Weather Services Program Manager since June 2020. Prior to that, he was a Meteorologist at the Climate Prediction Center, beginning as a SCEP intern in August 2009. During his time at CPC, Steve worked as both an operational forecaster, issuing forecasts ranging from Week-2 to monthly and seasonal outlooks, as well as in applied research to operations. He co-led the Statistical Methods and Extended Range working groups, and worked on a variety of projects including probabilistic U.S. Hazards Forecasts, objective seasonal forecast consolidation, Weeks 3-4 forecast development, and subseasonal to seasonal teleconnection monitoring and prediction. Steve holds a B.S. in meteorology from Millersville University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in atmospheric and oceanic science from the University of Maryland.
   
• Winter Weather Teleconnection, Part 1 Slides
   
• Winter Weather Teleconnection, Part 2 Slides

8/25/2021, Week 2 U.S. Hazards Outlook

• Melissa Ou and Brad Pugh presenting on CPC's 8-14 Day Hazards Outlook. Their seminar covers general information about the outlook, how it is created, the extremes tools developed by CPC, and future enhancements and plans. CPC's 8-14 Day Hazards Outlook can be a great tool to use for longer term planning and IDSS.

Flash Drought Series

6/22/2021, Part 1, State of the Science on Flash Drought

8/3/2021, Part 2, Current Understanding and Future Priorities

9/29/2021, Part 3, Emerging Tools for Flash Drought Monitoring and Prediction

• Droughts are often categorized as ‘flash’ droughts when they develop or intensify in a matter of weeks (though defining flash droughts continues to be an area of active debate). The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and the National Weather Service (NWS) are pleased to announce a series of three webinars to help climate professionals and operational service providers better understand this phenomenon, its defining characteristics and how it varies by region and season, its impacts on agricultural and other stakeholders, and the potential for improved monitoring, prediction, and planning/response tools (datasets, maps, etc.).

• The first webinar in this series showcases the ‘state of the science’ on flash drought, based on presentations from the December 2020 NIDIS-sponsored Flash Drought Virtual Workshop. Each presentation is followed by live Q&A with flash drought experts.

• Part 2 includes;

  • NIDIS Flash Drought Workshop: Key Takeaways and Priorities - Joel Lisonbee and Molly Woloszyn, NOAA-NIDIS

  • Additional reflections on the workshop and on priority actions to advance flash drought research from Mike Hobbins (NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory) and Amanda Cravens (USGS Fort Collins Science Center)

• ​Part 3 includes;

  • ​Experimental Subseasonal Tools to Support Flash Drought Monitoring and Prediction at CPC - L. Gwen Chen, NOAA Climate Prediction Center

  • Upcoming Product: Week-2 Flash Drought Forecasts - Brad Pugh, NOAA Climate Prediction Center

  • Survey of Other Emerging Flash Drought Tools - Trent Ford, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Below are links to the individual presentations

  • Flash Drought Literature Review

  • Monitoring Research Challenges and Needs

  • Prediction Research Challenges and Needs

  • Planning and Response Challenges and Needs

6/23/2021, The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO): Operational Monitoring, Prediction, and Impacts

• The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a tropical disturbance that propagates eastward around the global tropics with a cycle on the order of 30-60 days. The MJO has wide ranging impacts on the patterns of tropical and extratropical precipitation, atmospheric circulation, and surface temperature around the global tropics and subtropics. There is evidence that the MJO influences the ENSO cycle. It does not cause El Niño or La Niña, but can contribute to the speed of development and intensity of El Niño and La Niña episodes.

• Jon currently works at the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) within NOAA's National Weather Service. Jon Gottschalck has worked at CPC since 2004. During this time, Jon served as CPC Head of Forecast Operations where he was responsible for overseeing day-to-day routine production and dissemination of CPC's operational forecast products. More recently, he was named Chief of the Operational Prediction Branch within CPC, and is now responsible for outlining the overall direction of operational forecast-related activities. Jon earned both a B.S. and M.S. degree in meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University in 1994 and 1996, respectively.

6/9/2021, What's New with NCEI!

• Speakers:

  • Deke Arndt, Chief, NCEI Climatic Science & Services Division (CSSD)

  • Mike Brewer, Chief, CSSD Climatic Information Services Branch

  • Mike Palecki, Project Manager, 2020 U.S. Climate Normals, NOAA NCEI & Science Project Manager, U.S. Climate Reference Network, NOAA NCEI

5/4/2021, What's New with ENSO at CPC?

