S4: Episode 5 - Brad Travis - David Paul - Mark Sudduth - Preparing for Hurricane Season

Brad and David talk about what they do, as broadcast meteorologists, to prepare for hurricane season.

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Hurricane season is here. And forecasts are calling for an active season. Our broadcast meteorologists are preparing to keep us safe from the storm. And tracking hurricanes from the ground out Mark suddath plans to do it this year. This is NT WC Thank you, Alex. And good morning everybody. Welcome to NT WC live for cash. It's already middle of June, almost July hard to believe it's the seventh of June seven days into the 2023 hurricane season. Last week, we already tracking a system that fortunately was there and poof, it was gone just like that. Which what we expect and we do not look at hurricane models. 20 days in advance, no matter what you say, we're not going to do it. We will talk about what's going on this hurricane season. We got a great show for you today. Man. Piotroski is not able to be with us. He was on our slide as being with us. But he's not able to join us today. But we do have Brad Travis, David Paul and the one and only Mark suddath. So we'll get to all those guys in just a second. first want to thank our sponsors, who make these shows a reality for us. USAA USAA thank you for all you do. Gosh, we can't say enough about USAA just great things and and USAA has been part of this program since the very beginning. We appreciate that. The South Padre Island Convention and Visitor's Bureau. South Padre Island is the host of the national tropical weather conference Make plans to join us again, in April of 2024. Bank at the Marriott courtyard hotel right there on the beach. On sunny South Padre Island, The Weather Company and weather boy all a big part of what we do by the weather boy bringing in college students to the national tropical weather conference and doing scholarships for college students to come and join us and, and learn from the best in the industry. So we appreciate everybody who's part of this, of course with us today, as always, is Bill Reid, the former director of the National Hurricane Center and a bill and he's gonna do a tropical update a little bit later on because we don't everything he's talking about. You can do it anyway. We'll go from there. Good morning, Bill. Good morning, Tim and everybody. Yeah, good to be good to be on and back again. Summer is starting to encroach is this prolonged spring pattern we've had down here along the Gulf Coast has lingered quite a while much to most of our pleasure because it keeps the heat away. But summer is inevitable and it's that time of year we force people to think about being prepared on on the storm or like your comment about the 20 day forecast. I won't give you my 30 Day Outlook based on my roadkill study on the highway, small county but today we're gonna have a fairly wide ranging set of topics probably who knows where we'll wander off on that. But first, I'll introduce our guests Brad Travis, Chief Meteorologist for W A FF in Huntsville, Alabama. An AMS certified broadcast meteorologist David Paul, chief meteorologist at WT vy in Dothan Alabama. And, and Mark suddath, who is quite the entrepreneur how to go in and remotely sense these things by deploying stuff in advance of the hurricane. And he's made some really great, interesting breakthroughs on how to do that in the in the many years that I've been following mark. So we'll get the mark in the second half of our program. But at the start here, we'll we'll talk with the guys on the air. They're one of the things for that I'd like to hear is I guess I'll hit Brad first that said, Sure. Well inland from the coast there. How do you try to get the the viewers into the preparedness mode for the inland impacts of the storms? Oh, that's a good question, Bill. You know, because every year is a little bit different. You know, you kind of go back to Hurricane Ivan, which is probably the last hurricane that really had a huge tornado impact here. So I think when you start mentioning the tornado aspect of this being a big severe weather market, it draws a lot more attention. And then I kind of throw in the freshwater flooding, because you know, any of these systems that come in, and depending on the speed, of course, could produce up to 20 inches of rain and a lot of people don't realize how much rain that really is. Ya know, you got enough sloping terrain there that the kind of Florida six inch an hour rain rates of these bands are one of those slower that you can get some awesome flash floods out of that. Yeah. And you know, you go right across the state line into southern Middle Tennessee, and the terrain changes even more. Could you kind of go back to like it was a couple of years ago with Waverly. Now that wasn't a tropical system. I don't I don't remember recall that. It was basically a stalled out frontal system that produced 16 inches of rain or so in just a short period of time. So you You get a lot of these people. The biggest challenge you know with the flooding is flooding is not as sexy as say the other severe weather aspects. So and then you get people in the in a hurry to get to work there. And it's all about the timing, it's if it's on a weekend, you're going to have a little bit less impact. But if it's a morning when everybody's going to work, or they're coming home from school, say it's early fall, those kinds of things, kind of watch out for that. So I guess what I gathered, just thinking about what you're just saying there, you basically have people for hurricane season prepared just to pretty much similar to how you would prepare for your severe weather season because all of the above kind of hazards can occur in either one. Exactly. And the other hazards, you know, these conferences we have, and we discussed these things, is the whole aspect of when you lose power. A lot of these people you know, they're in a rush to get out to cut trees down things like that, but with with a tropical system, and I go back to a Hurricane Ivan, because we had some responders that were killed by falling trees, because they were going out. And they were trying to to get things cleared as soon as possible not understanding that this isn't like a thunderstorm. It's not just coming in. And 30 minutes later, it's all clear. It's a continuation of the strong wind gusts. And then on top of that you have power outages, and you have people bringing generators into their house into their garages. So I really stress those side impacts, not just the actual weather itself. That's good that the as people have been showing us in studies recently that the indirect fatalities are are surpassing in many storms that direct and that's a good thing to get people into. So, David, I guess after Michael, you don't have much problem getting people interested in preparing for hurricanes these days? No, I mean, Michael was such a big hit to our area. And it was really interesting with Michael. The the eyewall was so devastating as it moved way inland. We had wind gusts in the county south of us over 90 miles per hour in the county east of us. We had a wind gust in Donaldsonville of 150 miles per hour. And this was hours after landfall. So like Brad was mentioning, we have the inland