Retirement

[NOTE: I intended to post this soon after retiring, but actually got busy! With what, you ask? Preparing for a weeks-long trip to Thailand to visit my daughter and her husband, which was followed by arrangements for consulting work, then…storm-chase season, which was long and productive. A lot of crazy crap with DOGE, NOAA, NWS, and whipsawing episodes of hiring, firing, freezes, and unfreezes has happened since. More on all those later! Instead I’ll start catching up by posting something reasonably akin to what I would have in January, then dribble a host of new entries onto this here BLOG on occasion, from assorted topics I’ve written and saved. Weather or Not is far from dead, just like me. Indeed, it will live on, actively!]

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Much as I loved my jobs, career achievements, and so many people with whom I worked, thirty-five years of continual and full-time rotating shifts was more than enough. Even if they mostly weren’t apparent to others, the past few years I was starting to notice adverse effects on my physical well-being (nothing permanent, thank God), alertness while at work or driving, ability to focus, and overall temperament. This wasn’t a DOGE buyout, but a “natural” end-of-year retirement planned long before I knew the 2024 election results. I already had been eligible since the prior year, and I notified my supervisor of my intent the previous February. It was time.

On the last day of December, fittingly at the end of a “mid shift” (midnight to 8 a.m., my most common the last 15 years or so), I sent my last outlook, tidied up and collected the few belongings I still had left on my desk, and strolled out the back door of the Storm Prediction Center and the facility in which it is housed, the National Weather Center.

On the way out to the car, officially retiring at midnight that night as a lead forecaster, I turned around for one last look at Battlestar Norman as an employee, just as I had done the days I left my previous workplaces in federal meteorology: NSSL (1985-1989), NHC (1990-1993), NSSFC/SELS in Kansas City (1993-1996), and SPC’s first Norman location at the same old NSSL facility where I had worked before (1996-2006). Yes, geographically and in many other ways, my career had gone full circle and then some.

Then I stopped by a light pole to listen and watch one particular familiar mockingbird for a couple minutes. The feathery little chap perched up there singing his heart out in a wide variety of bird noises, pretty much every morning for over a decade, when the skies were fair and there wasn’t too much wind. This day he was offering farewells, without even realizing it. Then I drove home, slept, posted a commemorative Image of the Week the next day, flipped a switch, and began the last chapter of my life: retired.

With only a marginal severe potential that day in parts of the central Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic, and room to do so, I included a farewell statement and tribute at the end of the outlook discussion. It went like this:

That pretty much summarizes, the best I could in necessarily limited space, my sentiments about a career in forecasting and research that had succeeded beyond dreams. I started out in this business as an undergraduate research assistant at NSSL, by doing what’s impossible today: audaciously walking in the door as a first-semester freshman and asking for a job, finding there was one open, then interviewing for and getting it. World-class experts and pioneers in radar meteorology and scientific-research concepts in severe storms were right there in one small building, and I soaked up whatever I could from them over 4+ years: Don Burgess (my main supervisor that whole time), Chuck Doswell, Rodger Brown, John Lewis, Bob Maddox, Bob Davies-Jones, Dusan Zrnic, Doug Forsyth, and more. Even then, it was a dream to look at storm photos, movies and videos, and get paid to do so…in my role of managing and cataloguing the NSSL audiovisual media collection. I learned many storm-photography techniques from that, as well as from visitors like seasoned severe-storms meteorologists/chasers Al Moller and Chuck (before the latter came to NSSL from Boulder) in their quest for storm-spotter training materials.

It was even more a dream to be able to chase storms and get paid for it (the spring field programs, including TOTO my first spring there, DOPLIGHT-87, and the NEXRAD IOT&E2 testing my last full year of ’89, when I was team lead). I also got to meet people from outside the lab who became lifelong friends, such as Al from NWS Fort Worth, storm-chasing pioneer David Hoadley, wind engineer/meteorologist/chaser Tim Marshall, Florida-based hurricane and tornado chaser Jim Leonard, Vermont-based meteorologist/historian Tom Grazulis, and Virginia-based chaser/video collector Roy Britt, all of whom I met in person through Don, and each of whom I talked with for hours on the day we met.

