2013 Severe Weather Symposium

Jon Davies
Jon Davies saw his first tornado at age 9 growing up on the plains of Kansas, and has been studying severe weather ever since. He lives in the Kansas City area, and focuses on practical operational research about tornado forecasting, with many papers published. He has also worked as a meteorologist and forecaster for several television stations and consulting firms, including the Weather Channel in the 1980's.

Jon has written a book with his wife Shawna about tornadoes and storm chasing for grade school and middle school kids, "Storm Chasers! On the Trail of Twisters". He also recently assisted Shawna with her severe weather preparedness DVD, "Surviving The Storm: What Storm Chasers Want You to Know". Jon continues to enjoy forecasting and observing storms as a serious hobby and educational activity.

Chuck Doswell: "The Tri-State Tornado of 18 March 1925: A Reanalysis Project"
Dr. Charles A. Doswell III was born in 1945, in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst, Illinois and lived in nearby Villa Park, IL through high school. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, WI, graduating in 1967 with a Bachelor of Science in Meteorology. He began his graduate work at the University of Oklahoma (OU) in Meteorology the following fall, completing his Master of Science degree in January 1969.

After beginning his doctoral studies at OU, he was inducted into the U.S. Army in the fall of 1969 and served 2 1/2 years, including a tour in Vietnam and another at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. After leaving active military service, he returned to his doctoral studies, graduating in the summer of 1976. He spent six years with the Techniques Development Unit at the National Severe Storms Forecast Center, in Kansas City, MO. Then, he moved to Boulder, CO, where he spent four years with the Weather Research Program. Following that, he moved to the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, OK, in the fall of 1986 and retired from Federal service there in January 2001.

Since then, he has been working part-time as a Senior Research Scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies, which is affiliated with the University of Oklahoma. He is a certified consulting meteorologist and a semi-professional photographer - videographer, using both his chasing and his scientific knowledge to help develop U.S. national training materials for storm spotters (slides, videos, and guidebooks) and the National Weather Service.

Dr. William A. Gallus, Jr.
Dr. William A. Gallus, Jr. has been a professor of Atmospheric Science at Iowa State University since 1995. He has authored over 60 refereed papers and 100 extended abstracts, most related to improved forecasting of small scale weather phenomena through the use of fine-scale numerical weather prediction models. He assisted in the development and testing of the WiST tornado simulator at Iowa State, and has been interviewed by numerous national media outlets including ABC's Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, The Discovery Channel, History Channel, The Weather Channel, and National Geographic Channel.

He was part of a team that traveled to Joplin just days after the tornado to examine damage done to engineered structures. He has been a tornado chaser for 25 years. He teaches several courses focusing on weather forecasting and severe weather and was named a Liberal Arts & Sciences College Master Teacher in 2004, and received the ISU Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2005. He has served on the boards of several professional societies and served as the chief editor of the American Meteorological Society journal "Weather and Forecasting" from 2007 through 2011.

Matt Miller: "Media vs. Media: Challenges to Covering Severe Weather in a Growing World of Media"
Matt Miller is the Chief Meteorologist for Kansas First News. He holds a Master's degree in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma and and Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Oklahoma Christian University. He worked at KAMC/KLBK in Lubbock, Texas and WATE in Knoxville, Tennessee prior to returning home to the Midwest.

Miller has been forecasting the wild swings of weather in Tornado Alley for over a decade. A Midwest native, he loves living in Kansas and getting to forecast for one of the most challenging areas for intense weather. Over the last few years, he has covered everything from the December 2007 ice storm, the June 2008 Manhattan tornado, the 2009 Christmas Blizzard and the 2011 Reading tornado. Miller's efforts have gained him several awards, including several "Best Weathercast" awards from the Kansas Association of Broadcasters.

One of the biggest projects that he has introduced to the area has been the Weather in the Kansas Classroom program. For the last several years, all the public schools in Northeast Kansas have received his weather workbooks to prepare for the state standardized testing for science. As a part of this program, Miller visits numerous schools for weather presentations every year. His weather educational program has also been adopted in several other cities across the country.

When not visiting area schools, teaching at Washburn University or in the weather center, Miller keeps busy with his family. He, his wife, Mindi, and three children are happy to be a part of the Topeka community.

He was part of a team that traveled to Joplin just days after the tornado to examine damage done to engineered structures. He has been a tornado chaser for 25 years. He teaches several courses focusing on weather forecasting and severe weather and was named a Liberal Arts & Sciences College Master Teacher in 2004, and received the ISU Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2005. He has served on the boards of several professional societies and served as the chief editor of the American Meteorological Society journal "Weather and Forecasting" from 2007 through 2011.

Jared Leighton: "Operational Uses for Dual Pol Radar"
Jared Leighton is originally from Ridgecrest, California, a small town in the middle of the Mojave Desert in Southern California. The lack of weather in the desert fueled his desire to learn more about the elusive atmospheric phenomenon. To fuel that passion, he attended The University of California at Davis and earned his B.S. in Atmospheric Sciences. While at UC Davis Jared became a part-time employee at the NWS Sacramento, CA, where he was able to get hands-on experience with operational forecasters.

His strong interest in severe weather led him to the Central Plains in 2008, where he now serves as a Forecaster at the NWS Topeka, KS. He continues to improve his understanding of severe weather forecasting and storm behavior by chasing storms and photographing their structure. Jared has co-authored multiple peer-reviewed publications pertaining to real-time giant hail detection using WSR-88D radar and utilizing social media to create high spatial and temporal resolutions of hail reports. Aside from that research Jared has participated in Hail Spatial and Temporal Observation Network Effort (HailSTONE), a field project designed to create high spatial and temporal hail-fall resolutions by collecting real-time in situ hail measurements.

Dr. Russell Schneider: "Tornadoes, Derechos and the Storm Prediction Center: 2011, 2012 and the year ahead"
Dr. Russell Schneider was named Director of the NOAA-NWS Storm Prediction Center in August 2010 and led the Center through the historic 2011 tornado season. The Storm Prediction Center is responsible for protection of life and property through official 24x7 nationwide forecasts and warnings for hazardous mesoscale weather phenomena including tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and wildfires. Russ began his NWS career in 1992.

Dr. Schneider's responsibilities span all facets of NOAA-NWS Storm Prediction Center (SPC) programs, from critical operational weather forecasting, to integration the latest science and technology into SPC operations. He provides strategic direction for both the Operations and Science Support Branches, and assists National Weather Service Leadership in establishing and executing strategic plans for NOAA nationwide severe weather services.

Dr. Schneider was the first Science Support Branch Chief at the Storm Prediction Center and served in this role from 1997-2010. Russ earned B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Atmospheric Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Russ was awarded a Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for his contributions to US weather services in 2007, and the American Meteorological Society Kenneth C. Spengler Award for his efforts to bring diverse communities together within the collaborative environment of the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed in 2011. Dr. Schneider was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2012.