• "What's New with ENSO at CPC"

  • The new ENSO strengths tool

  • The new Relative ONI project

  • The new Normals at CPC and their impact on ENSO

• Speaker: Michelle L'Heureux, CPC

4/6/2021, Drought.gov Webinar for NOAA National Weather Service and State Climatologists

• In January 2021, NIDIS launched a major redesign of the U.S. Drought Portal in partnership with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Drought.gov is a one-stop resource for data, decision-support products, resources, and information on drought. The redesigned website features updated content and new interactive maps designed to provide actionable, shareable information on local drought conditions and forecasts by city, county, state, zip code, and at watershed to global scales. This Webinar provides an overview of the new Drought.gov, focusing on tools and resources of particular interest to the National Weather Service and state climate offices.

• Kelsey Satalino is the Digital Communications Coordinator for NOAA's National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and works for the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Kelsey supports NIDIS digital communications efforts, including content development, user feedback and engagement, and strategic planning for the U.S. Drought Portal (Drought.gov).

2/1/2021, Climate Indicators for Agriculture

• U.S. Agriculture is a multibillion-dollar industry with important national and international implications, as well as a high level of risk exposure to weather and climate. The diversity in production types and geographies create additional challenges for managing climate risks that create and exacerbate existing stresses within a complex economic, cultural, and social environment. The Climate Indicators for Agriculture report provides a discrete set of indicators that describe linkages between climate trends and variability with U.S. agriculture in recent decades. Together, they represent an overall view of how climate change is influencing U.S. agriculture; individually, they provide useful information for supporting management decisions. The report draws from observation networks and datasets maintained by NOAA ASOS, USDA NASS, State mesonets, universities, and others to represent trends in climate that influence agricultural production across the U.S.

• Dr. Art DeGaetano is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University and Director of the Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC), whose mission is to enhance the use and dissemination of climate information to a wide variety of sectors in the Northeast. Dr. DeGaetano serves as an editor for the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

• Dr. Dennis Todey is the Director of USDA’s Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, IA. Dr. Todey’s work focuses on climate impacts and interactions with agricultural issues in the Northern Plains and Corn Belt, the development of climate decision-tools, and support for decision-making for specialty crops in a changing climate. He is well known as a speaker and media source on multiple climate issues and is the former president of the American Association of State Climatologists.

• Dr. Margaret Walsh is the Senior Ecologist in USDA’s Office of Energy and Environmental Policy. Dr. Walsh focuses on Climate Assessments, Analysis, Decision-Support Tool Development, International Science, Food Systems and Security, and Sustainability. She is the author of the Climate Change, Global Food Security, and the U.S. Food System report, and on the steering committee for the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

8/25/2020, Recent Advances in Indicators for Drought Monitoring and Prediction

• Droughts are an annual occurrence, and recent droughts have highlighted the considerable agricultural impacts and economic costs of these events. Monitoring the state of droughts depends on integrating multiple indicators that each capture particular aspects of hydrologic impact and various types and phases of drought. As the capabilities of land-surface models and remote sensing have improved, important physical processes such as dynamic, interactive vegetation phenology, groundwater, and snowpack evolution now support a range of drought indicators that better reflect coupled water, energy and carbon cycle processes. In this work, we discuss these advances, including newer classes of indicators that can be applied to improve the characterization of drought onset, severity and duration. We utilize a new model-based drought reconstruction to illustrate the role of dynamic phenology and groundwater in drought assessment. Further, through case studies on flash droughts, snow droughts, and drought recovery, we illustrate the potential advantages of advanced model physics and observational capabilities, especially from remote sensing, in characterizing droughts.
• Dr. Christa D. Peters-Lidard is currently the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Acting Chief Scientist as well as the Deputy Director for Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics in the Earth Sciences Division. She was a Physical Scientist in the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory from 2001-2015, and Lab Chief from 2005-2012. Her research interests include land-atmosphere interactions, soil moisture measurement and modeling, and the application of high-performance computing and communications technologies in Earth system modeling, for which her Land Information System team was awarded the 2005 NASA Software of the Year Award. She was elected as an AMS Fellow in 2012 and an AGU Fellow in 2018. Her Ph.D. is from the Water Resources Program in the Department of Civil Engineering and Operations Research at Princeton University.

