New NHC Director: "Jury Still Out" on Hurricanes and Global Warming

Meteorologist Bill Proenza is the new director of the National Hurricane Center, having recently replaced Max Mayfield in that role. In other words, he's now our top coastal defender, the guy we're going to be seeing a lot of on TV the next time there's a storm threatening the U.S. Proenza has a long history with tropical weather, having not only worked at the National Hurricane Center analyzing some of the earliest satellite images of hurricanes in the 1960s, but also having participated in numerous storm flights with the "hurricane hunters." More recently, he has served as the director of the National Weather Service's Southern Regional Headquarters, stationed in Fort Worth, Texas. Proenza gave a press conference today at the AMS meeting. I was there, and was very impressed by how likeable a guy he is, as well as by his dedication to protecting our most vulnerable areas. He repeated ...