As many in the Unidata community are aware, on January 14, 2015 the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) began producing Global Forecast System (GFS) model output with 0.25-degree resolution for use in weather forecasting operations. This output is now available to be added to the Unidata Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system's CONDUIT data stream. So where is it?

The National Flood Interoperability Experiment (NFIE) is a project sponsored by the National Weather Service, the University of Alabama, and the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUASHI) to help build a new high resolution, near real-time hydrologic simulation and forecasting model for the United States. The University of Alabama and the recently opened National Water Center (located on the Tuscaloosa campus of the University of Alabama) will be hosting a seven-week Summer Institute associated with the NFIE in June and July 2015.

A series of free webinars describing the NFIE program structure and the information and modeling sources available, as well as potential lines of research that could be pursued through the NFIE training program, are being held in the winter and spring of 2015. The next webinar will be held Wednesday, February 18th at 3:00 pm ET.

UCAR's Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) program offers webinars on careers and grad school in the atmospheric and related sciences. The webinars are geared towards undergraduate students, grad students, and faculty who support students in career development.

At 2:00pm MST on February 12, 2015, the program will host a webinar titled "Career panel in the atmospheric sciences." The panel includes three atmospheric science graduates whose career paths have led to very different places — a weather anchorman from WKYC-TV3 in Cleveland, a research scientist at NCAR, and a manager at the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center at the University of Hawaii. Join the free webinar to hear about their jobs and career paths, and to ask them any questions you might have about careers in the atmospheric sciences.

Do you know someone in the Unidata community who has been actively involved and helpful to you and other Unidata members? Perhaps this is someone who volunteers to assist others, contributes software, or makes suggestions that are generally useful for the community.

The Unidata Users Committee invites you to submit nominations for the Russell L. DeSouza Award for Outstanding Community Service. This Community Service Award honors individuals whose energy, expertise, and active involvement enable the Unidata Program to better serve the geosciences. Honorees personify Unidata's ideal of a community that shares ideas, data, and software through computing and networking technologies.

Unidata's AMS booth

This year's annual American Meteorological Society meeting was held January 4-8 in Phoenix, Arizona. We were happy to see many of the Unidata community members participating in the meeting at our booth in the exhibit hall, and to meet so many prospective community members at the AMS Student Conference.

With so much going on at the conference, we can't cover everything here. Instead, we present some highlights as recalled by UPC staff members who attended.