7/29/2020, Local Drought Communication & Coordination

• This webinar will showcase examples of effective, local drought coordination and communication:
  • Maggie Hurwitz will review the format and issuance guidelines for NWS Drought Information Statements
  • Ray Wolf will discuss how Central Region manages WFO input to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Also, he will review Central Region's drought status report template and how it's used,
  • Aaron Jacobs will describe how an area with annual precipitation normals from 50 inches to more than 200 inches experienced drought. In spring 2019, Southeast Alaska was classified as being in an extreme drought from large deficits of precipitation that caused a wide variety of impacts. The biggest impact was high electric costs due to very low hydropower reservoirs and increased use of expensive diesel generators. The Metlakatla Indian Community (MIC) reached out to the NWS for added support to help mitigate the drought impacts. WFO Juneau provided weekly briefing to MIC so they could better manage their limited water resources.
  • Rebecca Ward and Klaus Albertin will showcase efforts to monitor and communicate drought in North Carolina. The North Carolina Drought Monitor Advisory Council (NC DMAC) relies on a broad coalition of agencies to determine drought conditions across the state, and helps these agencies to understand why decisions are made. "Project Nighthawk" aims to improve drought information and communications for the agriculture, forestry, and water resources sectors in North Carolina. This presentation will highlight new resources and infographics designed to translate complex weather and climate information into formats that are accessible and understandable by a variety of audiences, as well as lessons learned about preferred communication formats and dissemination channels.
• Maggie Hurwitz serves as the Hydroclimatologist within the NWS Climate Services Branch.
• Ray Wolf is the Science and Operations Officer for WFO Davenport, Iowa. He is responsible for managing operations, staff training, and local research. Prior to arriving in Davenport in 1994, Ray was a forecaster at the NWS office in Denver, CO where he evaluated new forecast and warning science and technologies that formed the basis of the NWS Modernization. He also served as an agricultural forecaster in the MidSouth, supporting farmers and producers in the region with weather and climate information. Ray received an M.S. in Agricultural Climatology in 1985 and a B.S. in Meteorology in 1982 from Iowa State University.
• Aaron Jacobs has been working at WFO Juneau, Alaska since the spring of 2001 and is currently the Senior Service Hydrologist. In this role, he is responsible for the NWS Hydrology Program from the north Gulf of Alaska coast through the Southeast Alaska to Dixon Entrance. This area covers the largest temperate rainforest in the word, Tongass National Forecast.
• Klaus Albertin is the chair for the NC Drought Management Advisory Council. He supports state-wide water supply planning for the NC Division of Water Resources and is the point of contact for the Division in supporting NC climate resilience efforts. He has over 20 years’ experience in the water resources field.
• Rebecca Ward is the Assistant State Climatologist for North Carolina and has been with the State Climate Office of North Carolina for seven years. Her work centers around applied climate research and extension within the state of North Carolina, including researching ways to monitor and communicate about drought. She also works closely with NC Cooperative Extension on various climate-related decision support tools and research, and by providing training on climate and climate change. Rebecca has BS degrees in Meteorology and Applied Mathematics, a MS degree in Atmospheric Science, and is currently working toward her PhD in Science Education, all from NC State University.

5/5/2020, The Missouri River Basin in 2019

• In 2019, precipitation and flooding reached historic levels in the Missouri River Basin. Starting in March with the "bomb cyclone" event, portions of the Missouri River and its tributaries were above flood stage for the majority of the year. Impacts from the heavy precipitation and subsequent flooding were widespread. Communities were evacuated. Farmland was inundated. Critical infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, and levees, were damaged or destroyed. The mental toll from these events is ongoing. Ultimately, 16 major disasters were declared across the region due to the weather and climate events of 2019. Although the calculation of losses is not finalized, the total certainly will reach into the billions of dollars. In this webinar, we will cover some of the record-breaking events and associated impacts of 2019 in the Missouri River Basin.
  
  Dr. Natalie Umphlett is a Regional Climatologist and Assistant Geoscientist at the High Plains Regional Climate Center, which is located within the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In this position, she serves as the climate services manager and public liaison for the Center, working closely with stakeholders and partners on climate monitoring for enhanced decision making. She has been with the Center since 2008 and her current research focuses on understanding ways in which climate data and information can be incorporated into municipal planning processes.
  
  Doug Kluck is the Regional Climate Services Director (RCSD) for NOAA (NESDIS/National Centers for Environmental Information) in the Central Region. He is based in Kansas City at the NWS Training Center. Doug has worked in NOAA for about 28 years, 18 of which with the National Weather Service (Headquarters, Hastings WFO, Missouri Basin RFC, Central Region - CSPM) and the last 10 in his current position. Doug's primary focus is to convey climate related information across both time and geographic scales to many external partners. He works closely with a number of tribes, governments, private interests, NGOs and others to build their awareness of NOAA's climate information and data. Finally, he partners closely with state climate offices, regional climate centers and other climate institutions to provide the latest real-time and longer term climate outlooks and projections.