flooding threat here. We have the tornado threat here. And we have that threat if if it's a strong hurricane, I will makes it pretty far inland, and the effects of devastating so yeah, definitely people here are prepared. I think it was kind of a wake up call I have in oh four was a big storm for this area, in Opal back in the mid 90s. But Michael recently kind of reminded everyone and the people that are new to the area to give them a little sight into how former hurricane so yeah, the last few years here has been really easy to get people to prep, from, you know, an actual prepping standpoint, from supplies to getting their houses ready as well. For the impacts and the city crews to what I noticed a lot in recent years is they've done a good job in trimming the trees around power lines, you know, just on an annual basis to make sure they can kind of limit the potential for power outages as well. Yeah, that's good. I see a lot of places that don't do that. One of the challenges over here in a sittin in the flooding vein is keeping the drainage system cleared out of brush. It's a never ending task and it grows fast and the growing season. So saw after Harvey I've seen a lot more people doing that, because that was identified as as part of the problem of the flooding of houses away from even the creeks, just the drainage system. Brad was mentioning to and you've seen it there in the Houston area bill, the amount of rain that can fall with even a tropical storm is just it's it's mind blowing. Like you get 2030 plus inches of rain over a couple of days span and places that have never flooded before. Before will flood with an event like that. And I think that's really the from a messaging standpoint, the hard thing to convey to people because everyone wants to put weather history and the you know, the frame of their lifetime. Like I've never seen it. I've lived here for 40 years. Well, you really never seen the possibilities that are that are available. So the inland flooding threat is coming. It's so important to try to stress that to people if you live anywhere remotely low. I mean, you've got to be aware that that flooding could be a problem with the next storm that comes in. Yeah, I find it. We have so much flooding over here. It's there. So the issue really is all the new people moving in there's I think since Harvey there has been probably 400,000 new residents in Southeast Texas. And since I go on and you don't know whether they have hurricane experience or not. But I would take the assumption if I was emergency manager is they don't and you have to, you can never go past the basics you have to do that every year. Or you're going to lose people on especially the subtleties that too many people think, Oh, it's just a tropical storm. Well, there's no such thing and back, every one I've experienced or been a forecaster for 4540 inch or greater tropical rain events. And the only one that was caused by a hurricane was Harvey and all that rain fell after it had gone down the Tropical Storm strengths. It's just a function of how slow they're moving and trying to convince people that part of the problem I wanted to shift gears a little bit here. One of the things that Tim and Alex and I would like to start looking at now that we've got 10 years or so doing this under our belt is, is see what see what works and doesn't work. And you guys are a perfect sounding board for some of it because you've been involved with us through most of this timeframe. So. So Brad, in your way of looking at it for the conference down on South Padre, what, what are some of the best aspects that you that you take away from what we provide? I think the presenters some of the best aspects of it, I really like the introduction of the students session that you guys started this year, which which broadens the horizon, so to speak of some of the younger generation coming in. I love the fact that we can do a live broadcast from there. I think my station appreciates that, that it's not, because I go to several conferences, and this is one of two of the conferences, I go to the to do live shots. So that way, I'm still working, they can see I'm still working, of course, I enjoy the location as well. But I think everybody gets a little bit out of it. I like the fact that we get the first forecast from Dr. Klotzbach from Colorado State. And I overall, I think you guys are doing a bang up job. Awesome. Can you think of any areas that we might need to strengthen or add to the mix that we've got? I think maybe you could do more of a severe weather aspect on some of these rain bands that come in. Why some of these tropical systems will produce a lot more of these E F two F three type tornadoes, whereas some of them only do like a quick E F zero F one, I think that would be a real aspect for people that are farther inland like me, I think that may draw a little bit more attention to that. Okay, I think I can find some people that study that they would love to come to South Padre, there you go. David, your thoughts on what works best for you when you come to our conference? I echo everything Brad said. And of course, the hospitality room, Tim. I mean, that's let's be honest, Jenga has got to be right up there. Because that social aspect, I think is so enjoyable to be able to see friends in the industry to connect once a year. And it goes beyond just the friendships. But it's an opportunity for us to talk about what we do in different markets around the country from Texas all the way up the eastern seaboard. So it's something that we're not doing that another market is doing, we can learn from them, and implement some of those different ideas into our home markets. As we go through the hurricane season. That really is cool the sharing of information between others in the industry. Of course, learning from the different presenters is huge as well. Location is great, the live shots, great the opportunity to record interviews and send that or take that home with you or have it you know, sent to you via the Internet to put towards the hurricane special or just sound bites us during the hurricane season. The aspect of collecting that information is is good from a value standpoint, if you think about what the station is sending us to do and what they're getting in return. So that's fantastic. I mean, y'all done a really good job with the conference for sure. That's good to hear. Because I've always thought the same thing. I hate to be the one that gets hit with a storm because sometimes that's when you first learn what you need to do. And that's why I try to bring those folks in the next year to our conference, because while it's fresh in their mind, those of you that haven't had an impact, maybe can learn that and not have to go through the same struggles they went through because there's all these things that don't work when when a storm comes in. Yeah, absolutely. That's part of the process is learning to I mean, it's hard when you learn it yourself when you have to go Through the event, then you realize what didn't work. It is a little bit easier if you can, you know, you hate to say it. But you know, Brad went through something. And he saw the struggles now I can learn from his struggles without having to go through those struggles myself. I want to piggyback on that one thing I really learned this year was I didn't know these manhole covers floated during these surges. I was like, wow, I can imagine these people walking around in floodwater and falling into a manhole. Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. Mark, I'm gonna bring you into the, into the conversation here. You've been attending, I think you were in our first one and had been in most of them over the years. What do you got to add to our critiquing, I like the fact that it's in South Padre, nothing against Orlando or Vegas, but it kind of, I don't want to say traps us there. But I like that, because we're at that small hotel. It's not a giant resort, with 50 other conferences going on, and the intimacy of it, that we can all talk with each other as colleagues. And people can get to know some of these sort of superstars of you know, like the hurricane center forecasters, like one on one, you know, there's this very interesting camaraderie that has come out of that. And networking starts to develop because of that. And I like the variety of the different speakers that I mean, it's great for me to be able to present I certainly appreciate that it's always an honor to do so. But I like to watch and learn from people that we might not have otherwise heard from, there was one year where and even people from that region down there, there was somebody that was an expert, about sea turtles and how they deal with strandings. After hurricanes, you know, there was a time when Josh warmen and Karen Cosima, however you say her last name, the severe weather, you know, the Doppler on Wheels team, they were they're talking about, and that's a little different. That's not your typical lineup. And I really liked that part of it. It's, of course, the conference is geared towards broadcast meteorologists. And with the sort of social media and TV not what it used to be a lot of people on plugging their cable, and we're watching on demand. Now, there's more of a need to keep that cohesiveness there that mean, look, this is on YouTube, this is on Twitter. And so broadcast is different. And I think that the conference has evolved around that, you and Alex and what you've done with the multimedia side of it is incredible. So it's just improved, as far as I'm fuckin been concerned. Love it? Yeah, it's a it's a fast changing profession. So it's like it, one of the things I tried to do is find somebody doing cutting edge research that might have an application that we will all be using down the road and presenting it to you. So you guys can start following up on it. That's, that's important. No, I think it'd be cool. If you could find someone not sure who that person is. But maybe a critique or an overview of model performance from the previous year, you know, which computer model did the best? Which model struggled? Which models, you know, was it good with the track and not with the intensity, but maybe someone who's really honed into the model performance will be interesting to see how they perform with the, you know, various tropical systems that we see. Okay, I can they actually do verification of that at the hurricane center. So the verification person, I'll contact him and see if he's the right person to do for that, or he'll give me maybe somebody at up at EMC that focuses on the tropical aspect. There may be just looking at their models, the hurricane center is unique in that there in that regard is that they're using all these models. So they are to some extent critiquing or maybe not under the hood, what's what's causing that or whatnot, but that would be a good, good subject. Again, I think guys, probably the most exciting part of the conference is the Jenga competition and watching those guys do that and but you know, and David and Brad, I know, you mentioned the social aspect of it and the Saturday morning fishing trip goes a long way to Yes, it does. It does. I'm still working on that fishing YouTube video. Yeah, the fishing there if you don't know is really really good live in a madre. And Brad and I have gone out several times and speckled trout to red fish. The water is pretty smooth, most of the time, really easy to get, you know different areas and buzz around and it's just that time of year or two is such a great time of year to be on the water. So that's always one of the highlights of the trip too. And that's what cool about this trip is you have a little little time where you can find some things to do on your own. Yeah. Yep. Distracted you guys Wade Fisher do you go on get a boat? When you're down there we have done both we've done both. Wade fishing was quite an experience. We just he just the guide like just jump out of the boat and we away we went and we limited out real quick. Yeah, that's that's been my experiences. That's probably the most fun way to do that. Yeah. I don't know if you got to watch out for Stingray. Yeah. Or if you if you land a stray bull shark or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's all part of the adventure. Right? You don't think about add? You lost me on the fishing. I'm out. Stay out of the food chain. We when I was stationed in Kingsville, the rescue helicopter pilot said part of their training would fly over the northern end of the Laguna there in Baffin Bay. They find where the fish is cheating. They'd see where the fish are. And as soon as they were done with the day hooked the boat up to the truck and down. They went and went right to the spot. But they also had lots of pictures. We need to add that next year. Yeah, right. Ooh, yeah. Helicopter. Yeah. Well, we get we get mark to go up with the drone again, and then do There we go. Go out over the bay with the drought. That was you know, Mark, that was cool. I was at the Hilton a few years ago, when you had your drone there earlier, kind of in the early days of drone, and you had the drone up shooting stuff. And I did a selfie out from the balcony of the hospitality room. And I think that was cool, because you know, that was going to new technology there. And you were showing off what you had, I thought it was, again, another cool aspect of the conference is you get the opportunity to do that kind of stuff. Agreed. And we went to SpaceX year before last, one of the most incredible things. I mean, that was amazing. And it wasn't, you know, like a Kennedy Space Center tour, I don't want to knock it but like that, you know, it was it was you know, the engineer comes walking out. He's like, you know, what's up everybody, he's not Bob the tour guide. And that's what he does. He's like working on, starship or whatever. And he comes over, he's got a head like a plaid shirt, you remember any jeans, and he's just got the rough look, you know, he's not, it just wasn't, it was that was amazing. And then in the bus ride in and out again, you're talking to each other. And you're still kind of working. But you're also learning about other stuff. And that's the economy down there with SpaceX and the port that to me was fascinating in my degree in geography, understanding about all that kind of stuff. It just it really hit home and that you just don't do that typically at a at another conference. And there's nothing against those other conferences. It's those are in a big city. It's Monday through Thursday, or whatever. And then everybody goes home. And that's the end of it. This is a lot different. It's always been that way. And I didn't do it. It was when it was in the Bahamas. But now that you've brought it to the South Padre, and I look forward to being there next year. And then of course, as soon as it's over, we're gonna lickety split to San Antonio, get ready for the Eclipse. Oh, that's right. The next week. