Bill Read to retire as director of the National Hurricane Center
Bill Read, the director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) since 2008, announced Saturday that he will be retiring on June 1, ending four and one-half years as the nation's most visible meteorologist. Read took the post of NHC director after Bill Proenza stepped down following a stormy six-month tenure where much of staff revolted against him. In the wake of the turmoil stirred up by Proenza, Read brought stability to the Hurricane Center. Conversations I've had with staff at NHC indicated that Read was an excellent manager of people, and was well-respected among his employees. His management ability, easy-going style, and solid communication skills made Read an excellent choice for director of NHC, and he will be missed. “I will have been in charge just shy of four and a half years on June 1,” Read wrote in a letter to hurricane center staff . “I had no idea I would ever be considered for such an honor. It’s been quite a ride and I’m blessed to hit the exit ramp in my career after working with you all.”
Previously, Read served as director of Houston's National Weather Service office, a post he took in 1992. Read was called in to work at NHC three times between 1992 and 2005 to help out with hurricane emergencies. Prior to his job in Houston, Read served in the U.S. Navy, where his duties included an assignment as an on-board meteorologist with the Hurricane Hunters. He began his career in 1977 with the National Weather Service test and evaluation division in Sterling, VA.
Figure 1. Bill Read at the National Hurricane Center forecast desk. Image credit: NOAA.
National Hurricane Center Directors:
Gordon Dunn, 1965 - 1967
Robert Simpson, 1967 - 1973
Neil Frank, 1973 - 1987
Bob Sheets, 1987 - 1995
Robert Burpee, 1995 - 1997
Jerry Jarrell, 1998 - 2000
Max Mayfield, 2000 - 2007
Bill Proenza, January - July, 2007
Ed Rappaport (interim), July 2007 - January 2008
Bill Read, 2008 - 2012
Who will the next director of NHC be?
The retirement of Bill Read means that a search for NHC's eleventh director must be complete before hurricane season arrives. While I haven't had time to ask them if they are interested, here are four candidates who would make excellent directors of NHC:
Dr. Ed Rappaport, Deputy Director of NHC since 2000. Dr. Rappaport served as interim director of NHC during the hurricane season of 2007, and did a great job. He did not want to be the permanent director, though, and it is uncertain if would want the position now. In a Q and A interview posted on the NHC web site last year, Dr. Rappaport said, "The responsibilities are immense and, to date, the circumstances have not been right for me to be the director full time. But I will consider it the next time the opportunity arises. For such a critical position, one which has such important responsibilities, great visibility, many challenges and the long periods of travel, everything has to be aligned right within your professional and personal life to make the commitment that is required to do the job well." I have to believe that if he wants the job, the next director of NHC will be Ed Rappaport.
James Franklin, Branch Chief of the NHC Hurricane Specialists Unit. Since 2008, Franklin has been responsible for the quality of hurricane forecasts coming out of NHC, a tough, high-pressure job that he has handled remarkably well. Before arriving at NHC, Mr. Franklin worked as a hurricane research scientist for NOAA's Hurricane Research Division.
Dr. Chris Landsea, NHC Science and Operations Officer since 2005. Between 1995 - 2004, Dr. Landsea worked as a hurricane research scientist for NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. Dr. Landsea has testified in front of Congress several times on the issue of hurricanes and global warming, and has excellent public communication skills.
Dr. Rick Knabb, tropical weather expert for the Weather Channel. Dr. Knabb served as a senior hurricane specialist at NHC from 2005 - 2008, then took a position as deputy director and director of operations of the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) and NWS Forecast Office in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 2010, he joined the Weather Channel.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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"It only takes $34,000 per person [per year] to be amid the richest 1% of people in the world." Some1Has2BtheRookie "Hey! I finally made it to the top 1%, after you add in another 6.5 billion other poor people. sigh"
539 hydrus "Good morning Rook..Do you have a link to the top 1% stuff. It is interesting."
487 bappit quoting "Americans make up half of the world's richest 1%"
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This winter SUCKS.
I want snow!
In the 10-day forecast calls for temps to go up and not down..rain is the only thing we are going to get..
