Contact: Robbie S. Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--As recent tornadoes devastated parts of the South, Mississippi State broadcast meteorology graduate student Ryan L. Stinnett was tracking those very weather systems during a final round of an international forecasting competition.
For the Alabama resident--who went on to win place first in a three-week-long challenge--the killer tornadoes were much more than meteorological data and computer models. The weather got personal as the models showed twisters likely to appear in his hometown.
His parents and other family members live near Birmingham in Jefferson County and this wasn't the first time he personally had to deal with the effects of powerful tornadoes. As a freshman in Oak Grove High School in Bessemer, his school was hit by an F5 tornado, the highest and most destructive level in National Weather Service ratings.
This year, he was one of hundreds of participants in the WxChallenge, an annual weather forecasting contest open to North American students and professionals. For the third consecutive year, Mississippi State's forecasting team won the championship.
Beyond the team's honor, Stinnett was among 64 top student participants advancing to an extended round of the competition.
Doug Gillham, MSU's faculty adviser for the forecasting team, said Stinnett's win "puts an exclamation point on the entire season."
Having tracked the dangerous weather system for days before the clouds turned destructive, Stinnett said he knew the recent fast-moving front would cause damage. Ultimately, what became one of the largest single-system tornado outbreaks in U.S. history left many millions of dollars in damage and more than 200 deaths in Alabama and thirty in Mississippi alone.
"It gave me a reality check," he said, adding that while his parents made it safely, several friends lost all their possessions.
Having received an MSU master's degree earlier this month, Stinnett now is making plans for a career in television weather forecasting.
He said his meteorological studies have taught him the value of accurate and timely forecasts. He also has learned the importance of keeping abreast of multiple weather events as they simultaneously develop, since conditions within them can become dangerous within seconds.
"You want an accurate forecast and to convey it to as many people as possible," he said. "Hopefully, it will help them get out of harm's way."
He readily admits to a lifelong fascination with the weather--an interest that has done much to make his life more interesting.
"We'll never fully understand the weather, but we learn something new every year," he observed.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.