National Symposium on the Great
Plains Tornado Outbreak of 3 May 1999
Call for Participation
On 3 May 1999, some of the most intense tornadoes ever observed tore through parts of the southern Great Plains, devastating metropolitan areas and nearly destroying entire communities. Despite the ferocity of the storms, the number of deaths was exceedingly low as a result of advanced storm detection and warning technology, effective information dissemination, and rapid response by public safety and emergency officials. The extensive body of information collected during and after the May 3 event affords a unique opportunity to study, in a single venue, all components of this significant natural disaster, including: research and operational meteorology, economic and societal impacts, public safety and emergency response, information dissemination by the media, and post-disaster relief and reconstruction. Consequently, the Oklahoma Weather Center, in collaboration with local, state, and federal agencies, is organizing a National Symposium on the Southern Great Plains Tornado Outbreak of 3 May 1999. The Symposium seeks to bring together the natural science, social science, policymaking, public safety, and information dissemination communities as a means for evaluating successes and failures on May 3, and for stimulating future interaction.
The Symposium will be held from 2-5 May 2000 in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and will be broadcast live on the Web. Oral and poster presentations will be supplemented by invited and keynote speakers, along with panel discussions and general-interest sessions. A special issue of an American Meteorological Society journal will be dedicated to selected papers in all topical areas resulting from presentations made at the Symposium. To facilitate research by the national community, the Oklahoma Weather Center has established a web site (caps.ou.edu/wx/info/3may99/) that contains most of the observational data, or links to them, collected during the May 3 event.
Persons wishing to present oral or poster presentations on topics directly related to the May 3 event should send a 200 word abstract to Prof. Kelvin Droegemeier, Conference Chairman, School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, 100 East Boyd, Suite 1310, Norman, Oklahoma, 73019 (kkd@ou.edu; phone 405-325-0453; fax 405-325-7614). Papers are especially encouraged from the social science, public safety, media, and engineering/construction science communities. The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 15 January 2000, and speakers will be notified of the disposition by 1 February 2000. The abstracts will be published on the Web and made available at the Symposium.
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