I’m back from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) meeting in cold and occasionally icy San Antonio. This is a conference that professional broadcast meteorologists attend. This year the broadcast folks had the opportunity to visit with other AMS sanctioned groups that gave us additional insight into the science of weather, forecasting, technology and current hot topics such as global warming.  In addition to getting the latest from other weathercasters from around the country and the world for that matter, it was quite interesting sitting in on the more hard-core weather presentations, particularly the climate group.Â
The global warming debate is no longer considered a debate amongst most climatologists, but there continues to be a number of meteorologists that argue about the processes/trends that we are observing, and the forecast for the future…I am not an expert on this subject and I will be politically correct in this blog, but I have to comment that it appears politics itself has become one of the driving forces within the science community. I also find it very interesting that billions and billions of dollars will be spent on greenhouse gas reduction in the years to come, but we as a weather community cannot tell you how much it will help, and whether we will be able to make a significant impact on the ongoing warming trend. Certainly we need to be a better steward to the environment. Pragmatically, I’m still waiting to hear from folks who will be telling us how we may need to adapt as a species to a warmer world…I’ll stop now.Â
Weather-wise, an “El Nino†enhanced sub-tropical jet stream will continue to rule the roost over the next several days with overcast skies and sub-normal temperatures to continue. Our on and off rain pattern will also continue with enhanced rain chances likely by Wednesday. Drier conditions and some sun are expected for Thursday and Friday, sub-tropical jet permitting!     Â