Rob was nice enough to allow me to go to the Bahamas Weather Conference this year in his place and the experience was excellent. For the twelth year in a row, meteorologists discussed the upcoming hurricane season and lessons learned from the past. You may ask, why the Bahamas??? Well, it started with the ministry of tourism wanting to educate American meteorologists about their geography. We greatly impact whether or not people vacation there and if we say there is a hurricane headed toward the Bahamas, people may cancel their plans to visit there. They wanted us to know that there are over 700 islands of the Bahamas and we should specify which part may be impacted by an approaching hurricane. Tourism accounts for most of their economy and if we are not informed of their geography, we decrease their tourism. I really learned a lot about the Bahamas and got a chance to meet some very interesting people.
The main topics up for discussion were the upcoming hurricane season and how to present the forecast to the public, the possibility of a hurricane hitting New York City, building codes, hurricane computer models, and of course global warming and it’s potential impacts on hurricanes. You can even watch videos which summarize the conference on their website. http://www.bahamaswxconference.com/