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I spent the last three days at the staple conference for me in Ankeny, Iowa. Central Iowa Chapter of the National Weather Association’s 28th Annual Severe Storms and Doppler Radar Conference was and has never been a disappointment for quality of information. It’s something I encourage every storm chaser, meteorologist, emergency manager, and serious weather enthusiast to attend. It would also be great for lawmakers to attend at least occasionally to understand the important work and research that is being done.

That being said, the attendance was back up to usual numbers this year for the first time since pre-COVID. COVID took a big hit on attendance and last year again with the inability for NOAA scientists to attend because of the current administration.

The two scholarships offered were combined this year into one greater scholarship for $2,500 instead of two $1,500 scholarships. I know William Gallus and I talked about doing perhaps such a thing with lower attendance and low application rate at dinner during last year’s conference. However, they had a record number of applicants this year, which may spark ideas of bringing back the two separate scholarships or perhaps offering two equal or two different amounts of one scholarship for 2027.

Still no banquet, which is a financial decision mostly with costs of the venue and attendance numbers. Rod Donovan and I casually chatted about perhaps bringing that back every few years or so — such as maybe at five year anniversary years. The 30th annual is coming up in 2028, so perhaps we will enjoy an on-site meal with a keynote that year if attendance keeps up.

What was snuck into the very end and was the last presentation was John Wetter, president of Spotter Network, giving a presentation on 20 years of Spotter Network. I nudged him ahead of time about including some statistics, which I was glad to see. I am also working on securing a date with him to offer that presentation for Twin Cities Meteorological Society at our annual membership meeting in May — which the public will be welcome to attend.

Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased in my continued support of this conference as it does great work in supporting the atmospheric sciences both for current working meteorologists and offering opportunity, educating, and inspiring college and graduate-level students.

Now, what I am disappointed in is that I lost what would have been my third year in a row title of having first place for the storm photo category of the photography contest. I will say though, I came in second place in the other photo categories I entered. To be honest, I felt like the person who took the title this year deserved it and I actually cast my vote for them too. I did take first place though in the timelapse video category though. What makes that less spectacular is I was strangely the only person to enter that category, so I was also last place. Even so, I feel like the crowd assembled for it still felt that it was a warranted win, getting the largest reaction for the contest. One thing I do hope changes for next year, something I’ve been asking for every year since it started, is that the contest doesn’t require attendance at the photography session to acquire your award. Ideally, I’d like to see the contest portion move to the end of the last regular session so the whole group can partake in seeing the entries and vote on the finalists to free up the evening for those who don’t wish to attend that photography session.

The conference next year will take place April 1-3, 2027. I look forward to it and encourage everyone else to attend! It’s highly recommended. I’ve been going now for somewhere over 12 years — don’t actually remember the first year I went — and I still find it very beneficial every single year. John Wetter introduced the conference to me by mentioning it at some point, and I believe he might be over the 20 year mark for his own attendance.

I’ve included my photo entries (minus one I thought I had on my phone for the tornado category but didn’t I guess) and the timelapse video (lower quality because of file size limit for contest) I will post in the first comment for you.

The April 26, 2024, Minden-Harlan, Iowa, violent, multi-vortex EF3 tornado 🌪 as seen through the lens of my Insta360 x3 camera and edited. This is the full video of about 25 minutes while we observed the tornado and a quick 20x time lapse.

Likely more videos from this day will follow at some point. :-)

Visit this link to view video:
https://youtu.be/tJtuxh2q4rU

The seiche (standing wave - uneven water on different sides of a lake due to wind) on Lake Erie is in full effect right now. The low pressure system that moved over Minnesota and is now over southeastern Canada is drawing strong west/southwest winds over the lake, causing the water to move push towards the eastern side of the lake creating about a 10 foot difference currently from side to side, about 5 feet higher near Buffalo, NY, and about 5 feet lower near Detroit. Even areas in the center of the lake, such as Put-In-Bay and Sandusky are seeing significant drops.

To be honest, I am sure I experienced this a time or two in my time living in the Sandusky and Detroit areas but was completely oblivious to it at that time. I can recall one day where there were 6-10 foot waves where we went along the secondary road into Cedar Point where the waves were breaking over the roadway. Certainly, at some point, I would like to go out there to experience this fun item.

One item that makes this lake more susceptible this sort of thing happening on a regular basis is that it is relatively shallow. As long as the wind moves in the right direction over the overall surface of the lake, the water will move.

Here's a look at some of the gauges, cams, and such around the area I was able to track down quickly. Maybe if I get a chance later, I will go back and take some of the set cams and do a before/after thing.

This video probably shows the lower side the best: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Cyy5yrarf/

water low no water tsunami