NSSL staff are preparing to receive honors and present recent research at the 2012 American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting in New Orleans, La., Jan. 21-26.

NSSL storm electricity expert Don MacGorman has been elected an AMS Fellow and will be honored at the meeting.

The NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed Team, including NSSL’s Mike Coniglio and Jack Kain, will receive the Kenneth C. Spengler Award for bringing the government, academic, and private sectors together in a visionary, proactive, and exemplary manner to deal with the challenges posed by hazardous weather.

Presentations and poster topics include a new high-resolution forecast model, a way to use cloud properties retrieved from GOES in forecasts, a weather-adaptive system that can help forecasters detect and analyze severe weather, and evaluation results from forecasters participating in the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed.  New phased array radar research, techniques to solve radar problems, studies of cloudiness tendencies, and NOAA outreach at the National Weather Center are also on the agenda.

An NSSL researcher is serving on an expert panel about the future of dual-polarization radar research, and several NSSL staff will serve as session chairs.

NSSL will also host a booth at “WeatherFest,” an annual weather science fair open to the public.