Starting in January 2002, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) has included a new section called Map Room. This section is a great opportunity for broadcasters to benefit from this initiative to publish short, operationally-focused articles, and to leverage their extensive experience of local weather patterns and forecast challenges to benefit their peers and other operational meteorologists and forecasters.

The goal of this feature is to provide a monthly forum for presentation and discussions of forecast challenges and unusual weather events from an operational point of view. These are not meant to be detailed case studies, or presentations of fully documented and evaluated forecast techniques that are more appropriate for submission to other AMS journals, or published in other sections of BAMS. Rather, through Map Room, broadcasters, forecasters and other meteorologists will be able to discuss some of the nuances and complexities posed by various hydrometeorological challenges, and communicate their insights and approaches. Map Room will furnish an opportunity for operational meteorologists and hydrologists to share the benefit of their experiences not only with other forecasters, but with the entire diverse AMS community.

Articles in Map Room should be brief (roughly 1000-1500 words), with up to 5 illustrative figures as needed. As a result, Map Room articles should be focused on a particular problem or aspect of an event. In some cases it may be useful to provide electronic supplements to an article to provide an animation, additional tabular or graphical information, or other supplemental materials. Such electronic supplements reside on the AMS servers and are linked to from the electronic version of the BAMS article.

Map Room articles will typically be less formal in style than a typical journal article. Rather, they can be written with a more personal tone, with emphasis on the experiential as much as the factual aspects of the event being discussed. Limited formal references should be included as appropriate, especially if the author wishes to refer the reader to a more complete discussion on a specific item or point.

Submissions for Map Room will undergo a peer review. The reviews will primarily be conducted by individuals with extensive forecast experience, and will be focused along the guidelines described above. This is an excellent opportunity for broadcast meteorologists since they typically have extensive experience dealing with regional and local unique and challenging weather situations.

Authors wishing to submit an article for Map Room should send their manuscript via e-mail to: editorinchief@ametsoc.org, or by regular mail to:

Editor-in-Chief BAMS/AMS News American Meteorological Society 45 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02108-3693