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think to mark, you bring up a good point, guys that, you know, going back to the first conference, when we were the Eastern grand on the south end of the island, I think we had 30 speakers and 20 listeners. But there were always 50 people there because the speakers stay and listen to the other speakers. And that still continues today. You know, 125 people in the room, you know 30 of which are speakers, but they say listen to the other speakers, and you sit at the table with the listeners if you will. And it really gives you an opportunity throughout the conference to really mingle like you're talking about yes, of course what Tim isn't saying there is that he's got some of his staff out there with with huge wooden bars are putting over the exit door so you have to stay illegal. That's true. That's not to mention our own craft beer made just for the conference, but that's a whole different thing. It's it is actually listening to some of this talk. Another idea popped in my mind i i see a lot of drone video after a tornado. I see this as a it's somewhat overwhelming that to assess the damage after a hurricane because it is covered such a large area by comparison. Maybe find maybe I can find a speaker who's whose business is going in and assessing via drone. The damage aspect I think that'd be something of interest everybody. Brandon lament Brandon Clement, I can get you in touch with him from Twitter, etc. His is some of the most incredible he works with LSM live storms media A Brett Adair works with them to Brandon Clemente is one of the best drone guys out there. Okay, I think I think that's a much needed thing. The challenge is, you know, you have all you have roughly three or four stations in a market. But a lot of these TV stations are really reluctant to get out and shoot drone video. And a lot of it's due to the fact they don't have the manpower to get out there and shoot it right after. And it's the same with flooding, I'm always saying, you know, the best video you're gonna get a flooding is from a drone, since everybody used to have a helicopter and they just know from then on, they just started cutting costs, and they just keep cutting costs. And it's really hard. So I think if somebody could develop some kind of network, that they'd come to your town the next day and do that, that'd be great. So, Harvey, not to toot my horn, but then that's five years, six years ago now, right that I remember I had like the DJI two. And I put it up several times, I was at the hotel there at near Katie, on the very far end of the attics dam, and the water was coming up, and it was all flooding back there off of made Creek and whatnot. And I put the drone up a few times. And I mean, it was remarkable to be able to see that and just how much that has changed, you know, photojournalism. That would be a great addition to the agenda next year. And somebody other than me, Brandon comment would be great. So second that send me the contact info, and I'll do it, Bill. We'll see what we can do. Yep. Great. I'd like to see that video to mark this because that's where my daughter lived. And I rescued her from the floodwaters right at the base of the dam there. So I'd like to see that sometime. I'll send it your way. I got a couple of still shots where you remember you parked in my driveway, mark one time the interview, you would have flooded your vehicle out if Marty didn't quite get the house. But if people on the street got their cars ruined by it, they're not anywhere near a creek. Pretty amazing. Real quickly. Any thoughts from you guys on how we're doing and what direction we're going with the with the weekly online version? Totally different process? Of course in the conference? Brad, do you have any thoughts? I gotta say, I see it in my newsfeed occasionally. But a lot of times I'm just busy working and I don't actually log on and watch it that I mean, it could be honest there. I don't I don't I don't watch it frequently. I'd be the same with Brad. You know, I know it's there. I don't always check it out. I think as the season gets a little deeper, and we start seeing some more, you know, storms forming, it's more impacts. You know, for me personally, I get a little more honed down, I guess some like the average Joe who's just, you know. And as the season kind matures, that's my focus kind of sharpens, to bill, we got a couple of comments, Kevin, and just from online, I'll share those and we can you and I can probably address them as well as anybody asking if the student conference can be held at the Marriott as opposed to across the street. There's some logistical issues there. But it's possible. But as the student conference grows, the Marriott probably won't have room for it. This year, it was small, but we hope in the years to come, it will grow quite large. And the convention center, which is right across the street, does have the space for that. And along with that there's questions can we stream that? And I think perhaps it could be. That's something we'll look at, in the future years, the student conference this year was held the day before the rest of the conference. And we're looking at the logistics of that, whether it be the day before or the day after. But the great thing about it is some of our greatest best speakers, were able to speak to the high school students. And that's, that's really cool. That really makes a difference. So we'll definitely look at the ability to stream that as well. And also there's a request to stream the stream or record the award ceremony. We don't typically do that. But but it's not a bad idea. So that's something we can look at as well. So good suggestions, we appreciate that. Now, also, Mark Kasper says that these national tropical weather conference presentations are directly responsible for him being a supporter of your hurricane track project. It would have been added up in for this for him to support you. And I hope that you're seeing that regularly. Yes, I mean, and that's, that's going back to power of social media and the reach of this and, you know, being able to get out of the box of a conference room. And then we do this and it was a great thing to kind of come out of the pandemic. This was, you know, part of that we had to and look at where it's gone since then. and you can reach a lot more people over time. And then these are archived, they're sitting around forever, you know, for people to go back and watch and it's a good thing. You know, there's it's always good to put in that effort. That's the That's a big mantra of what I do you know that even for a little tropical storm, yes, I'm gonna go to it, because it's always worth the effort. And this effort is meaningful to people, even if it's just a small group of people, it does matter. We appreciate that. And there's, you know, a lot of people do do that the download of the podcast as well listen to it