Southeast Severe Storms Symposium XVII to be held on March 23-24, 2019

The East Mississippi Chapter of the NWA and AMS is excited to announce that the Southeast Severe Storms Symposium XVII will be held on March 23-24, 2019, at Memorial Hall on the campus of Mississippi State University. 

This year's symposium will feature four keynotes with diverse backgrounds in the field of meteorology. 

Erik Rasmussen is the current project manager for VORTEX-SE. Rasmussen was the field coordinator of the first of the VORTEX projects in 1994-1995 and a lead principal investigator for VORTEX2 from 2009-2010, as well as involved in other smaller VORTEX offshoots and many field projects. Rasmussen has a B.S. from the University of Oklahoma, a M.S. from Texas Tech University, and a Ph.D. from Colorado State University.

Janice Huff is the chief meteorologist at WNBC-TV in New York City. Huff has worked in markets such as Chattanooga, Tennessee, Columbus, Georgia, St. Louis, Missouri, and San Francisco, California. She moved to NBC, in New York, in 1995 and has worked at NBC since. Huff graduated with a B.S from Florida State University. 

Aubrey Urbanowicz is the chief meteorologist at WHSV-TV in Harrisonburg, VA. Urbanowicz is originally from Connecticut and worked in the corporate world for 12 years before entering the meteorology field. She graduated from Mississippi State's distance program with a B.S. in Geosciences with a concentration in Broadcast Meteorology. 

Will Simmons is a pilot for the 53d Weather Reconnaissance Squadron out of Keesler Air Force
Base in Biloxi, MS. Commonly referred to as the Hurricane Hunters, his squadron’s primary
mission is to intentionally fly into tropical storms and hurricanes to collect data that aid in
forecasting. To date, Captain Simmons has 80 hurricane eye penetrations, including 5 passes
through Category 5 Hurricane Irma. The Hurricane Hunters also support winter storm
reconnaissance as well as research missions that have taken Simmons around the world.
Prior to joining the Air Force Reserve in 2012, Simmons graduated from Mississippi State
University in 2011 with a B.S. in Geosciences and was part of the 2010-2011 WxChallenge
championship team. He then worked for two years at WCBI-TV in Columbus, MS as an on-air
meteorologist where he earned the Certified Broadcast Meteorologist designation (#596).
Simmons also holds a Master of Business Administration from Louisiana State University.

Additionally, we are introducing a poster session to this year's symposium. Abstract submissions for that and a general presentation are now open on eastmsnwaams.com. Abstracts are due March 1.

Pre-registration opens today and will be open through March 20. 

For questions, comments, and concerns, please reach out to the executive board directly at eastmsnwaams@gmail.com.

Click here to register and submit abstracts.

---