After a few semesters in grad school, and after registering for a grad-student-level federal job managing the chase crews at NSSL, my federal-application meteorologist score (unknown to me) was the highest in the country for all applicants that cycle. That’s what NHC Deputy Director Jerry Jarrell later told me when he cold-called me in the fall of ’89 to offer me NHC’s first-ever entry-level meteorologist job, in what is now the Tropical Analysis and Forecast branch (TAFB) unit. Students, know this: You do not say no to a golden, dropped-from-the-heavens opportunity like that! It would influence me for life, personally, professionally and monumentally. I learned tropical meteorology from the best in the world at the time: Bob Sheets, Jerry, specialists like Max Mayfield, Richard Pasch, Lixion Avila, Hal Gerrish, Miles Lawrence, and Bob Case, grew in the profession with TAFB peers like Joel Cline, Al Sandrik, Sylvia Graff, Marie Trabert, and Barry Satchwell, supervisors Mark Zimmer and Ken Haydu, and made more lifelong friendships there and at the collocated Miami NWS forecast office.

I did the first official classification for the tropical depression that became Hurricane Andrew, not knowing that I would experience the real-time fury and aftermath of its category-5 rampage across southern Dade County. That was a once-in-career event for everyone there, a sobering and life-altering experience, and it happened my third year (see photo gallery). I also caught many fish on many days and nights from the waters of the Keys, Atlantic, Gulf, Everglades, and Lake Okeechobee, and even saw numerous waterspouts over Biscayne Bay and a tornado (wet landspout over the Glades) from the then-office in Coral Gables. In later years, in the role of tropical focal-point representative for SPC, I went back to Miami and NHC for many hurricane conferences, and got to know a lot of the folks who passed through since and are still there today.

In February 1993, while at WSR-88D training in Norman, an opening for a “SELS Assistant” at NSSFC-Kansas City was posted on the wall at the training facility. It stated specifically that the job was slated to be moved from Kansas City to Norman — the first announcement to do so at SELS. That of course appealed hugely to me, even if it meant leaving my love of hurricanes for my greater love of tornadoes. [I later would become a focal specialist and formally published expert in TC tornadoes, thereby serving both masters.] The application period expired while I still was to be in training, so I had my personnel materials FAXed to a nearby Kinkos from Miami, and filled out forms electronically for the first time (thanks to radar-training director Joe Kendall, who let me borrow his personal laptop for a weekend to fill out the application!). Somehow, in a pre-Internet era of snail mail and phone calls, it all went in timely and clean, and I got the job. This sent me to Kansas City within two months, much faster than the digital-era job applications of the NWS today.

At SELS, I was greeted by the friendly face of John Hart, who had been there a year already, who I knew from an NWS introductory training course, and with whom I already had chased with a couple times while on vacation. I was formally trained first by the late, great Bob Johns, then a veteran lead forecaster and later SPC SOO, who got frustrated that I was familiar with (and correctly guessing) all the case dates, along with what happened. It was the first time I’ve ever been told to keep my mouth shut throughout a training regimen. 🙂 Other lead forecasters of the time — Steve Weiss, the late Jack Hales, Larry Wilson, and Rich Anthony — were great guides to becoming a severe-storms forecaster, even as it truly came naturally to me. The job fit me like a glove, writing outlooks and later mesoscale discussions too, though I was ready to get away from a lot of the office backstabbing and sniping related to the impending SPC/AWC split, get to Norman, and get a fresh start there. Riding alongside this journey with me were several “Young Pups of SELS” OU hires who came after me (Rich Thompson, Mike Rehbein, Mark Darrow, Jeff Evans), as well as Brynn Kerr from Missouri, John Hart from Parks College, Jeff Craven from SJSU, and new leads Steve Corfidi, Mike Vescio and Joe Rogash, who replaced Bob (promoted to SOO), Rich A (MIC ILM transfer) and Larry (retirement). Steve and Jack also came down with us as seasoned leads, and would be mentor/advisors and friends for the rest of my career. Numerous other excellent forecasters and people passed through SPC during my time there — too many to name, but each positively influential in his or her own way.

Of course, Rich T was right there as best friend and fellow “Chump”; we counseled each other through struggles at work and home, first marriages and divorces, ups and downs of fatherhood, bad football and tough chases, old rubble and new beginnings. I presented research at all but two of the AMS Severe Local Storms Conferences during my 32 years in SPC. It would have been “all but one” SLS Conference, had then-Director Joe Schaefer not killed one verification-related paper I wrote with Steve Weiss, because it was analytically accurate, but gave unflattering results about local NWS warnings, and might “piss off the field.” So yes, I was exposed to the ugliest of scientific politics at SPC (Joe had done worse underhanded things to Chuck as his supervisor in Kansas City 20 years before, so I was forewarned), as well as the greatest of scientific minds otherwise. Eventually, as soon as Joe retired, I became lead forecaster (not a coincidence!)…the position I had when I retired. It was, as my last outlook alluded, an amazing run, more than I could have hoped. And I wasn’t about to give any of the bad and bureaucratic stuff (which in the big picture was a nuisance sideshow) permission to detract substantively from the overall grandeur and appreciation of the journey.

