Forecasters Forum
The journal Weather and Forecasting (a sister journal to Monthly Weather Review, the journal for which I serve as Chief Editor) has a department called Forecasters Forum. It is a department allowing anyone (not just forecasters) to hold “discussions of forecasting problems and solutions” (Burpee and Snellman 1986). In a Forecasters Forum article, authors are allowed a little more license to speculate, pontificate, or express an opinion. Forecasters Forum articles are meant to inspire, instigate, or provoke the audience. Such articles might be considered an informed editorial or opinion piece that has science to support it. Although existing since the start of Weather and Forecasting in 1986, only 25 Forecaster Forum pieces have been published to date. I believe that this is a medium that could be better exploited to encourage more forecasters to publish.
Harold Brooks, former co-chief editor of Weather and Forecasting, said that a good Forecasters Forum article is an informed editorial or opinion piece that has science to back it up. Alternatively, such articles could offer the perspective of dangers of something happening now or a warning that the community is missing a big opportunity. Forecaster Forum article might be written by a senior person who has the ability to take a larger perspective on the field based on their experiences.
Forecasters Forum articles can come in a variety of formats for a variety of different purposes. For example, the Forecasters Forum by Vescio and Thompson (2001) reported on results of a forecast experiment that laid the ground work for the eventual probabilistic forecasts from the Storm Prediction Center. Bosart (2003) lamented the decline of manual surface analysis in an increasingly automated world. This one-page article had no references and got right to the point. In contrast, Banacos and Schultz (2005) provided a thorough literature search and urged readers to abandon moisture flux convergence (MFC) as a tool for forecasting convective storms. Brennan et al. (2008) illustrated the operational use of potential vorticity nonconservation.
If you have something to say, why not say it in a Forecasters Forum?
REFERENCES
Banacos and Schultz (2005): The Use of Moisture Flux Convergence in Forecasting Convective Initiation: Historical and Operational Perspectives.
Bosart (2003): Whither the Weather Analysis and Forecasting Process.
Brennan et al. (2008): Potential Vorticity (PV) Thinking in Operations: The Utility of Nonconservation.
Burpee and Snellman (1986): Editorial.
Vescio and Thompson (2001): Subjective Tornado Probability Forecasts in Severe Weather Watches
