[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 10811]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO DR. JEFF KIMPEL

 Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, when a tornado or severe weather 
event threatens the lives and property of our citizens across the 
country, few know that a hard-working, unsung hero is directing the 
National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, OK, to provide advanced 
weather forecasting on these threats. Our friend and colleague, Dr. 
Jeff Kimpel, Director of the NSSL, is retiring after 13 years of 
Federal service as the Director of the National Severe Storms 
Laboratory in Norman, OK. He will be sorely missed.
  As my colleagues in the Senate know, the NSSL is best known for 
developing Doppler weather radar technology that led to the 
establishment of the national NEXRAD network consisting of more than 
150 radar systems. During Dr. Kimpel's watch, NSSL performed the 
scientific and technological research that upgraded the NEXRADs from 
proprietary to open systems, added superresolution capability and 
designed dual-polarization upgrades. Dual-polarization will 
significantly increase the accuracy of rainfall estimates, delineate 
rain from snow, and provide an estimate of hail size. Since its 
installation, the NEXRAD program has reduced tornado-related deaths by 
45 percent and personal injuries by 40 percent.
  Under Dr. Kimpel's leadership, NSSL established strong programs in 
short-term cloud-resolving, numerical forecast models that are designed 
to yield estimates of hazardous weather events including tornadoes, 
windstorms, lightning, hail, and heavy precipitation. He championed 
radar-based rainfall analyses for flash flood and river forecasting. He 
was instrumental in establishing support for new facilities for NSSL 
that led to the eventual construction of the magnificent National 
Weather Center building shared with the National Weather Service and 
the University of Oklahoma Meteorology Program. He supported NSSL 
scientists and equipment to participate in 17 national and 
international field studies including the high profile Verification of 
the Origin of Tornadoes Experiment.
  While Dr. Kimpel served as Director, NSSL scientists published over 
600 archival, refereed journal articles, obtained 3 patents, and 
participated in 4 Cooperative Research and Development Agreements with 
private companies. NSSL employees achieved many honors and recognitions 
during his tenure including a NSSL affiliate being elected to the 
National Academy of Sciences, a senior researcher being elected to the 
National Academy of Engineering, and two junior colleagues being 
invited to the White House as winners of the Presidential Early Career 
Award for Scientists and Engineers.
  Dr. Kimpel's legacy at NSSL will be his establishment of far-reaching 
research programs designed to vastly improve weather and water warnings 
and forecasts. He worked tirelessly to launch the Multifunction Phased 
Array Radar initiative as a possible eventual replacement for NEXRAD. 
He worked with the NWS Storm Prediction Center and the Norman Weather 
Forecast Office to establish the Hazardous Weather Testbed to 
accelerate the transition of new science into operational warning and 
forecasting decision processes. He worked with others to support the 
Warn-on-Forecast initiative that envisions a time when severe weather 
warnings will be issued using numerical guidance in addition to the 
present method of detecting precursors or the event itself. Dr. Kimpel 
expanded NSSL's radar-based flash flood forecasting and water 
management programs into coastal areas where inundation from land-
falling tropical storms and hurricanes is possible.
  Prior to becoming the Director of NSSL, Dr. Kimpel served in the U.S. 
Air Force, including a tour in Vietnam for which he was awarded the 
Bronze Star. He earned his graduate degrees at the University of 
Wisconsin before joining the meteorology faculty at the University of 
Oklahoma. He achieved the rank of full professor and held a number of 
administrative positions including dean of the College of Geosciences 
and provost and senior vice president of the Norman Campus. He was 
named a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, is a certified, 
consulting meteorologist, and was elected president of the AMS in 2000. 
He chaired both the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee 
for Atmospheric Sciences and the Board of Trustees of the University 
Corporation for the Atmospheric Sciences. Dr. Kimpel plans on remaining 
in Norman and spending more time with his five children and two 
grandchildren.
  Is there an unsung hero protecting Americans? Yes--that hero to all 
of us is Dr. Jeff Kimpel. We wish him well in his future pursuits, and 
all of us continue to support those research and day-to-day operations 
he has championed at the NSSL in severe weather detection, research, 
and forecasting.

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