According to colleagues who did the research for my retirement bash in February, I had 39+ years in NOAA, and wrote 5,537 severe weather outlooks with more than 2.5 million words. I also published a record number of lead-authored formal papers while a full-time forecaster (10), along with many more conference papers, co-founded and edited a formal journal (EJSSM), and participated materially in numerous formal articles as a coauthor. Research was every bit as important as forecasting to me, as it set the stage for improvements in the predictive side of our science. Indeed, had I not been plucked out of grad school by the bolt-from-the-blue job offer at NHC, my general plan was to endure grad school through my Ph.D., as Chuck wanted, then work at NSSL. Obviously that notion shifted, but in a wonderful way, and I’ve no regrets.

Research-wise, I worked on supercell environments, as well as tornadoes, wind and hail each specifically, radar signatures, tropical-cyclone tornadoes, the career-defining 3 May 1999 tornado outbreak (which Rich T and I also chased), damage assessment, large-venue preparedness, observationally based storm characteristics such as satellite tornadoes, and of course, gave time, talks and imagery to storm-spotter training efforts nationwide (SPC Publications Page, which I managed), and developed and maintained the first, largest and longest-standing F.A.Q. on tornadoes. All of this, while being the breadwinner for a household I loved dearly, and getting in as much storm observing as possible. Somehow, though it almost certainly delayed my promotion to lead forecaster for several years, I remained unapologetically idealistic, outspoken and opinionated (Chuck’s influence, and my nature anyway!) in suggestions for improvement, stood up for the frontline forecasters and IT folks against the bureaucracy as occasional NWSEO union steward, and represented SPC at a couple European conferences and testbeds.

My retirement celebration in February was surprisingly well-attended! A lot of folks showed up on a cold evening at Battlestar Norman to commemorate my career and send me off into retirement with warm wishes. Friends and colleagues in the science traveled from as far as Ohio (Jana Houser), Connecticut (Steve Weiss), Buffalo (Mark Yoder), and L.A. (Ariel Cohen). I appreciate everyone who was there, including great mentors like Don Burgess, Rodger Brown and Steve, many last-day coworkers who were there, best friend/colleague Rich Thompson and the rest of the SPC crew who organized it, my ever-eloquent son David Edwards for his heartfelt speech (proud of son!), and of course my wonderful bride Elke Edwards for all her quiet yet steadfast and loving support over the years. We remembered those no longer with us, such as my parents, as well as Jack Hales, Chuck Doswell, Al Moller, and Les Lemon, who were such huge influences on me as a scientist and person, and SELS leads Don Baker and Larry Wilson, who couldn’t be there but gave me well-wishes in person the previous week when (non-contagious but still fighting off a secondary sinus infection from a short bout of covid in Thailand) I spoke at the Storm Chaser Summit in Kansas City, and my daughter Donna in Thailand.

I’m retired from rotating shift work, but not meteorology, and most certainly not storm observing. We’ve already got a new LLC spun up and rotating cyclonically (Supercell Scientific and Consulting…web page coming sometime after chase season, since I have my priorities!). I will be doing a lot of chasing, some part-time forensic work with Tim Coleman and WeatherBell, tour stints with Tempest Tours, as well as research projects (hopefully including field work in future years), as well as journal reviews/editing, and helping others’ research projects. Then there are “honey do” projects around the house and yard, and of course fishing. Retired life will be fulfilling and not boring at all.

Thank you to all who have been a part of this amazing experience in severe-storms meteorology, and I hope and pray there’s a lot more to come.

If you stop by Battlestar Norman around 8 a.m., and park in the western guest lot near the north entrance, you may still hear and/or see that energetic mockingbird atop a light pole by the sandstone boulders, emphatically belting out a lively repertoire of tunes collected from the area’s other songbirds. Tip your hat or chirp a greeting at the little guy for me, in thanks for keeping me company on many an early-morning walk to the car over the years.