1/22/2020, Opportunities for Increased Collaboration with NOAA’s NIDIS

• Since 1980, drought has been the second-costliest natural disaster according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. To help improve drought early warning and the nation’s capacity to manage drought-related risks, NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) was authorized by Congress in 2006, and since then has established nine regional Drought Early Warning Systems (DEWS) across the country. The regional DEWS utilize new and existing partner networks, and the expertise of a wide range of federal, tribal, state, local, and academic partners, in order to make climate and drought science readily available; and to improve the capacity of stakeholders to better monitor, forecast, plan for and cope with the impacts of drought.
  
  This webinar will provide an overview of NIDIS, highlight the value of regional Drought Early Warning Systems (DEWS), discuss NIDIS national topic areas in which there might be opportunity for NWS engagement (e.g., wildfire, health, tribal nations), the Drought.gov redesign and relaunch, and provide examples of regional drought coordination with partners, particularly the NWS Weather Forecast Offices and River Forecast Centers.
  
  The NIDIS Regional Drought Information Coordinators strengthen integrated systems for drought monitoring, forecasting, and planning and preparedness jointly with federal agency partners, tribes, states, municipalities, academic institutions, and other organizations.
  
  Meredith Muth is the Regional Drought Information Coordinator for the Coastal Carolinas and Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint DEWS with NIDIS, and is located at the NOAA Climate Program Office in Silver Spring, Maryland. She has ten years of working on climate services at NOAA, and holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia.
  
  Britt Parker is the Regional Drought Information Coordinator for the Pacific Northwest and Missouri River Basin DEWS with NIDIS in Boulder, Colorado. She has worked for NOAA for the last 11 years, first with the National Ocean Service and now within the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research with NIDIS. She holds an M.S. in Marine Science from The College of William and Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
  
  Molly Woloszyn is the Regional Drought Information Coordinator for the Midwest DEWS with NIDIS, and is located at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She has 8 years of experience in climate services with NOAA, and holds an M.S. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University.

11/19/2019, LCAT, A Review of Current Capabilities and a Look Ahead

• The Local Climate Analysis Tool (LCAT) is a web-based interactive statistical tool, providing the most recommended data and climate analysis methods for application at regional and local levels. LCAT team members will demonstrate current capabilities and usage of the tool, and discuss future enhancements. Join Mike Churma, NWS Science and Technology Integration, Meteorological Development Lab, Marina Timofeyeva, NWS Analyze, Forecast and Support, Climate Services Branch, and Jenna Meyers, NWS Analyze, Forecast and Support, Climate Services Branch for this seminar.

8/8/2019, 2018 State of U.S. High Tide Flooding with a 2019 Outlook

• William Sweet is a NOAA CO-OPS oceanographer researching and developing products about how sea level rise affects coastal flood risk. He helped the U.S. Department of Defense assess coastal flood risk across their global installations and was a lead author for the 4th U.S. National Climate Assessment. He enjoys sailing the Chesapeake Bay and teaching his kids about the signs of sea level rise from his home in Annapolis.
  
  High tide flooding (HTF) is increasingly common due to years of relative sea level increases. In fact, last year (2018/2019), the rate of HTF broke or tied numerous local and national records and busied NOAA Weather Forecast Offices, which issued record numbers of coastal flood advisories. More of the same is expected next year (2019/2020). Impacts are typically more disruptive than out-right damaging, but responding to HTF requires time and resources is becoming a serious concern in many coastal communities. Impacts are mounting, and in response, NOAA's National Ocean Service has been tracking changes in flood risk and issuing annual reports providing predictions to help communities plan and prepare accordingly. This talk will dig into the most recent report and new NOAA products that focus on tracking the rapid uptick in HTF trends, identifying the coastal regions at risk and providing next-year and next-decade projections for about 100 U.S. coastal locations.

6/20/2019, NCEI Billion Dollar Disasters

• Adam Smith is an applied climatologist at the Center for Weather & Climate. He performs research to homogenize and transition disparate disaster data sources into better quality-controlled disaster cost frameworks, as research tools and has expertise in developing methods to quantify natural disaster costs and uncertainty: www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions
  
  Smith regularly briefs the U.S. Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction on U.S. disaster cost and serves as NOAA expert on U.S. disaster loss data in support of the international Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2016-2019). Smith is also a member of the NIST National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, the American Meteorological Society Committee on Financial Weather/Climate Risk Management and the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk interdisciplinary working group on Natural Disaster Risk/Loss Data integration.

