Despite the nicest weekend weather of 2007, the turnout at our 26th annual Fermilab/WGN-TV Tornado and Severe Storms Seminars in Batavia on Saturday, April 21 was nothing short of spectacular. Many thanks to each of you took time out of your busy weekends to join us and, as always, my sincere thanks to the staff of Fermilab’s audiovisual group for allowing us to tape their skills in that beautiful facility! It’s hard to imagine a nicer setting in which to conduct our programs—and to have been able to do that annually for a quarter century has been a joy. I hope you enjoy checking out some snapshots of the event.
It was our first program to devote time to the issue of hurricanes---in particular Hurricane Katrina. Tim Marshall’s presentation on his trip into that storm as it landfalled on the Gulf Coast nearly two years ago was absolutely fascinating. Dr. Bart Wolf’s discussion of Doppler Radar and its use in tracking all kinds of weather was a real treat. I suspect many in our audience found some of Bart’s Doppler animations quite remarkable, not realizing radar displays were able to show us such an array of weather events in such revealing ways. Jim Allsopp’s retrospective on the devastating Oak Lawn/Belvidere/Lake Zurich twisters April 21, 1967 took many of us back to that horrendous day and writer Diana Lund’s humanity as she discussed encountering that storm at age 7 with her family and the effect that experience has had on her life since was quite moving. Dr. Mary Ann Cooper’s insights on lightning and the need to proactively avoid the devastation of a lightning strike and the problems which occur in its aftermath hit home for all of us. It’s so rare to be able to investigate lightning through the eyes of a physician and no one does it more compellingly than Dr. Cooper. And, Dr. Joe Schaefer’s appearance, always a high point of our seminars, was even more fun this year as Kris Habermehl’s appearance in a chicken outfit as Joe, in an annual tradition at our Fermilab seminars, described early research relating tornado wind velocities to chickens whose feathers had been removed by twisters’ winds, was one of those moments which caught many of us—and I dare say Joe---by surprise!
Both the noon and 6 pm seminars took place before full houses and it was a thrill for all of us who were a part of this year’s programs to see how many of you had attended one of our previous seminars---but also gratifying was the number of our audience members who were new to our program. We’ve made it point—and will continue to do so---to cover new ground each year so those who have joined us in the past are exposed to new information each spring.
To our speakers, many thanks for the time and effort for an array of enlightening presentations and for taking the time and energy appearing on the Fermilab stage. These seminars have been a labor of love for all involved over the years and that’s especially true when we see the kind of turnout we witnesses Saturday!
We thought you’d get a kick out of seeing some photos of the big day. Our webmaster Amy Mowery, with the help of my hardworking assistant weather producer Bill Snyder, is posting them here for you to check out. Thanks again for your wonderful support and we hope to see you again next spring at Fermilab!
Tom Skilling
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist
