Black Hills American Meteorological Society Local Chapter

Black Hills AMS

Click here or the logo above for a weather briefing for the region

 

The Black Hills Chapter of the American Meteorological society will be having a photo and video contest this spring! Here are the rules for the contest:

Submission rules: - Up to 10 photos and/or up to one minute of video - Image media: prints, slides or digital files (tif or jpg only) - Video media: miniDV tape, VHS tape or DVD (no High Definition video) - Digital image files can be sent to John Wetenkamp at kb9umx@yahoo.com - Other media can be sent to John Wetenkamp at 4111 Winfield St #1, Rapid City, SD 57701. - Please label all media with name, description and contact information - Deadline for submission is 11:00 pm, 4/18/08 - Must be a Black Hills AMS member (dues paid) to enter Photos and videos will be shown at the chapter meeting to be held the last full week of April. Date and time to be determined. Best Photo and Best Video, as voted on by the members present, will each receive a "weather-related" prize. If you have any questions please feel free to contact John Wetenkamp or one of the other AMS officers. Thank you and Good Luck!

We had our last AMS meeting at Godfathers Pizza at noon on Tuesday, February 26.

Dr. Matthew Bunkers (Science and Operations Officer at the Rapid City National Weather Service Office) gave a presentation on "Identifying Large Mid Level Updrafts with Spectrum Width".

We had a Black Hills AMS meeting on Monday December 3rd at Godfather's Pizza in Rapid City.

Randy Photo

Lunch Buffet was available for purchase. We started at 11:30 AM. Local Pilot Randy Roth gave a presentation on Soaring Weather. Here is an outline of his presentation: Subject ... Soaring Weather 1. Sailplanes .. A. always descending. B. Need rising air to fly. 2. Types of Lift ... A. Thermal. B. Ridge. C. Wave. D. Orthographic. 3. How types of lift are generated in the atmosphere. A. Thermals .. Temperatures, Thermal Index and Lifted Index. B. Ridge ... Wind direction and velocity required, where to fly on the ridge. C. Wave ... How it is formed, weather needed for good lift, lenticular clouds. D. Orthographic ... lift due to frontal phenomenon/interaction. 4. State, National and World soaring records. 5. Conclusion with question and answer period. If you have any questions please feel free to drop me an e-mail. We collected dues, $5 ($3 for students). Becoming a local member allows you to vote for our contests and for our annual officer’s election. It also helps fund Black Hills AMS events, webpage, and prizes for contents winners. The address for Godfather's Pizza is: 110 N Cambell St Rapid City, SD 57701 (605) 342-0212. John Wetenkamp, Black Hills AMS President.

We had our annual Black Hills Chapter of the American Meteorological Society Picnic at Canyon Lake on Thursday, August 30th.

 

Dr. Walt Lyons presented, "The Hundred Year Hunt for the Red Sprite" on Friday, 4/27/07, 700 pm at the Journey Museum.

We also had an election, with John Wetenkamp being elected the President, Kevin Cooper the VP, Shawn Jacobs the Treasurer, and Tom Warner the Secretary.

The Black Hills Chapter of the American Meteorological Society held a photo contest at Godfathers Pizza on Wednesday, 2/7/07 from 1100 am to 1230 pm.

Matt Bunkers won for best video, with Eric Kurth winning for best photo. Thanks to everyone who submitted photos and videos!.

We had a meeting of the Black Hills Chapter of the American Meteorological Society on Tuesday, December 5th.

The meeting was held at the American University Auditorium. Dr. Paul Smith spoke on the scientific contributions/advances made by operation of the T-28 Storm Penetrating Aircraft.

Click here for Paul Smith's PowerPoint presentation.


A meeting was held on Wednesday, September 27th, at Godfathers Pizza.

Our speaker was Randall Benson, South Dakota State Fire Meteorologist. He gave a presentation on fire meteorology. There were 22 people in attendance. Randall’s presentation is available on the link below.

Click here for the meeting agenda.   Click here for Randall's PowerPoint presentation.

Dues are being collected this fall, $5 for regular members and $3 for students. These dues will be used for volunteer efforts this fall, for prizes for an upcoming photo contest, and potentially for out of state speaker expenses. If you missed the last meeting, please mail a check for $5 ($3 for students) payable to the AMS Black Hills Chapter, addressed to Rapid City NWS, c/o Eric Kurth, 300 E. Signal Dr., Rapid City, SD 57701. Include your street address and your e-mail address.

We had our summer picnic on Sunday, July 23rd, 2006.

Our picnic took place at Canyon Lake Park and was well attended

Picnic Photo 2

Picnic Photo 1

We continue to solicit members interested in helping to setup a weather station at the YMCA Arts & Science Center.  We are also seeking members interested in forming a committee to consider a Weather Day event sometime in spring.

Our spring meeting was held at Godfathers Pizza on May 5th, 2006 at 11:30 am.

Matt Bunkers Photo

Matt Bunkers, the Science Operations Officer at the Rapid City NWS, gave a very interesting talk on “Forecasting Thunderstorms and Severe Weather.” Matt used his considerable experience and insight on severe weather to describe the process of predicting the location and nature of severe storms. Please see the PowerPoint which Matt presented if you missed it or would like to review it again.

We held elections for the Black Hills American Meteorological Society Local Chapter at the meeting, using a show of hands. The results are as follows: Tom Warner is our new President, Kevin Cooper is our new Vice President, John Wetenkamp is our new Secretary, and Eric Kurth is the returning Treasurer, and will also continue as the Webmaster for this site.

An earlier meeting was held at the Rapid City National Weather Service Office on February 8th,, 2006.

The meeting covered the use of the Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS). IFPS is National Weather Service software which uses a graphical interface to produce text based forecast products. It also inputs to a digital database from which a wide range of graphical and digital forecast products can be generated. National Weather Service forecasters Jeffrey Johnson and Melissa Smith did an excellent presentation explaining IFPS in detail. Pizza was served for lunch.

Map to get to Rapid City NWS

 

A meeting was held at Godfathers Pizza on November 17, 2005.

 

Professor Andrew Detweiler represented the SDSM&T Meteorology faculty, giving a summary of current research activities of the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences (IAS). If you missed the presentation, you can see what they are working on by looking at the meeting summary, by viewing the PowerPoint presentation and by going to the IAS link: http://www.ias.sdsmt.edu/

 

Annual dues were collected for membership in the Black Hills Chapter of the AMS at the last meeting. If you missed the meeting, please mail a check for $5 ($3 for students) payable to the AMS Black Hills Chapter, addressed to Rapid City NWS, c/o Eric Kurth, 300 E. Signal Dr., Rapid City, SD 57701. Include your street address and your e-mail address.

Information on the next Chapter meeting will be provided on this site when available.

A brief history of the Black Hills Chapter of the AMS is being compiled. If you can provide any information on earlier years of the Chapter, please e-mail one of the contacts provided below. A list of officers from the 1960's and 1970's is at the bottom of this page.

Link to Chapter information and contacts

Latest Chapter meeting summaries at AMS page (all chapters reporting listed)

Chapter Logo

Officers List

President John Wetenkamp at John Wetenkamp@noaa.gov, Webmaster Eric Kurth at Eric.Kurth@noaa.gov, Secretary Tom Warner at tom@warnerimages.com