Advancing X-cutting Ideas for Computational Climate Science
New dates for AXICCS: Sept 12-13, 2016.
We are happy to announce new dates for the workshop: Sept 12-13, 2016, still at the Rockville Hilton. Approved attendees will be contacted shortly with registration and rescheduling details. We plan to keep the same technical structure, agenda and goals of the workshop the same as much as possible.
Postponement Details
Sunday - 6:05PM
Dear AXICCS participants-
It is with great disappointment that, due to the blizzard, we are obligated to postpone the AXICCS workshop to a later time. Based on information we have received through multiple sources, we cannot assume that the Metro, airports, and roads leading to the hotel will have reliable transportation on Monday when everyone will be arriving. We already know that the Metro will be operating in a limited capacity tomorrow. In order to ensure safety and not pose an undue burden of travel under these conditions, we feel this is the best choice. Furthermore, there is the possibility for more snow when folks would be scheduled to depart onWednesday night.
The good news is that since this was not a workshop tied to funding or a specific deadline, we can simply try again for us all together for good discussion about the interesting problems posed in the ideas papers. We are already investigating another date to have this meeting, likely in the early fall, so please keep your eyes open for information about that.
So if relevant, cancel your travel as soon as you can. The hotel will accept your cancellation but you need to contact 1800 Hiltons (1800-445-8667) to do so because some folks are traveling to DC anyway for related business and want to keep their rooms. The hotel is operating on a skeleton crew and asked that you not contact them directly to cancel. You should be able to receive either a refund or travel credit from the airlines. We apologize if there is a difficulty with your cancellation and for the overall inconvenience, but we believe this is the right decision considering the circumstances. We ask for your understanding. More information about refunding your registration fee will follow.
We can't wait to see you again for AXICCS in the fall!
Best-
Kate and Esmond
Sunday - 12:30PM
The storm has unfortunately met all expectations in Washington DC area. It's a shame the models did such a good job with the forecast!
Dulles and DCA will remain closed Sunday, according to their twitter feed. Some flight are also cancelled for Monday.
Because of all the backlog, rebooking is difficult. We are exploring all options at this time and will make a decision Sunday night about how to proceed.
Please help us out and alert us using the easy chair site or the emails below if disrupted travel plans will prevent you from arriving to the workshop on time or at all, so we know how many are affected. Some of you have already done so and we appreciate it.
Kate Evans, evanskj@ornl.gov
Esmond Ng, egng@lbl.gov
Saturday - 4:50PM
The storm is unfortunately coming through the Washington DC area as predicted. United has cancelled all flights on Sunday to Dulles and some for Monday AM. Reagan is still planning to open on Sunday. Please alert us if disrupted travel plans will prevent you from arriving to the workshop on time.
Friday - 9:45AM
The DC Metro will be closed all weekend. So if your travel gets you to DC on Sunday evening, alternative transportation will be needed.
We are monitoring the impending blizzard (luckily many of the participants have a meteorology background, so feel free to ping you colleagues for the gory details of the storm if you are curious!)
Here is a Washington Post site that has very good weather updates for the DC area. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/
As of now, the snow is expected to taper off Saturday night, and so flight arriving Monday afternoon should be ok. But it depends on many factors beyond our control, including power outages, plowing, local and remote airports affected by the storm etc. Washington does not have a reputation for fast snow removal since they do not get significant snow very often. We encourage everyone to use public transportation and stay safe rather than risk dangerous travel!
For now, we are planning for remote access for those who won't be able to attend. Look for more details about that early next week.
Check back to this site for the latest info we have about planning for the weather.
Our plenary speaker George Mozdyznski has kindly provided us a special forecast from ECMWF shown here, and he says "I have Rockville at 19" to 24" snow fall over Saturday and Sunday AM." But of course, snow is most difficult to predict, so stay tuned to more recent forecasts as the date approaches. Many thanks to George for providing this, and be ready for an explanation of what impressive model development and numerics were involved to provide this for us!
