![IMG_4250](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20170119190716im_/http://blog.nssl.noaa.gov/nsslnews/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IMG_4250-316x237.jpg)
More than 3,000 people crowded the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, La. for the American Meteorological Society’s “WeatherFest” on January 22, 2012. WeatherFest is an interactive four-hour science and weather fair designed to inspire children and youth to pursue a career in the sciences. It is also a chance for closet weather fanatics to share their passion and learn more.
NSSL’s booth was staffed by NSSL’s Keli Tarp and NSSL/CIMMS Daphne Thompson and Susan Cobb with visits by the “Weather Friends” known as “Tempest” and “Swirl Girl”. Visitors could watch videos about NSSL research, collect Weather Friends trading cards, make a tornado in a bottle, and think through filling an disaster backpack with emergency supplies. Other handouts available included weather word searches, a weather maze, a reinforcing “fill the backpack,” along with information on NSSL and careers in meteorology.
This was the 11th year of WeatherFest, and the seventh year NSSL has sponsored a booth.