Leia Otterstatter

Don’t forget about the Hurricane Relief Fund sponsored by SCAN/OWL/SAC. As incentive for donations, some OU Meteorology professors will be doing TikTok dances if certain donation thresholds are reached. We have currently raised $1,000. This means that Dr. Amanda Kis, Dr. Cameron Homeyer, Dr. Elinor Martin, and Dr. Jeff Basara will be performing TikTok dances. However, we are still taking donations, so please donate because the next goal is $2,000 for yet another professor to do a TikTok dance.

Please join us for our October Social Event with AMS at Iowa State on October 20th at 7 pm CDT. We will be doing icebreakers in breakout rooms and working to network with fellow meteorologists from a different program.

Furthermore, a preview of our November General Meeting on November 5th at 6 pm CST. We will be having Ashia Owusu speak on diversity in STEM/Meteorology along with the importance of access to weather data.

Finally, we will be having Bill Walsh speak today about broadcast meteorology and a station tour. Bill Walsh is a broadcast meteorologist for WCSC-TV 5 Charleston, and he has won 2 Emmys. Broadcast meteorology includes building graphics, do the forecasting, do the radio segments, and get ready to speak on air just to name a few. Furthermore, broadcast meteorologists can experience a schedule where they do not have dedicated time off because they continue to tweet and monitor the weather to keep the public informed where other jobs are able to walk away from the office. He also provided a tour of the WCSC-TV 5 studio.

All officers were present at the September Officer Meeting. The first order of business was amending the tiebreaker clause within the SCAN Constitution. The addition changes the endless cycle of run-off elections. The new amendment will have two run-off elections, and if there is still a tie, the SCAN board will fill the position. This amendment was passed by a unanimous vote of the eleven (11) voting board members.

We are looking at different ways to donate to help with relief for Hurricane Laura. We hope to have a GoFundMe to automatically donate to the desired organization. We are looking into having rewards that might involving professors similar to last year’s pie in the face.

We welcomed three new officers to the SCAN board this week. The two Freshman Representatives are Sara Raffel and Preston Roesslet, and the new Graduate Student Representative is Brandon Cohen.

We are planning a Virtual Trivia Night for our September Social Event via Kahoot. The current date for the Trivia Night will be on Thursday, September 24th at 7:00 pm. There will be both a meteorological knowledge and pop culture knowledge Kahoot. 

Our next general meeting is on October 6th at 6:30 pm. We will be having Bill Walsh speak about broadcast meteorology and his background in the military. He also won an Emmy for his reporting on Hurricane Hugo. Look out for an email from SCAN regarding the zoom link for the meeting closer to the end of the month.

Finally, as of the OWL/SCAN Joint meeting, we currently have 70 members in SCAN. There are 27 Freshman, 15 Sophomores, 14 Juniors, 9 Seniors, and 5 Graduate Students. However, we hope to have more people involved once we return to in-person general meetings which will hopefully occur in the Spring 2021 semester.

OWL had their time giving a background on who OWL is and what they do. They are primarily a forecasting group emphasizing the importance of forecasting and broadcasting.

OU SCAN provides a brief background into what we are. It is the student chapter of the AMS/NWA. We went over who is on the board and the three positions that are up for election today. Dues are currently $5 for the virtual semester. Bruce Pollock talked about the Outreach committee regarding things that they do and what the Weather Friends do/are.

We had Dr. Elizabeth Smith talk about her research and her path to her Ph.D. She grew up in rural West Virginia. She did her undergrad at California University in Pennsylvania, and all of her graduate experience was at the University of Oklahoma while working with Petra Klein. She went to CIMMS for a Postdoc and joined NSSL a few years later.

She discussed her experiences throughout her education such as dealing with imposter syndrome, burnout, and having to learn on your own. Once you hit graduate school, you not only have to deal with classes – which are more self-learning – and you have to learn to perform research on top of that. Undergraduate research can be very helpful in determining what you want to do later on in graduate school.

Elizabeth works with boundary layer measurements. While working with NSSL, she has been able to help with furthering research in boundary layer measurements to help improve the observational network and our understanding of the science. She discussed the VORTEX 1 and 2 projects and how they have impacted the weather community. She uses a mobile radar and lidar to take measurements of the boundary layer which is also co-located with a mobile mesonet truck and balloon launches to help sample the area in the data gap between the surface and 1000 meters.

She talked about TORUS and the research involved with the field campaign. This includes the delay of the TORUS 2020 field campaign into TORUS 2021. Elizabeth specifically is working with a lidar that in measuring wind observations associated with supercells. Thus, they ideally can see how the storm modifies the environment around it.

The elections will occur after the joint meeting and results will be posted after votes have been collected and counted.

August 25, 2020

The main takeaway from the August Officer meeting was discussing the SCAN/OWL Join Meeting that will be held on Tuesday, September 1st from 6-8 pm CDT. It will feature Elizabeth Smith who is going to talk about tornadoes/TORUS as well as her path to becoming a research scientist.

Furthermore, the SCAN section of the meeting will feature elections for two (2) Freshman Representatives and one (1) Graduate Representative. Nominations for the positions will be via the Zoom chat. We will then have them turn on the video to present speeches and then send out a google survey for them to fill out in order to vote. Dues will need to be paid in order to be eligible to vote. Dues will be $5 for the Fall semester. We are still working to have the capability to have dues paid virtually via Venmo or PayPal.

OU SCAN is also currently taking submissions for the LCAC photo contest. We are accepting submissions through September 15th, and the chapter will end up voting on their favorite to be our chapter’s submission.

The officers are currently planning a virtual social event for September. It will be a Kahoot style of trivia night with different opportunities to play and win. 

Plans are currently underway for the October and November General meetings. We are currently planning for the October General meeting to feature a broadcast meteorologist and the November General meeting to feature diversity in the SoM.

There were other talks about fundraising for different causes like the impacts from hurricane Laura or the wildfires in California and Colorado. Stay tuned for more information about how you can help.

July 7, 2020

All currently elected officers were present at the meeting. The meeting was characterized by a few main headlines for the next school year: how will scheduling work, chapter poster, how the budget looks, how to proceed with new merchandise, and possible speakers.

SCAN will operate in one of three different methods which are normal in-person meetings, limited meetings with zoom options, fully online options. One method will be chosen once guidance is provided from the University. Furthermore, when looking at speakers, the overarching themes included current research going on at OU, private sector meteorology, and broadcast meteorology. 

When discussing the budget, dues were discussed in reference to the three different options, and a discounted dues amount would be offered for zoom options. Exact prices have not been set at this time. While discussing the budget, merchandise was a large topic of the meeting and many ideas were thrown around. New T-shirt designs and other potential items were looked at. Potential fundraisers could be used to both sell merchandise and raise money for the chapter.

Another thing that we discussed was possible different social media ideas including throwback Thursday, research spotlights, alumni spotlights, etc. Furthermore, social media takeovers and highlighting member achievements are possible this upcoming year. Having a larger social media presence is important moving forward especially with potentially online options for meetings. Furthermore, updates to the website have been ongoing and are continuing.

Finally, new outreach opportunities were discussed. One idea was a severe weather guide that discusses a specific severe hazard that Oklahoma can experience (winter weather, severe weather, flash flooding, etc.). The idea could be uploaded to the SCAN website and be downloaded and printed out by people that want them.