after the fact. And that's all important and, and you reach your your reach. And as long as you're reaching people in a preparedness season, I think that's really important. So so we appreciate you guys being such a big part of it from the from the very beginning, belongs to the sponsor, break. And thank all the sponsors who are part of this and we'll kind of move on to the second half of the program on what David and Brad to stick around listen to mark and ask questions of mark as well. This is your opportunity to to chime in and be part of our panel. I want to thank USAA you know what we started doing things for students? Alex, I've been doing things for students and kids for a long time. And USAA has been part of that. They've jumped in and helped with that. And when we tramps transitioned over to the national tropical weather conference, they came with us and said yes, we want to be part of that as well. They saw the importance of it, and really been part of it from the beginning and they always bright people for interviews during the conference if you need to talk to somebody in the insurance industry. So we appreciate that more than you know. So thanks to USAA South Padre Island Convention and Visitor's Bureau they to really enjoy being part of the program. Of course the mayor or city manager always comes to do the welcome on the first morning and tell us a little bit about South Padre Island and they encourage the last shots on the beach they liked that as they would and they should because the beach is so pretty and thanks to South Padre Island the Convention and Visitor's Bureau for big supporters of the national tropical weather conference all along we appreciate that The Weather Company many years they come they set up their their max computers and and do everything they can do so we can see what's new in the max world for the television broadcasters we appreciate them for all they do and whether boy really adding a new dimension with with the college student scholarship basically, the last couple of years we've whether boy Kersey whether boy, we've been able to provide basically full ride scholarships to come to this conference for three meteorology students anywhere in the continental US or Hawaii to come to the conference all expenses paid airfare hotel, meals, everything covered by weather boy, we appreciate what the boy does and and Michael and everybody over there for making making that a possibility. So thanks to our sponsors, a big part of what we do. Alright, Bill, you got a big tropical update for us, then we'll get on to the second half of the program. Go ahead. Yeah, doing it and doing it guys know that we don't have a lot going on. I do this mostly to remind myself that we're, this is part of what we do. And we do these weekly maintenance, things get active and and it gets me gets the rust off of what I talk about. So. So Mark, it's your turn to pester us some questions there. We didn't have you as the conference this year. You were preoccupied with the or other parts of your job. So what's been happening with your work and anything new in the works? I look forward to this season. The yeah had to miss this year. And it was actually family vacation time they the two weeks lined up perfectly that I couldn't couldn't pass it up and we went on a cruise and did a little research down there looking at some hurricane stuff. So I don't think the IRS was gonna let me ride off a Royal Caribbean cruise because I talked to a few people about hurricanes. But you know, you got to balance the family and the work stuff, especially that I've gotten busier. My partnership with Fox weather has allowed me to do more. The Patreon support you know, the crowdfunding allowed me to do more. I went to California in January to cover those atmospheric river events. First time ever and no indictment against California but somebody tried to steal one of those boxes off of a bridge that we had it was a homeless woman tried to take the box it was looking at the paw row river. And it had come it was a good ride over the banks and it did a few weeks later, Fox weathers Max Gordon covered that extensively. But before it went over this, this homeless woman tried to steal it. And it's chained up and everything of course she couldn't figure it out. And you know, I felt bad for her look, these are humans and even though she's trying to steal it, she's needing something for money clearly. And it was just kind of this weird like I'm in California. Look at what's going on here. I went up to the Sierras and and documented the big time snow they had. And that's how I started the year. And then I've been up to Massachusetts to cover like the only big nor'easter they had. And that was in March. Everything's just been really strange. Even last hurricane season going back to E and we had basically no thing, nothing nothing. And then it was Super Bowl time. You know what I mean? It was very odd. And that carried over. And, and then some severe weather that I've gone out to the plains for. And the big part of that is, you know, we always try to test you, it's about getting the rust off. You know, yes, I am a weather nerd. I love seeing active weather. It's very interesting. I don't know why I don't know where it came from, but it's just part of me. But I like to test stuff and just keep practicing during these other events, new technology, our camera boxes are smaller than ever now literally the size of a lunchbox even smaller than that one behind me. And they run for 80 hours, you know, and we've always we've had that the last few years, but to be able to get them small enough that I can airline five or six of them, or we can build 20 of them and put them out and and they're tiny now you get to test them, you know, I can test them in my backyard or my office here all day long. But it's more fun to go out on the field. And so that's what we've been doing. And most recently, a couple of weeks ago when I was out in the plains, Clovis New Mexico, by the way, was the hotspot recently. I don't know if you saw that on Twitter. Clovis was trending, because there were so many storm chasers in Clovis over and over again on this last round that we had, that when we went to dinner one night, the locals were literally asking us we had our hurricane track shirts. And they were like, why are all these storm chasers in Clovis. And we were like, it's just the pattern. And they were like a little conservancy stay when you want to do the high plains of eastern New Mexico. We'll be going through there. And in two weeks, I'm a member of the high pressure Chase team. There you go. That's perfect. And they'll they'll appreciate that. And then we were over at a town called Melrose on the way over to we're trying to get West and a whole bunch of chasers had stopped it and all sups and including a lot of the NSSL people. I mean, it looked like they were filming a movie. And they are they're filming twisters or Twister to whatever it's called out there somewhere. But they had the different Doppler trucks and all these scientists and tour groups and individual chasers and the lady inside this one lady inside was just she thought that like, you know, should I be like getting autographs from people? Or should I be worried and said, No, you don't need to be worried unless nobody