WeatherBrains 198: The Marshall Joins Us
WeatherBrains Episode 198 is now online (Nov. 9, 2009). If you are crazy about weather, this is THE netcast audio program for you!
wb110909.mp3Our special guest for this episode is Tim Marshall. Tim was born in Evergreen Park near Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Oak Lawn, then in Oak Brook. Oak Lawn was heavily damaged during the historic Belvidere-Oak Lawn tornado outbreak of April 21, 1967 when he was 11 years old. In fact, the F4 “Oak Lawn tornado” touched down about four miles west of his family’s home and killed 33 in town, including some of his classmates. Already interested in meteorology, this experience only strengthened it and focused his studies on tornadoes.
Tim attended Northern Illinois University at DeKalb, attaining a B.S. degree majoring in meteorology in 1978. As an undergraduate student there, he and classmates surveyed some tornado damage paths of the 1974 Super Outbreak during informal travels to the National Climatic Data Center to collect severe weather data. Marshall went to Texas for graduate school, seeing his first tornado a few hours after entering the state. In 1978, he began storm chasing in west Texas and Oklahoma. Tim met his future wife, Kay, at a concert. In 1980, he earned a M.S. degree majoring in atmospheric sciences from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, then went on to earn an M.S. degree in civil engineering from the same university. There, Tim worked part time at the Institute for Disaster Research where he began surveying tornado and hurricane damage. His first official tornado damage survey was in Grand Island, Nebraska, in 1980 and his first hurricane damage survey was Hurricane Allen in south Texas later that same year.
In 1983, he was hired by the leading Texas firm, Haag Engineering. At Haag, Marshall travels surveying storm damage across the United States. He has conducted more than 100 damage surveys since 1983 of hailstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Some of the more notable tornadoes he has surveyed include the F5’s at Jarrell, TX (1997), Birmingham, AL (1998), Bridge Creek, OK (1999), and Greensburg, KS (2007). Some of the hurricanes he has surveyed include Alicia in Texas (1983), Hugo in South Carolina (1989), Andrew in Florida (1992), Opal in Florida (1995), Katrina in Mississippi (2005), and Ike in Texas (2008).
Marshall still finds time to pursue his hobby as a storm chaser. During the past 30 years, Tim has filmed more than 200 tornadoes and experienced 17 hurricanes. In 2004, he rode out Hurricane Ivan in Pensacola, Florida and, in 2005, Tim rode out Hurricane Katrina in Slidell, Louisiana. In 2008, Tim saw Hurricane Ike on Galveston Island. Tim has appeared on dozens of television programs including those on The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, National Geographic, and The History Channel. He has been on The Oprah Winfrey Show twice.
Marshall was selected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to serve on their Quick Response Team where he has surveyed tornado damage in Alabama and Georgia in 1994, Nashville, Tennessee in 1998, and La Plata, Maryland in 2002. Tim was also on the development team of the Fujita Scale Enhancement Project which produced an Enhanced Fujita Scale to update the original Fujita scale of tornado intensity. He has been a principle trainer in damage surveys for the National Weather Service. In 2006, Tim was elected to serve on the Severe Local Storms committee for the American Meteorological Society. In 2009, Tim was part of the government sponsored VORTEX2 experiment. His job was to deploy pods in the paths of tornadoes.
Joining us from Foley, AL, we also have Dustin Phillips, chief meteorologist/engineer with the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH), who is with the UAH mobile Doppler observing Tropical Storm Ida as she comes ashore near Gulf Shores, AL.
Other discussions in this weekly podcast include topics like:
For the second week in a row, our email officer is AWOL. So James Spann fills in with a few of our emails from Brad in Oklahoma,
From The Weather Center:
WeatherBrains 101: Last week James Spann started the show talking about the upcoming blue moon. So what is a blue moon and does it have any meteorological properties. That’s the topic for this week’s 101.
TWIWH: Bill Murray looks back at the week of November 9th. This week includes one of the largest shipping disasters due to weather on the Great Lakes.
Listener Surveys: Okay, we continue to drive this topic into the ground, but we really do like to hear from you. Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to fill out the Listener Survey. The survey takes just a minute or two to complete and provides us with an opportunity to learn where you are and hear your thoughts and comments on the show. Click here to take the survey.
Web Sites from Episode 198:
Tim Marshall’s profile at Haag Engineering
Picks of the Week:
Dr. Tim Coleman – UAH Data on TS Ida
JB Elliott – No Pick (horn blows)
Bill Murray – Roger Hill’s new book
Brian Peters – Hurricane Hunter view of Ike
James Spann – Sea Surface Temperature Contours
Join James Spann, JB Elliott, Dr. Tim Coleman, Bill Murray, and Brian Peters as they come together for another fascinating netcast about the weather.
We love to hear from you! To leave a recorded message, call 1-888-247-8627. Some calls may be used in future episodes. Also, feel free to post comments to the site and drop us an email at email at (at symbol) weatherbrains dot com.
