Our Week 4 forecasters were not deterred by bleak prospects for organized severe weather.  Instead, they arrived ready to tackle archive events and whatever pockets of real-time opportunity present themselves.  With four projects in the HWT this year, the task of training is quite lengthy, and it was an accomplishment to push through all of the training on the first day.  We have a very inquisitive and well-read group this week; they asked many questions during the training, often citing references.  They seemed to take in all of this material eagerly.  Although I heard no negative comments, I wonder as a coordinator, if it might be information overload to push through all 4 programs in one day.  I might have preferred to have a Day 1 IOP, and complete the training necessary for that IOP, while saving half of the training for Day 2.  In our case, though, we are now well versed, and the team of Mike and Rob have completed a PAR archive case; Les and Matthew are paused in the middle of a CASA archive case, ready to resume Tuesday afternoon.  We also hope to run an IOP for Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor research in the northern Rockies.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)