Jon Davies is a private meteorologist living in Wichita, Kansas. He focuses on practical operational research concerning severe weather and tornado forecasting. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1980, and has worked as a broadcast meteorologist and forecaster for several television stations and private weather consulting firms. He also worked at the Weather Channel during its early days in the 1980’s.
Jon has published several papers in professional meteorological publications. Some of his more important work was in collaboration with Robert Johns at the Storm Prediction Center in the early 1990s investigating wind shear and instability associated with significant tornado events. The wide use of shear and instability combinations in supercell tornado forecasting today has roots in that research. Jon’s more recent work has focused on tornado events near cold core upper lows, and low-level thermodynamic characteristics in tornadic storm environments.
Jon’s interest in severe weather began while he was growing up in Pratt, Kansas, where he witnessed his first tornado at age 9. He continues to enjoy storm chasing as a serious hobby and educational activity.
Ogren received a bachelor’s degree in Meteorology from Western Illinois University (1988). He has served the National Weather Service for nearly 20 years and has received numerous awards and recognition for his contributions and leadership. Since joining the National Weather Service, he has served as:
• Meteorologist Intern at the Weather Service Office in Jackson, KY
• Forecaster and Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service Forecast office in Wichita, KS
• National Warning Coordination Meteorologist at National Weather Service Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD
• Meteorologist in Charge of the National Weather Service Forecast office in Indianapolis, IN
• Deputy Regional Director of Central Region
Ogren was one of the first forecasters to be hired in a “spin-up” forecast office during the modernization in the 1990’s. He and others in the Wichita office were the recipients of several Modernization Awards for innovations during this time.
He also led the nationwide implementation of a community recognition program called StormReady, which now has over 1,200 recognized Counties, Communities, Universities, and Native American Tribes in all fifty states. He also led the first ever nationwide Lightning Safety Awareness Campaign, the 2000 National WCM Conference, and the 2002 LaPlata, MD Tornado Service assessment.
As Deputy Regional Director, he is leading a team to develop a Leadership program for all Central Region Employees entitled “LEAD – Leadership Excellence and Development”.
-
Peter Lamb joined the OU Faculty in August 1991 as Professor of Meteorology and Director of the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS). Prior to coming to OU, he had been a Senior Scientist at the Illinois State Water Survey for twelve years, Head of that organization's Climate and Meteorology Section from 1984-90, and an Adjunct Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Geography at the University of Illinois since 1983.
-
His primary research interest is in the physical and dynamical processes responsible for climate and its seasonal-to-interannual-to-decadal-scale variations, particularly for regions where the vital growing season rainfall is delivered by mesoscale weather systems. He has conducted and directed extensive investigations of this type for the African Sahel and North America east of the Rocky Mountains.
-
His other physical-dynamical climate research has focused on the large-scale atmospheric circulation, sea-air interaction, and hydrospheric and atmospheric heat budgets of the tropical Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the relation between the North Atlantic Oscillation and Moroccan winter precipitation.
-
He has also collaborated with economists for many years in applied research dealing with the use of weather and climate information by U.S. agriculture, on which subject he gave the 1991 Margary Lecture to the Royal Meteorological Society. He was Chief Editor of the Journal of Climate from 1989-95 and has served on several national and international advisory committees in recent years.
-
Since 1999, he has conducted a series of annual "International Workshops on Regional Climate Prediction and Applications" for young meteorologists from developing nations. To date, 66 meteorologists from 50 countries have participated in these workshops.
Przybylinski is a leading world expert on quasi-linear convective systems (QLCS), bow echoes, and mesoscale convective systems, and convective winds and tornadogenesis associated with these thunderstorm structures. He intensively studied linear thunderstorms and their associated winds and tornadoes throughout the 1980s, writing a seminal paper in 1995. He is also a leading scientist on tornadoes in general and is on the NWS Quick Response Team (QRT), a group of experts who are rushed to assess damage from particularly damaging tornadoes.
Przybylinski has actively trained meteorologists, for example, participating heavily in the National Center for Atmospheric Research COMET training (particularly on bow echoes), as well as mentoring and collaborating with university students, both graduate and undergraduate. He has published dozens of scientific papers and hundreds of conference presentations. He has served on the American Meteorological Society Severe Local Storms Committee and as a Councilor of the National Weather Association.