leaves. If nobody leaves, then you need to be worried. And everybody left within about 10 minutes, they all scattered. Because the initiation had took taken place. We were out there also to test going back to last year, we went to SpaceX. We got our hands on Starlink and went out to test it. That was a big reason why I wanted to go out there. And I ordered it through our crowdfunding partnership with all these different people from around the world, less than 700 bucks for the unit. And SpaceX since this gray box, and it says Starlink on it. And I shipped it to Weatherford to one of our friends there and purposely waited until we were in Clovis with a supercell in front of us to try it out. Because I wanted to see how easy it was because that's what I had been reading. And I'm not kidding you within 15 minutes, we had 95 megabits down and 15 up, that thing opened up found the satellites and we were on it has a little Wi Fi deal you set up and we just plugged it into this little power supply that a friend of ours donated to us for the trip. Unbelievable. Like this is going to be so huge, especially for monsoon season. What little of it there may or may not be this year, we'll see other weather coverage like big High Plains blizzards where there's just nothing out there. And then in the aftermath of a hurricane, you know, can be very helpful, not only for us, but maybe we can, you know, have somebody that needs to call somebody that can do to do so over Starlink using Wi Fi calling or FaceTime. It could actually help people. But I'm a believer, I was a little skeptical. I read the reviews and our viewers were like and we have issues and some were like it's perfect that was kind of split. But the two times that CJ and I tested it, it worked great. And that's gonna be a real help. It's a stationary, we didn't get the one that you put on your vehicle and drive around with it because that's more involved and more expensive. And I'm gonna go back out on Friday for a few days it looks like an uptick in severe weather again, and, you know, just do some coverage for Fox and our group as we await the hurricane season. So I'm gonna take a break and just stop talking for a second then we'll talk about what I'm gonna be doing for this season. So we do have some new things we're gonna try. Yeah, that Starlink is CC, where do you set it? Where do you set it up so that you can use it it. So it has like a very long cable, think it's 75 feet to the dish, if you will, and it's very small, relatively speaking. So we just set it up, it's got this little stand right next to the truck. In our case, we had a Tacoma that we rented. And we got to have an out in the open. And that's easy to do out in the plains, and you power it on, and within a few minutes, it starts finding it just moves all by itself. And you just you get put it we did it we did in the back of the truck, too, it's just got to have a clear view of the sky. And they can take it with you just tell us while you're driving. All right. So ours is called the roaming plan. Because you can have residential, you know, say, hey, I want Starlink to be my internet, and not a TNT or spectrum or whomever. And so you would have that setup, and you have a cell or whatever. And you actually have higher priority bandwidth if you're residential roaming. And the inmotion are D prioritized, but even D prioritized. I'll take 95 Meg's down and 15 up and not be a priority. That's fine with me. But yes, Bill, that's right, you can just set it up wherever you go. As I'm on the roaming plan. Some of the chasers do have the in motion version. Now this one will work in motion, you just you're not going to drive down the highway at 5070 miles an hour with this dish thing in the back can be too good. But we drove about 20 miles per hour down this country road. And it stayed connected. Like if we ever wanted to parallel, a slow moving Supercell, it could probably be done. But it's not ideal. And it's mainly meant to set up, get some data, upload something and then move to the next thing that we have to do forever without LTE. And like I said, we would use it in the aftermath of a hurricane, but usually can just drive an hour and get out of what we call the blast zone and find some kind of technology that's still up, but if not, we'll have Starlink you guys appreciate you know, I know Brad and David, you guys would do that. Like when we did the the SpaceX launch the super heavy when it launched, you tried to use your your other live units. And there's so many people there on the streaming, that you lose your signal, and you can't do it. And all of our live units were unavailable. But we had a strong link. And everything was done through. They're struggling. And wow, that's using Starlink. And we had one of the conference as well. But but they have the star like made it so we could have a signal when nobody else did, when we can be live all the way through with no problem. So it provided the internet connection, I think it's an important piece. And Mark, you're seeing that I think we're seeing it too. So it's good for broadcasters, well, it's just getting started really if you think about it, we're still at the beginning. Eventually it's going to become affordable and better and faster. And it's you know, open up some possibilities to areas that need it for education. And you know what, what Elon has done, you know, controversy notwithstanding donating the stuff to Ukraine, it's been needed over there and you know, helping with scientists in remote parts of the world. The day has come I've dreamed of being able to have affordable satellite and it's easy to ship that thing I can airline it and a little Husky thing from a from Home Depot almost call it HD anyway. And easy to airliner no big deal. You know, that's gonna be that's a that's going to be great for rural areas. Our place in New Mexico was yes, you can get through the phone company a bit of a dial up but it's totally useless if you want any kind of data feeds on there and I could get into a bill. Maybe. Maybe the guys down there. You know this guy over here. He can get you a discount maybe through. Right. Come on, Tim go over to SpaceX. Just ask him. Nah, it's worth every it's $150 a month for the end, you can pause it, you know, hey, I don't want to pay $150 for the next three months, nothing's happening or whatever. Just turn it off. Elon says you're gonna make it happen. Hang on. There we go. So what's new for hurricane season? So we've done pretty well with the remote cams. I think that speaks for itself. Always going to have challenges, you know, and the Hurricanes are going to make things challenging, and we've learned that too, but the wind data that's lacking and we get good pressure data, and so does other people like Morgan Josh Morgan does great pressure data. And he does those presentations even when he goes International and pressures a lot easier. You know, we can use a little bit Drop sensor or from Kestrel or higher end barometer, whatever the case may be, but, and Bill, you know this and anybody in the weather business knows that when data is difficult, because it must be accurate, you have to cite the equipment properly. And you don't want just spot readings, you want a good digital log, if you can have the entire event, and I've been working