03/12/2019, Solar Variability and Climate Change: Specification and Projection

• Judith Lean, Senior Scientist for Sun-Earth System Research in the Space Science Division of the Naval Research Laboratory, will give a presentation about solar variability impacts on climate. Solar radiation is Earth’s primary energy source. Four decades of space-based observations establish that solar radiation varies bolometrically and at all wavelengths, on multiple times scales, primarily that of the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle. Models that account for the modulation of solar irradiance by bright faculae and dark sunspots successfully reproduce the observations and extend knowledge of solar irradiance variability to longer time scales and over a broader wavelength range needed for input to climate change simulations. Changing solar irradiance imposes natural forcing of Earth’s climate and atmosphere, simultaneously with other natural (ENSO, volcanic eruption) and anthropogenic forcings. The recent so-called climate change “hiatus” demonstrates the societal, economic and political reverberations of inadequate or absent speciô€ƒ–cation of natural forcing, including by solar variability, on time scales of decades. The skill of annual surface temperature projections made each year over the past seven years as part of the UK Met Oô€ƒ•ice “Decadal Forecast Exchange” is demonstrated. Scenarios for climate change in future decades are shown for diô€ƒ•erent natural and anthropogenic inô€ƒ—uences.

02/13/2019, Overview of the Fourth National Climate Assessment

• Dr. Lesley-Ann Dupigny-Giroux hosts an overview of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which she is a co-author of.
  
  Dr. Dupigny-Giroux is a Professor of Climatology in the Department of Geography at the University of Vermont. She uses a variety of mixed methods from remotely sensed data to statistics and historical content analysis, to explore the influence of atmospheric processes on fluvial processes and vegetated landscapes. She specializes in climate hazards and severe weather, with a special focus on flooding and droughts. As the State Climatologist for Vermont, she engages directly with community groups, Federal and State agencies, and national climate organizations.
  
  She is the lead editor of Historical climate variability and impacts in North America, the first monograph to deal with the use of documentary and other ancillary records for analyzing climate variability and change.
  
  Dr. Dupigny-Giroux' awards and grants include: the 2018 Association for Women Geoscientists Professional Excellence Award in the Academia/Research category; the NSF-funded Satellites, Weather and Climate (SWAC) professional development program for in-service K-12 science and mathematics teachers and the NSF-funded Diversity Climate Network (D-ClimNet) to enhance diversity in climatology.
  
  Nationally, she is the lead author for the Northeast Chapter of the Fourth National Climate Assessment of the US Global Change Research Program. She also serves on the NOAA Science Advisory Board Climate Working Group helping to guide climate research across the US. In 2014, she was a Scholar-in-Residence for the Sustainability Graduate Institute at Goddard College, and their Commencement Speaker in Spring 2015. In 2015, Dr. Dupigny-Giroux was elected a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Science and Engineering in recognition of her academic and outreach contributions to the state.

12/12/2017, The Making of the US Drought Monitor

• Brian Fuchs is a faculty member and climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) which is housed within the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Brian first came to the School of Natural Resources in May of 2000, working as a Regional Climatologist for the High Plains Regional Climate Center. He started working with the National Drought Mitigation Center in December 2005. Brian’s work is focused on drought related issues and research projects in both the United States and internationally. The drought related work concentrates on research involving mitigation, risk assessment, monitoring, impact, and reporting of drought. As a Climatologist, Brian works on various applied research projects for the NDMC as well as authoring the United States Drought Monitor and the North American Drought Monitor along with several others. This work helps others to better understand the impacts related to drought across a diverse group of industries from agriculture, energy, tourism, transportation as well as social and environmental concerns.

