News

Hello, fellow aviation weather enthusiasts.

This week, the federal Office of Management and Budget announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). There are lots of comments we could make right now, but few of them would be either appropriate or fitting for this newsletter.

What we will do, however, is duplicate the contents of a forwarded AGU email one of us received just a few minutes ago, and ask every one of you to do what the email suggests, via either of the two blue hyperlinks (both go to the same AGU web page), as we'll be doing as soon as we finish this newsletter.

Let's add the voices of FPAW's 600+ members to the 2,600 folks who have already weighed in with their congressional representatives!

Matt Fronzak and Nathan Polderman
FPAW Co-Chairs

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Connect with Your Legislators

The Earth and Space Science community heard NCAR was in trouble and showed up en masse.
Your effort has already made an impact. Members of Congress are working on language to
protect NCAR in Fiscal Year 2026 Appropriations and Colorado Representatives Neguse and 
Herd are circulating a bipartisan, bicameral Dear Colleague Letter to show support for NCAR.
Your members of Congress can show their support for NCAR by signing onto this letter and
voting for NCAR funding in appropriations.

Even if you've already reached out, you can call and email again, or share with your colleagues
and institutions.

Contact Congress Now

More than 2600 scientists have contacted Congress to save NCAR. Let's keep up the momentum!

Good evening, aviation weather wonks.

Nathan and I are particularly pleased to let you know that (almost) every last bit of Fall 2025 FPAW Meeting material (biographies, presentations, meeting recordings and pictures) has made its way to the meeting website. One Day 3 video recording, and a batch of curated pictures, remain to be uploaded. And, then, we're done!!

Of more importance, the FPAW Steering Committee met today and finalized a number of Spring 2026 FPAW Meeting items. We will be updating that meeting website in the very near future, so check back in regularly.

Matt Fronzak and Nathan Polderman
FPAW Co-Chairs

Good Friday evening to you all.

The sharp-eyed among you (we're looking at you, John Kosak) will have noticed that, contrary to what was briefed at last month's Fall 2025 FPAW Meeting, the location of the Spring 2026 FPAW Meeting, as stated on the FPAW website, has evolved.

Nathan and I are pleased to let you know that, along with our host, Dr. Gus de Azevedo, we've confirmed the location (Oklahoma State University Main Campus, Stillwater, OK) and committed to the previously-stated dates (April 21-23, 2026) for the next FPAW meeting. Moreover, during a marathon (2-hour) meeting today, we made significant progress on the development of a program that is HIGHLY relevant to the aviation weather community AND the meeting location, along with the identification of target session leads. Speaking only for myself, but confident that this sentiment is shared by Nathan and Gus, I am VERY happy with the progress we made today!

In the coming weeks, we'll be sharing details of the program, the session leads and, for those of you who attended last month's meeting to the bitter end, the sequence of events that led to the change in venue for the upcoming meeting. 

So, stay tuned, and start thinking about attending the Spring 2026 FPAW Meeting, either virtually or, preferably, in person!

Matt Fronzak
Nathan Polderman
FPAW Co-Chairs

Good evening, aviation weather experts.

We wanted to let you know that progress has been made on the meeting content contained on the Fall 2025 FPAW Meeting web site.

As you are all aware, our intended presenters, panelists and moderators changed in the days leading up to the meeting, due to the government shutdown. The meeting Agenda and Biographies documents have been amended to reflect reality, as best we recollect.

We've also added very lightly edited Meeting Notes Parts 1 and 2 generated by MS Teams for Day 1, and hope to get similar Meeting Notes up for Days 2 and 3 shortly. In addition, we've recreated the Meeting Chat Log for Day 1 (an astonishingly manual process in MS Teams - Zoom anyone?), and intend to get the Chat Logs for the final two days of the meetings posted very soon.

Finally, we are working to make the video recordings of the meetings available in the coming days, through a TBD process. Stay tuned for more info.

Matt Fronzak
Nathan Polderman
FPAW Co-Chairs

All,

It would seem that a pesky period (.) joined the end of the link to the Fall 2025 FPAW Meeting web page included in last night's newsletter, thus rendering the link inoperative. And, no, I did not follow my own advice and check the link before sending out the newsletter.

Here is the correct link: https://fpaw.aero/events/2025/fpaw-2025-fall-meeting.

Matt Fronzak
FPAW Co-Chair

Good evening, fellow aviation weather wonks.

As the title of this newsletter suggests, we're unwinding from last week's EXCELLENT Fall 2025 FPAW Meeting, held at Campbell Scientific in Logan, UT. Let us say, right up front, that the Campbell crew did an OUTSTANDING job as hosts and supporters of aviation weather.