on it, since the very beginning of my career, even when I had vehicle mounted anemometers, we don't do that anymore. Because we have all this remote equipment. Ian was a big wake up call that we had a couple of weather stations mounted on bridges. And I want to try to do a screen share. If I may real quick, I want to see what that looks like. And let's see, we'll share the whole screen. Yes, that will work fine. Thank you. So here's the video, this is the midpoint bridge, this mute that audio, that's the Caloosahatchee back there. That's what the weather station looked like on the bridge there. And we were really excited thinking, Oh, wow, we're gonna really record some tremendous wind data, we were trying to stream it live off the computer that's in there little raspberry pi in in one second increments, and then have one minute average and your Pete guts for that minute. And that failed. For a lot of reasons, just too much happening, our server got overloaded. And I was like, Alright, this is gonna be my next thing to really, really focus on the camera systems got that as I think as good as we're gonna get it until, you know, they're literally this big, and those run for 80 hours. And we could put 100 of them out there. Think there's a Tom Hanks movie called circle or something where he had these little cameras you could put everywhere anyway. Until that happens, you know, the cameras are good, but the wind data, that's my next challenge, I want really solid wind data. And so we've been working on that we're gonna go back to doing one minute, instead of the real time is it's just easier on our server. And that's what the hurricane center stuffs being reported. You know, the advisories is one minute average. And you know, the peak gusts for that minute. And then we have these, you know, the all the data will be stored on the Raspberry Pi for later analysis. And we've done well with that in the past, but I just want to put more emphasis on wind data. And we have four of those weather stations. And by the way, I want to keep bragging about it. They're all donated by our crowdfunding partners. And you know, that's huge. And so we have four of them. And we've got these little devices that the DoD uses to put signs on Jersey walls, that was that orange thing. And we just retrofitted there was a gentleman in Florida that welded the mast on for us and so we can cite them. I mean, come on, there's no better sighting than a bridge typically wide open, it's definitely higher than 10 meters, in most cases, probably the most of the flying debris since. Yeah, and it's a logarithmic exposure. But we just gotta get the data side the collection side to work properly. And and then the transmission and when a bit people want to see it, we've developed an interface where you can watch it and in real time, you know, so it'll update every minute. And like I said, we've been doing it since oh four, but I want to perfect it there's a difference between doing something and getting it perfect, or at least close to perfect as we can. So a lot of emphasis has been placed on that in this offseason. And in fact, on July 1, my programmer slash best friend since childhood gentleman up in Raleigh, he's going to come down and we're going to continue to work on it in my garage. And the idea would be to put four weather stations out and at least get one or two of them in that right front quadrant if not the core. But some areas are really difficult. You know, you think about Michael, University of Florida had their wind towers out there and they had one in the right front quadrant down at a things like a memorial park or something like that in Mexico beach. And it did pretty good. I think I got 120 Something now for our peak gust. Dr. Forrest Masters would be able to tell us but he's not here, but I'm sure he knows. But then he had another one on the western side of Mexico beach. And they were they I went over and the wind blew it over you because we came across it that night trying to get back to Mexico beach. So even the well funded universities, they'll tell you this stuff is hard. And I got a good friend and engineer here in Wilmington. They were working with some people last year and the propeller blades get messed up and like it is harder than people think to capture reliable wind data. And I want to try to change that I don't think I'll be like You know, known as the guy that changed it forever, but I want to at least put more effort into it. I think mapping that data on that note Mark, would be so eye opening for people to see, because I think from from a broadcast standpoint, it's hard to tell people how much more powerful and I wall is compared to the fringes of a hurricane. Everyone thinks they have gone through multiple hurricanes. And they have, but unless you go through that, I will, you really don't understand the power of that I will have a hurricane. So if you were able to get that, that high resolution data and map it, where people can see, wow, two miles away, the wind was 40 miles per hour greater than we're all was, I think that'd be just incredible data to really open up people's eyes. Agreed. And we have that on our interactive map. On our site on our insider site is our crowdfunded, I wish to everything could be free. We know we talked about this, but it can't or it would crash. And that's how we fund what we do. So our I hate that word paywall. But on our insider site, our Member site, we've developed this map, this gentleman in the UK, built it for us coded it up. And that's exactly what it has. And you'll see the two icons, and you can just click on them. And he actually see the video too, from the camera that's looking at the weather station. And we thought we had it for II and I was so excited. I was in Orlando. And it was just failing. I was like the whole website was getting dragged down because there's like, stuff happening these processes on the computer and the server and it was like, Oh, my, so I literally had to remote into the Raspberry Pi's. And shut them off. You know how painful though, this is like, because the whole site could have gone down. So you live and learn and you know, not at all comparing myself to Mr. Musk. But look, he publicly blew up a giant rocket to test. I'm not joking. I mean, you have to fail sometimes. Whoever said failure is not an option. They don't do whether, because failure is absolutely an option. And it's the best way to learn. If you don't fail, you never move forward. You know, you don't want to be inept. And you know, a clown out there. And we don't do that. But yeah, sometimes we lose. And it helps you, Hey, Mark, I just kind of thinking off the cuff here. Have you ever thought of maybe partnering with an airline or something and strapping one of these on to an airplane, then that would be the ultimate test on everything. You can see where the failure point is, or? I mean, I don't know, I just kind of a wild thought I just had, or even I mean, you know, getting out at a private airfield. We know enough people on social media, just get behind a plane that could do and then there's the wind tunnels, and those are hard to schedule. There's a lot of science that goes on, you have to schedule them and there's grants and people access way before we would. Because you're right. You're right. Brad's