To kick off our 22nd conference, we are bringing in some very special invited speakers:

• Bill Read, Texas A&M University, Galveston and former Director of the National Hurricane Center, will discuss Hurricane Harvey in Houston area.
• Patrick Marsh (Storm Prediction Center) will cover latest happenings at SPC, and look back at 2017 severe weather.
• Julie Demuth (National Center for Atmospheric Research) will talk about the public reaction to warnings, and use of social media to convey hazardous weather information.
• Erik Rasmussen (NSSL/CIMMS) will discuss the theories and processes regarding tornadogenesis.
• Josh Wurman (Center for Severe Weather Research) will give the banquet talk entitled "There's more to life than Tornadoes: Keeping busy with Hurricanes, MCSs in the northern and southern hemispheres, Eclipses, Fires, Snowstorms, Boundary Layers, Typhoons, and a COW (our newest radar).....and tornadoes too."
• Chris Luhring (Parkersburg City Administrator, former Police Chief) will look back on the 10th anniversary of the Parkersburg EF5 tornado and discuss how the city has recovered.
• L.D. McMullen, former direction of Des Moines Waterworks, as part of a look back at the Great Midwestern Floods of 1993