10/24/2017, NCEI's Datzilla Gatekeeper Supports The Data Archive

• Bryant Korzeniewski is a Class of 2000 Graduate from The University Of North Carolina at Asheville with a Bachelor\'s of Science Degree in Atmospheric Sciences. He has worked with various federal contracts at the National Centers For Environmental Information (NCEI) for over 17 years on various projects related to data modernization, data receipt, and data quality. Bryant serves as NCEI\'s Class Instructor at the Climate Network Operations (CNO) and Operational Climate Services (ClimateOps) Classes that are held at the National Weather Service Training Center in Kansas City, MO. With NCEI as the Lead Centre for WMO Regional Association (RA) IV, he also regularly interacts with countries and colleagues at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in support of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) for its GCOS Surface Network (GSN) and GCOS Upper Air Network (GUAN) Stations. In his free time outside of work, Bryant volunteers for multiple agencies and causes in the Asheville, NC area. Bryant has been the recipient of "Person Of The Week" as presented by WLOS-TV back in December 2015 for his volunteer efforts with the Asheville Downtown Association which can be viewed at: http://wlos.com/news/person-of-the-week/person-of-the-week-bryant-korzeniewski.

8/8/2017, Regional Climate Center Overview: WRCC & MRCC

• Nina Oakley is Regional Climatologist at the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC). Nina has been with WRCC for over 6 years. She has a Bachelor's degree in Geography from UC Santa Barbara, Master's degree in Atmospheric Science from University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), and is currently working on a PhD in Atmospheric Science at UNR studying extreme precipitation and debris flows in California. Besides weather and climate, Nina enjoys surfing, paddling, mountain biking, and snowboarding.
  
  Dr. Hall joined the MRCC in January 2012 as its Director. Her career with the Regional Climate Center program began in 1995 when she started her Master's Degree in Atmospheric Physics at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), with the Desert Research Institute (DRI), and the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC). Her research began with the development of Nevada climate products for the local National Weather Service's (NWS-Reno) fire weather forecaster.
  
  After earning her PhD at UNR in Atmospheric Sciences, she entered the field of academia becoming a lecturer and state climatologist at the University of New Hampshire. Here, she gained a greater appreciation for the diversity of not only climate across the US but the funding, responsibilities, and roles each state climatologist has and how state climatologists can complement the US Regional Climate Centers and other climate services programs.
  
  Since joining the MRCC, Dr. Hall has worked closely with the NWS-WFOs across her region and has lead regional road trips that allowed her and her staff to meet with over 22 offices across her region.

7/11/2017, Regional Climate Center Overview: HPRCC & SRCC

• Natalie Umphlett is the interim director and regional climatologist of the High Plains Regional Climate Center (HPRCC). The HPRCC is housed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and its mission is to increase the use and availability of climate data and information in the High Plains region. Natalie joined the Center in 2008 and hasn't had a boring day of work since. She holds a B.S. in Meteorology/Climatology and an M.S. in Geosciences, both from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Sciences with a specialization in Climate Assessment and Impacts and is expected to graduate next year. Although she has lived in Nebraska for quite some time, she is originally from Gainesville, GA and became interested in the weather when a tornado hit her hometown, including her high school, on March 20, 1998. For fun, Natalie enjoys cooking, gardening, running, and traveling.
  
  Born and raised in South Dakota, Kyle graduated with an undergraduate degree from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) in 2004. His major was interdisciplinary studies with an atmospheric sciences focus. During that time Kyle worked for the Animal and Range Sciences department at SDSU (S. Dak. St.). Following the completion of his B.S., Kyle worked for the South Dakota state climatologist at the time, Dr. Dennis Todey, installing mesonet stations throughout western South Dakota. He returned to SDSMT and completed his master's degree in 2007; his thesis focused on micrometeorology (trace gas fluxes/carbon budgets). Following the completion of his M.S., Kyle obtained employment at the Southern Regional Climate Center (SRCC) as the user services climatologist, beginning in 2008. He remained in that position until April 2017, at which point he was promoted to his current position of regional climatologist at the SRCC.

5/30/2017, Regional Climate Center Overview: NRCC & SERCC

• Keith Eggleston is the Regional Climatologist with the Northeast Regional Climate (NRCC) at Cornell University. He has been working for the Climate Center since 1982, when he was hired as the original Climate Center employee. His current duties include managing the NRCC's climate services program and designing and developing climate information products for the Applied Climate Information System (ACIS), such as xmACIS and NOWData. He is also the lead RCC contact for ThreadEx and Datzilla, and serves as a member of the National Climate Data Stewardship Team.
  
  Chip Konrad is the Director of the NOAA funded Southeast Regional Climate Center He is also an Associate Professor in the Geography Department at UNC-Chapel Hill. He has expertise across a wide range of areas in applied and synoptic climatology, including heavy precipitation, tornadoes, hurricanes, cold air outbreaks, and winter weather. He has published numerous research articles in various scientific journals, including Monthly Weather Review, Weather and Forecasting, the International Journal of Climatology, Climate Research, and Applied Geography. And he was a co-author on the Southeast Technical Report for the National Climate Assessment.