like, you know, testing it on a regular day. Okay, it's 50 miles per hour and average, and it was 12. And what do you do 131 50. And it's hard, we'll have to maybe drive to Raleigh and put one in the back of my Tacoma. And I think the speed limit is 70. I know a couple people in state highway patrol, maybe they can give me about a two mile area where I can put that to come with a 120 they go to Montana. That's it. That's There you go road trip to Montana, speed limits. There's some unlimited areas out there. Basically. It won't be from an engineering standpoint, tomorrow, I'll think of your video for creation when the when the roof or two can lift it off. You know, what, when gusts speed where that roof? We know, went up? I mean, it'd be interesting from But Mexico Beach is an interesting case study. You know, I think back to that, where would we have put something there was, you'd have to bring a tower out, like what University of Florida did Dr. Masters and we don't have those, we abandon that idea because it was too cumbersome. I mean, they have a crew and it's a truck and like, my goodness. And there's just gonna be areas like Mexico beach where there's just nowhere to really put anything. So I've often wondered, man, could we ever do anything with the video using photogrammetry and I've talked to my engineering friend, Dr. Dr. Ryan Maris here and UNC Wilmington. And it's, I thought it was real simple. Just look at the video and come up with an algorithm. That piece of debris is moving x miles per hour. It's like no, it's not that simple. Targeting things and multiple cameras, I'm like ah, come on. Like, imagine if we could look at video and get speeds out of video using photogrammetry. All the tornado chasers that have captured high moving high, high velocity debris may That's something somebody can come up with. And it is as simple as a two D shot from a high res digital camera and 4k. I don't know. Yeah, there's got to be people brilliant enough that could figure that out. Then we could just do away with anemometers just do everything with video, even raindrops. Like basically a video version of the step frequency, microwave radiometer. Seriously, is, you know, maybe that's 20 years down the road? I don't know. Because anemometers tend to get beat up. It's so frustrating. Well, that, yeah. To get rigor, you have to sometimes sacrifice precision and accuracy. Right? Right. But I want the precision and the accuracy. And I guess you have to I think are compromising there would work better if for what you're looking at. And using other remote sensing that maybe find the finer details like the radar or the Sure, one day, I'm going to work with Dr. Maris on his idea of how we could use multiple cameras, and some kind of visual targets. Because he's brilliant, just as engineer like, like, wow, and teach me what he's thinking, you know, he's working a lot on wav models and stuff at UNC Wilmington. So he's very busy with that. But I think photogrammetry could play a role, especially as we get to 4k and higher resolution. And especially to this part of the reason I like to go out to the plains, using video in tornadoes to understand wind speeds at the ground level, and some of the drone video to that like Brandon captures and this gentleman, Brian M finger, some of that's in 4k, and you might be able to do something with it, I just it, I find it difficult to believe that we can't do something with video to start extracting wind data or velocity data out of it when we look at debris. Because you know, David, as you talked about that video from Mexico Beach, there's so much in it, where debris is going by, and the wind speed is right there. We just don't know how to extract it. And that's got me curious, I'll ping on Tim Marshall see what he knows about he's he's not doing anything. Trips to add Artica or whatever. Tornado Alley every day. I rubbed it in on him for months that he paid good money to do what I got paid to do was spend a lot of time in Iceland. Right. Be a good resource. Sure. There's gotta be something there. I can't believe we've hit the 11 o'clock hour. I was. That's good. Right up there. Any any final thoughts from from Brad or David, before we turn it back to Tim and Alex to wrap it up? I think going back to the conference, I think you guys are doing great from where it was, you know, towards the beginning. I think my first year was year two, I think are two year three of the conference. And you guys have done a phenomenal job and this outreach to the internet. During the the mean time between the conferences is is good as well. So keep on keepin on. Are you? Yeah, again, great conference, keep it up. I just want to interject, you know, you actually do something for the wives. And I appreciate that. And I'm sure the wives, I can only imagine what those conversations are like they haven't they haven't been shared with me. But I think it's gonna be an interesting season, I think we're going to probably see a real distinct change from the overall Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico. Now, based on what we were talking about, you know, you go back, and I think a lot of people think it's El Nino, and we're gonna have fewer hurricanes. But I think it was a bill, I think you had the graphic that was talking about the Gulf is actually active sometimes during these El Nino, and one that really kind of struck out to me was the Hurricane Camille back in 1969. Yeah, the Eastern the eastern Gulf. The origin of those storms, they really didn't get going until they got out of the Caribbean. And my guess is they got out from under the worst of the shear is what was happening. And if I had more energy, I'd go back and dig up the reanalysis maps of it, but it's something else. And one last thing for Mark, you're wondering what gives you that spark that makes you want to go out and stare at the weather and my fire referred to that in watching me do that is the defective gene. Right? I guess that we all have that. So on that note, I'll turn it over to Tim to wrap us up. Gentlemen, thank you. Great program today, Bill. Thank you very much, Brad. David mark. Good program time really to go fast today. And we appreciate that. Thanks for all of your insight in all of this and we look forward to seeing you guys again in person in April, if not before somewhere down the line. Next week another great program, Warren fatally is going to be with us next week along with Jim Cantori. The first question for Jim Cantori is going to be what's it like to make a 50 foot putt across the lobby of the Marriott courtyard Hotel? Budding device and hospitality. So we, we have pictures, just to prove that he did that. So, both those guys were going to be on next week and we really look forward to that program as well. Want to thank our sponsors once again USAA, the South Padre Island Convention and Visitor's Bureau, The Weather Company and weather boy all part of what we do here at the National tropical weather conference and NT WC live. That's it for this week. We'll see you with Warren and Jim next week. Until then, take care. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode of NT WC live hurricane center podcast. If you did, head over to Apple podcast and leave us a five star review and join us next week. This is n TWC ly