Show me what you got winter!
You can have all the snow, if you will send me a big, strong, BOW ECHO. I would love to watch some thunderstorms :D
I only want rain if it's a thunderstorm.
I only want cold air if it brings snow.
That's how I want it to be like..but noooo..mother nature has to be weird.
Doesn't look like it's going to happen this year. We're going to be warming up here soon and it doesn't look the weather pattern is going to change. :P
Not much help coming this weekend, anyway; here are three maps of forecast temp anomalies for January 20-22 (from HAMweather.com):
We've heard lots of talk of 1816, the "Year Without a Summer"; at this rate, 2011-2012 may go down as the "Year Without a Winter". ;-)
8'( no snow??? D: D: D:
Rainy season if you're lucky. And a drought if you're not.
A Spring & Summer with high heat and drought across much of the Country. Very worried about the severity of the drought developing across the Midwest as farmers depend on that snow melt. Very serious and this will have HUGE implication on the crops this summer.
hey uh washingtonian...could you please try and keep the language to a minimum?
A good winter to me lol. Well actually..i want some snow, but no accumilations. That could mess with the roads and injure people.
73 here in Orlando! Going to near 80 the rest of the week but we need rain bad as wildfires are starting to become a problem and it's not in April or May.
Mossyhead~ Hendersonville is very near my other farm in Mills River. When it's been cool here at all, many times ya'll have been just a few degrees warmer. I can hardly imagine the temps your taking about for up there in January. Makes me want to head on up.
Its impact was so powerful that the U.S. Weather Bureau took the extraordinary step of giving it a name: "The Great Atlantic Storm." It is also known as "Five High Storm" because it lingered off the Atlantic Coast of the northeast United States over a period of five high tides. However, because the heaviest damages occurred in most areas on Wednesday, March 7, which was the Christian holiday of Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent that year, it has become most popularly well-known as the "Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962."
Perhaps a fitting memorial to what was lost in the storm is Assateague Island National Seashore, a unit of the National Park Service. In the 1950s, some 5,000 private lots comprising what is now National Park Service land were zoned and sold for resort development. The Ash Wednesday Storm halted the plans for development, as it destroyed the few existing structures on the island and ripped roads apart. Instead, in 1965, Assateague Island became a National Seashore.
58 in Litchfield, 64 in StL. Is it already late Feb.?
One inch Saturday night, melted Sunday, dusting this morning. Temps should be in the 50s by midweek. Brief but fun.
So far, so good
So far, so good
So far, so good
So far, so good
So far, so good
So far, so good
In case anyone is wondering, this what the occupants of the Sears Tower heard the guy that fell from the top say as he he went by them.
Agree, sorry to hear he's leaving, Bill Read has been a fine director at the NHC!
I think the concerns Ed Rappaport pointed out might be echoed by most candidates for the job... Reminds me of what an old friend of mine once said in describing his job as a marine division chief biologist with the LDWF (now retired) - "Love my work, just never imagined how much politics would overrule my duties as a biologist!"
G'day!
Agree 10000%. This is extremely unusual having this little snow in a winter, and unless we get some soon this may go into he record books....
Japanese government’s official statement is that those vegetables forgot to smile when they were irradiated.
More pics here..
The way it is now:
And note the scale is logarithmic, not linear, so the situation is actually worse than it looks. That is, rather than widespread areas with > 3' of snow water equivalence, few areas have even 10% of that--and many others have even less.
Water managers claim that California will still be okay, as reservoirs are still full. But it still seems there's going to be a price to pay somewhere down the road for such an overwhelming lack of snowpack.
somehow....either I missed this...or you're kidding...and I suspect you're not kidding...
I posted The Reader's Digest version of, "so far, so good".
About the 1%, I was responding to post #487 on the previous blog. (bappit)
3,500 years. Gone. Bummer...
Only a glimpse of what's to come
Just read the story and it says that arson WAS the culprit. It just disgusts me to no end that somebody actually, intentionally did this. What is wrong with people. I mean, my God, what is WRONG with people!!
I have a fascinating answer to that question, but unfortunately this blog is too small to contain to it.
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