4/13/2017, Communicating NOAA's Science, Service, and Stewardship to the Nation

• Brady Phillips is a public affairs specialist at NOAA's Office of Communications headquarters in Washington, DC. He works collaboratively with staff to communicate about NOAA's climate science and services, and to enhance relationships and communications with key media and stakeholders. He also served in the NOAA Office of the Under Secretary as the Program Coordination Office (PCO) liaison to the National Ocean Service. Prior to working at NOAA headquarters, he worked for more than 17 years with NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries working on a diversity of jobs related to coastal and ocean resource management on the West Coast and the Pacific Islands. Brady earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology and environmental studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Science degree in marine resource management from Oregon State University.

4/13/2017, Frost/Freeze Guidance Project

• Molly Woloszyn is the Extension Climate Specialist for Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the Midwestern Regional Climate Center, which are both a part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As the extension climate specialist for both programs, Molly is responsible for communicating climate-related information to various audiences throughout the Midwest. Molly's current work includes assisting local governments adapt to weather extremes and climate change, providing expertise on historical trends and potential local impacts of climate change, and working on the MRCC's Vegetation Impact Program (VIP). Molly's educational background includes a Master's Degree in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University and a Bachelor's Degree in Meteorology from Northern Illinois University.

2/7/2017, Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index (AWSSI)

• Barbara Mayes Boustead is a meteorologist and climate program leader at the National Weather Service in Omaha, Nebraska, with a career that has also taken her through its headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, and through the office in the Quad Cities. She also is serving as the interim Climate Services Program Manager for Central Region. A Michigan native, Barbara obtained undergraduate degrees from Central Michigan University in 2000, with majors in meteorology, geography, and English, and minors in mathematics and history, followed by an M.S. in meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University in 2002 and a Ph.D. in Climate Assessment and Impacts from the University of Nebraska in 2014. Her professional interests include climate, historical weather events, severe and extreme weather, and improving communication of weather and climate concepts. Barbara also researches the weather and climate events from all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.

1/17/2017, Weather-Ready Nation for NWS Climate Focal Points

• Douglas Hilderbrand is coming up on his 15-year milestone in Feb. 2017 with the National Weather Service. Starting off as a surface analyst at the then called Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, he moved to NWS HQ in 2004 working in the Office of Science & Technology. After a 2-year detail as a NOAA Policy Adviser from 2011-2013 for NOAA leadership, he moved to the Office of Communications as the external engagement lead and Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador lead. Recently, the Ambassador initiative surpassed 4000 recognized organizations that are contributing to strengthening resilience to extreme weather, water, and climate events.

9/10/2015, CPC Experimental Week 3-4 Temperature and Precipitation Outlooks

• Jon currently works at the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) within NOAA's National Weather Service. Jon has worked at CPC since 2004. During this time, Jon served as CPC Head of Forecast Operations where he was responsible for overseeing day-to-day routine production and dissemination of CPC's operational forecast products. More recently, he was named Chief of the Operational Prediction Branch within CPC, and is now responsible for outlining the overall direction of operational forecast-related activities. Jon earned both a B.S. and M.S. degree in meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University in 1994 and 1996, respectively.

4/28/2015, Heat Adaptation, Vulnerability, and Emergency Planning

• Kate Goodin is the Epidemiology and Data Services Program Manager for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health in Phoenix, Arizona. In this role she oversees a wide range of epidemiology functions including heat related illness, preparedness and bioterrorism, unexplained deaths, community health assessments, chronic disease and MCH epidemiology, and health economics and ROI. Ms. Goodin has a Masters degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from The George Washington University.

12/10/2014, The Melting Arctic...What the science says, and what it means for our future

• Marjorie McGuirk consults in climate arts and sciences through her company CASE Consultants International, in Asheville, North Carolina. As an expert consultant to the World Meteorological Organization, she is a contributing author of the Global Framework for Climate Services Implementation Plan and principal author of the User Interface Platform, which underpins international collaboration on climate services. She has contributed expertise to most of the Commissions of the WMO. She consults with various clients to build collaborative projects with industry, academia, and professional trade associations. Before her retirement from NOAA, she served with NESDIS, NWS, and OAR. At NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, she was Chief of Staff and also National Partnership Liaison with the Regional Climate Centers and the American Association of State Climatologists. Working in fields such as aviation, agriculture, energy, hydrology, landscaping, and instrumentation, Marjorie has published on the topics of climate services, data managing, instruments, and on climate change impacts on US transportation systems for the US National Research Council.

