Evan Bentley

Evan Bentley is a mesoscale-assistant/fire weather forecaster at the NOAA Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology from Valparaiso University in 2011 with minors in mathematics and geography.

 

Evan first joined the NOAA National Weather Service through the Student Career Employment Program (SCEP) at the NWS office in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the summer of 2010 and at NWS Chicago during his senior year at Valparaiso. During his time as a SCEP, Evan coauthored a paper on Indiana Tornado Climatology. Evan started his full-time NWS career at the office in Northern Indiana in June 2011. Due to his strong interest in severe storms, he quickly became involved with the local severe weather program and published his first paper in the EJournal of Severe Storms Meteorology in early 2016, which was a detailed analysis of the June 29, 2012, derecho.

 

Evan's career shifted to the West Coast in 2016 when he took a general forecaster position at the NWS office in Portland, Oregon. Later that year, the strongest recorded tornado on the Pacific Northwest coast struck the town of Manzanita, Oregon, which inspired his research into the environment surrounding Pacific Northwest coastal tornadoes. The index he developed while there is still being used operationally by the staff at NWS Portland to raise situational awareness about the potential for rotating storms on the Pacific Northwest coast.

 

In addition to his work with severe storms, Evan gained valuable fire weather experience during the busy 2017 fire season in the Pacific Northwest. He joined the SPC as a mesoscale-assistant/fire weather forecaster in April 2018. The position involves issuing fire weather outlooks through 8 days, issuing a daily thunderstorm forecast, and issuing mesoscale discussions for severe thunderstorms and extreme winter weather for the continental United States.

 

Evan is involved with several research projects at the SPC, primarily related to radar signatures associated with tornadoes and the correlation to NWS tornado warning performance. He can be found at meteorological meetings and conferences around the country a few times a year presenting his latest research results.  When Evan is not at work, he enjoys traveling, golfing, and spending time with his wife and son. As an avid college basketball and football fan, he spends a significant amount of his time outside work watching or traveling to football and basketball games during the fall and winter.