You may be wondering about how the meeting came down. Here are some stats:

• There were 220 total registrants, with 57 indicating they planned to attend in person, and 163 saying they intended to participate remotely.
• As best we can determine (that is an acknowledgement that our info may not be totally accurate, because it's really hard to know exactly who was in the room), we had as many as 47 participants in the room at any one time, with three In-Person registrants not participating at all, and seven  In-Person registrants (including three Feds) attending, but only remotely.
• At the same time, as many as 135 other individuals attended the meeting remotely over the three-day period. Twenty Fed and another 20 non-Fed remote registrants did not participate, as best we can tell.
• And, yes, if you're tracking those numbers closely, we had 12 remote participants who did not register, presumably getting the meeting info from friends or colleagues (and that's OK).
• Despite the very last minute churn caused by the government shutdown, there were 36 outstanding presentations delivered over the three days of the meeting. As of this time, 3/4s (27) of those presentations have been posted on the meeting web page at https://fpaw.aero/events/2025/fpaw-2025-fall-meeting.
• Finally, and with a great deal of sadness, let us remind you that our friend and fellow FPAW Co-Chair, Matthias Steiner/NCAR, participated in that role for the final time. We hope and pray that he will continue to attend our gatherings, either in person or remotely, as he enters his next life chapter.
• As you know, Nathan Polderman/United Airlines became FPAW Co-Chair effective October 1, 2025. We are very much looking forward to see what we can collectively bring to the aviation weather community in the coming years. Given that Nathan is an operator, and Matt is an operator/researcher/engineer, it seems that Matt may have to focus on the RED side of things, so that we are a complementary, balanced pair.

We know that our audience was pretty thin by the time we were wrapping up on Thursday afternoon, so if you missed it, we'd like to invite you, in advance, to join us and our Oklahoma State University hosts at a TBD location from April 21-23, 2026 for the Spring 2026 FPAW Meeting!

Matt Fronzak and Nathan Polderman
FPAW Co-Chairs
 

What was it Dick Vitale used to say? Two Oh Six - are you kidding me?

We have 206 registrants for next week's Fall 2025 FPAW Meeting. That may be an FPAW record. And, I must say, the presentation topics and quality are also right up there with the best that we've ever seen, and the support from the Campbell Scientific staff has been, well, nothing short of top notch.

I sent out three separate meeting invitations to everyone who registered earlier today. While I did get two bounces for bad email addresses, I was able to identify the problems and fix them. So, if you registered (or thought you did) but have not yet received the meeting invites with the MS Teams information, please do reach out to me, either via the Contact tab at the top of this webpage, or directly at mfronzak@mitre.org. 

It is possible that some of you may have had the best of intentions to register ahead of the deadline but, due to the vagaries of life and jobs, were unable to do so. Fear not! You can still get registered. But, you'll need to reach out to me, again either via the Contact tab at the top of this webpage, or directly at mfronzak@mitre.org, and make that request.

Despite the uncertainties associated with the government shutdown, I am thrilled to predict that many, or maybe even most, of our federal presenters and panelists will be with us for our meeting. And, we talked with our Nepalese guests today - I am so excited to hear more about a helicopter rescue on the top of Mt. Everest.

So, join us. I look forward to seeing you all, either in person in Logan, UT or virtually, next week!

Matt Fronzak
FPAW Co-Chair

As Chicago Cubs broadcaster (and father and grandfather of Atlanta Braves broadcasters) Harry Caray used to say, "Holy Cow!"

We have 186 registrants for the Fall 2025 FPAW Meeting. And we still have two days before registration closes. Is it plausible, maybe even possible, that we make it to 200 or more registrants? That might be an FPAW record.

Well, if you need enticing, a link to the document containing biographies of the Speakers, Tour Leaders, Session Leads, and Moderators/Panelists/Presenters is now up on the meeting webpage. And, I've taken the fully displayed agenda and reduced it to a link instead (way neater, I think).

So, DO NOT WAIT. Go to the Registration section of the Fall 2025 FPAW Meeting webpage, take 43 seconds to fill out the form, and "Voila!," you'll be registered and receive the calendar invitations when they are sent out after registration closes on Friday.

Yes, registration closes on Friday, October 3, 2025 at 1700E. In light of that, you may be asking yourself "What if, despite my best intentions, I don't get registered before the form is closed? Do I have any alternatives?" And, the answer is "Yes." You will need to click the Contact FPAW button and send a message requesting registration for the meeting, or email me directly at mfronzak@mitre.org with that same request. As long as you're not wanting to show up in person, it's not a problem. And if you are wanting to be a very last minute In-Person registrant, we'll see what we can do to support that request.

Matt Fronzak
FPAW Co-Chair