11/19/2014, NWS Climate Services Seminar, One of these is not like the other: Variability in PDO teleconnections to North America's winter climate

• Steph McAfee is an Assistant Professor in the Geography Department at the University of Nevada, Reno, and she has a strong interest in applied climatology, climate services and high-latitude climate. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and the Alaska Climate Science Center.

8/8/2014, The Audacity of an Ocean Prediction System

• Dr. Nicholas Bond is a principal research scientist with the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) of the University of Washington (UW) and also holds an appointment as an affiliate associate professor with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the UW. He is the State Climatologist for Washington. He has a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington. His research is on a broad range of topics with a focus on the weather and climate of the Pacific Northwest and the linkages between the climate and marine ecosystems of the North Pacific. He cheerfully admits to being a weather geek, as evidenced by his preference to visit Alaska in winter, and steamy places like Florida in summer.

8/1/2014, Using the Science of Story to Enhance Climate Article Writing

• The only West Point graduate to turn professional storyteller, Kendall Haven also holds a Doctorate in Oceanography. Now a master storyteller, Haven has performed for over 6.8 million adults and children around the world. He has also has led research efforts on effective story structure at the National Storytelling Association. An internationally recognized Subject Matter Expert on the cognitive and neuro-science of story, Haven created the first detailed, tested model of dynamic story architecture that accounts for the neurology of how narrative material is processed, understood, remembered, and recalled in a receiver's mind.

6/25/2014, A Temporal Perspective on Recent Arctic Sea Ice Changes and Their Impacts

• Dr. John Walsh is a Research Professor at the International Research Center/University of Alaska, Fairbanks. His research has addressed Arctic climate weather variability, with an emphasis on sea ice variability and the role of sea ice and snow cover in weather and climate. Dr. Walsh is a Convening Lead Author for the Fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment, and he was a lead author for the Polar Regions chapter of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He co-chaired the Polar Research Board committee on sea ice prediction. Before joining the University of Alaska, he spent 30 years on the faculty of the University of Illinois, Urbana, where he taught courses on weather and climate. He has co-authored a textbook, Severe and Hazardous Weather. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

5/30/2014 Linkages Between Arctic Warming and Mid-Latitude Weather Patterns: A Workshop Summary

• Katie Thomas of the National Academies served as the Study Author for the report, Linkages Between Arctic Warming and Mid-Latitude Weather Patterns: Summary of a Workshop.
  
  David Robinson, New Jersey State Climatologist and Director of the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University, served as the Chair of the Workshop Committee.

5/28/2014, Third National Climate Assessment

• Gary W. Yohe is the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University. He is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles; most of his recent work has focused attention on the risk-management approach to the mitigation and adaptation sides of the climate change issue. He has been a senior member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since the mid 1990's. Dr. Yohe also served as member of the New York City Panel on Climate Change. He served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on America's Climate Choices (Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change Adaptation) and the National Research Council Committee on Stabilization Targets for Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Concentrations. He continues to serve as a co-editor (along with Michael Oppenheimer) of Climatic Change and a Vice-Chair of the National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee for the current Administration; and he is Convening Lead AAuthor and he advises the Core Writing Team for the Synthesis Report for the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

3/26/2014, Warming Arctic and Potential Shifts in Mid-latitude Weather: Faster than Expected

• Dr. James Overland is a research oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle and an affiliate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. His very productive scientific career has focused on both physical and ecological systems in the Arctic.
  
  In this presentation, Dr. Overland discusses recent changes in the Arctic and the possibility that they are related to extreme weather events in the mid-latitudes.

1/30/2014, IPCC Fifth Assessment Report: Summary of the Science of Climate Change

• Dr. Philip W. Mote is a professor in the College of Earth, Oceanic, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University; director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (OCCRI) for the Oregon University System; and director of Oregon Climate Services, the official state climate office for Oregon. Dr. Mote's current research interests include scenario development, regional climate change, regional climate modeling with a superensemble generated by volunteers' personal computers, and adaptation to climate change. He is the co-leader of the NOAA-funded Climate Impacts Research Consortium for the Northwest, and the co-leader of the Northwest Climate Science Center for the US Department of the Interior. Since 2005 he has been involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He is also a coordinating lead author and advisory council member for the US National Climate Assessment, and has served on numerous author teams for the National Research Council (NRC). He earned a B.A. in physics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington, and arrived at OSU to establish OCCRI in 2009.