The third meeting of the 2003-2004 academic year for the Memphis, TN chapter of the American Meteorological Society took place at 7:00PM on Tuesday, January 20, 2004 in the Agricenter Board Room at Agricenter International. There were about fifteen people in attendance.

The evening started with President Erik Proseus welcoming members and guests. The business portion of the meeting started off with a report on the 3rd annual Southeast Severe Storms Symposium that Mississippi State University hosted the week before. There were a number of local meteorologists that presented papers at the meeting and the general impression was that the conference was of high quality, living up to previous year's sessions, and the attendees look forward to next year's event.

There was also discussion of the Aviation Workshop that the Memphis NWS will be putting on at the Memphis Shelby County Central Library on March 13th, as well as the Shelby County Regional Spotters Workshop on April 10th. Finally, there was a call for volunteers to judge at the Memphis/Shelby County and West Tennessee Regional science fairs in March and April, respectively.

Future meeting topics were discussed, including the July 22, 2003 Memphis Derecho dubbed "Hurricane Elvis", which will be presented at the March 2004 meeting.

Following the business meeting the 2003-2004 yearly dues of $10.00 were collected from 4 members.

The guest speakers for the evening were Jon Howell, NWS Meteorologist Intern, Dan Valle, NWS Journeyman Forecaster, and Eddie Holmes, Meteorologist, formerly at WBBJ-TV, Jackson, TN, with the topic "Case Studies of Mid-South Severe Weather in May 2003."

Mr. Howell started off the presentation with an overview of the impressiveness of the event. A record for the most warnings issued in a short time period (May 4-11) since the April 3-4, 1974 historical "Super Outbreak." There were 40 confirmed tornadoes across the Memphis CWA (County Warning Area). The Memphis NWS averaged one warning every 2 1/2 minutes for a 6 hour time period on May 4th with an average lead time of almost 20 minutes. Two of the tornados were rated F3 with the Jackson, TN tornado rated F4. Tragically, the Jackson vicinity recorded 11 fatalities. On this day, two tornados struck Jackson with the F4 tornado going through the heart of the city. It had a 36 mile long path that was up to 1/2 mile wide. As the F4 devastated downtown Jackson, an F3 tornado was also on the ground only 5 miles away. Its path was 22 miles long and also up to 1/2 mile wide, but it dissipated before it reached the major population center of Jackson.

Mr. Howell discussed the synoptic environment that lead to this event highlighting the 65-75-knot low level jet and a 120-knot jet streak. He also pointed out some interesting and possibly critical elements to the event with an extensive amount of radar images that showed an area of horizontal vorticity occurring in a mesoscale boundary layer laying west to east across the paths where these tornadoes eventually formed and touched down.

Mr. Holmes then showed the live television event as it was broadcast to the residents in Jackson. As the television station was in the path of the tornado, it was encouraging to see the station personnel taking cover while the dedicated meteorologist continued to talk as you hear baseball sized hail hitting the roof of the building.

Mr. Valle then talked about the northeast Arkansas Bow Echo event of May 16, 2003. He presented the synoptic scale features for the day and how an old mesocyclone that was weakening gave birth to the mesocyclone that lead to the event. He showed detailed radar images and how the rear inflow jet and the bounded weak echo region significantly increased as it moved into northeast Arkansas, causing extensive damage but thankfully no fatalities.

We wish to thank Jon, Dan and Eddie for their excellent presentations and hope the research that is ongoing will continue to improve the accuracy and timeliness of warnings across the Mid-South.

Respectfully Submitted,
Michael Wroten, Secretary/Treasurer