The Afternoon Conversations series has a history of getting some of the most interesting speakers on a wide variety of topics, and the upcoming installment in the series is a fascinating and timely one.

The program, a collaboration between Suffolk Public Library and the Suffolk-Nansemond Historical Society, has featured quite a variety of speakers. The upcoming speaker is one that should appeal to everyone, because everyone is affected by the topic: the weather.

The program will be held from 2 to 3 p.m. this Wednesday at the Phillips-Dawson House, 137 Bank St. This event is open to the public and free to attend, with a new Afternoon Conversation held on the second Wednesday of each month.

This month’s speaker will be Jeff Orrock from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who will speak about NOAA’s Wakefield facility and the work they do in predicting and assessing the weather.

If you’ve ever wondered about the weather — everything from what the difference between a watch and a warning is all the way up to how climate change is affecting our weather patterns right here in the Suffolk area — this is bound to be an interesting event.

Orrock will talk about his years of experience tracking storms in Virginia and elsewhere, and he can review this summer’s most talked-about weather event — Hurricane Dorian, which devastated parts of the Bahamas and the Caribbean but turned out to be all but a non-event here in Suffolk.

You can’t get a person with much more experience in Virginia weather, and you’re bound to learn something new that you can use the next time you’re making small talk or discussing topics of global impact.

Visit suffolkpubliclibrary.com for more information on this and other installments in the series coming up.