Last Update 03/21/07
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2004-2005 Activities

The 2004-05 chapter year brought continued growth and prosperity to the local chapter. Officer elections at the end of the 2003-04 year brought about three new officers to the Executive Board, Chris Bennett as President, Geoff Wagner as Vice President, and Cerese Albers as Treasurer. Focus points for the year centered around bringing in well-known speakers with a variety of specialties, enhancing the chapter banquet, attendance at the annual AMS meeting in San Diego, CA, and committing the chapter to educational outreach activities. All of these goals and more were accomplished over the course of the year, resulting in the chapter being named the AMS Local Chapter of the Year in 2004-05. Read on for more details.

The first meeting of the chapter year, held in late August, saw the chapter bring in its best-known speaker to date, Dr. T.N. Krishnamurti of the FSU Department of Meteorology. His talk on the FSU Superensemble model held quite a bit of weight given the recent impact of Hurricane Charley and the soon-to-come impacts of Hurricanes Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan in Florida. This meeting set the record for the most people in attendance, with 55 members present. Following up on this talk, the chapter hosted a presentation from Paul Duval, Meteorologist-in-Charge at NWS/Tallahassee, at its September meeting, detailing the local impacts of Hurricanes Ivan and Frances. Frances passed directly over Tallahassee with little fanfare, while Ivan brought tornadic rain bands into the region during the course of the 18 hours before landfall. Casanova Nurse gave some information on the broadcast aspects of meteorology in October.

Outreach efforts became established into the fall months, with presentations given to several local high schools and preliminary steps taken toward establishing a local K-12 chapter at Florida High School in Tallahassee. Toward this end, Rick Lusher from Leon Co. Schools and formerly with the FSU Meteorology EXPLORES! outreach program spoke to the chapter in November. Several social events took place during this time as well, with a bowling social in October and a trip to the FSU Reservation in November. Repeating the Miami ticket block of last year, the department sponsored a ticket block for the FSU-UF home football game in late November.

The chapter closed 2004 making plans to reconvene in early 2005 for the 85th Annual AMS Meeting in San Diego, CA. This meeting, despite being entirely across the nation from Tallahassee for a second straight year, was well-attended by chapter members, with approximately 15 in attendance. During the course of the meeting, local chapter members assisted with general AMS local chapter efforts, received the award for being on the 2003-04 AMS Local Chapter Honor Roll, and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the Gaslamp District of downtown San Diego. A full write-up on the chapter's experiences in San Diego may be found by clicking here. The remainder of the chapter year was focused on outreach, including assistance with Fairview Middle's Science Olympiad and the local K-12 chapter, as well as the 2nd Annual Chapter Banquet.

The banquet featured yet another big-name speaker, this time Paul Kocin, the winter weather specialist at The Weather Channel. Held once again at The Silver Slipper in Tallahassee, the banquet was well-attended. Mr. Kocin spoke about winter weather in general and winter weather outbreaks in Florida in particular, of which there are understandably very few in number but very memorable regardless. At the banquet, the 2005-06 Executive Board was elected. It features only two new officers, with Pat Taylor taking over as President and Rachel Austin taking over as Secretary, but a lot of promise for the coming year.