Fire Weather Workshop hosted by
NWS Lubbock
 
Senior Forecaster and Fire Weather Program Manager Ron McQueen talks about the 2008 fire weather season. Click on the image for a larger view. Photo by Jody James.
  
  Senior Forecaster and Fire Weather Program Manager Ron McQueen talks about the 2008 fire weather season. Click on the image for a larger view. Photo by Jody James.  

The National Weather Service Office in Lubbock hosted a Fire Weather Workshop on Wednesday, February 20th. This mini-workshop was organized to help educate high-end users, namely local media weather broadcasters, local fire officials, and local emergency managers about local fire weather research and NWS products and services that can be utilized this spring during this very active 2008 fire season.

Approximately 20 people were in attendance for this workshop, including two representatives from the NWS Office in Amarillo, representatives from most of the Lubbock television media stations, and one media representative from the Midland/Odessa area.

 
The conference included discussion of various fire weather parameters, and NWS Fire Weather products and services. Click on the image for a larger view. Photo by Jody James.
  
  The conference included discussion of various fire weather parameters, and NWS Fire Weather products and services. Click on the image for a larger view. Photo by Jody James.  
Workshop topics included “A Meteorological Composite of the 2005/06 Southern Plains Wildfire Outbreaks”, “NWS Operations During a Dangerous Wildfire/Wind Shift Interaction”, “NWS Lubbock Fire Weather Products and Services”, and others. The workshop was a success, and many expressed their appreciation for the efforts of NWS Lubbock forecasters in this year with many windy days and frequent high fire danger conditions across the region. Here are a few of the comments received by the Lubbock office from workshop participants:

"I just wanted you to know how much the information I took away from the workshop helped me yesterday! It made a world of change in the way I was able to inform the public about the wildfire threat!"

"The presentations the Lubbock office gave on Wednesday really opened my eyes up and taught me a lot. In fact, the analysis of the synoptic setups of the 2005-2006 season fires helped a lot in forecasting the fire weather potential for this past Saturday and Monday."

"Just want to say thanks for the fire weather conference yesterday...though (I) haven’t been in West Texas as long as you…I too had the same approach of fire weather concerns being a bit lower. That changed after the 05/06 event.”

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