I am writing this from a hotel room in Savannah, Georgia, site of the American Meteorological Society’s 24th Conference on Severe Local Storms. They hold these every 2 years, and severe weather researchers and forecasters from around the country meet to discuss new and ongoing research into tornadoes, severe storms, large hail, and lightning. I’ll be speaking at 2:00 pm today, on the Alabama part of the “Super Tuesday” outbreak of tornadoes on February 6, 2008. It appears that gravity waves, in addition to mountains and river valleys, may have played a role in some of the tornadoes. Several others from UAH will be speaking today also. Here is the program. I’ll get to see big time people today, including Bluestein, Lemon, Wurman, and Weiss.
Below are some pictures I took Sunday on the way down here. Jennifer and I went through Augusta on I-20, to try to see Augusta National Golf Course. We then planned to take US Highway 278 to Savannah, but took a wrong turn and wound up staying on South Carolina 125 (I think). Interestingly, this took us across some of the land of the Dept. of Energy Savannah River Site, where plutonium was made during the Cold War for nuclear bombs. They mentioned this site in Tom Clancy’s movie “The Sum of All Fears.” Here is a website with their history.
