They will attend seminars on Norwegian history, ham radio and beading. They will host a dodgeball tournament and dress for a screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." And they will play games — so many games — from sudoku to Euchre to Yahtzee to Rummikub, "the fast-moving rummy tile game."

The 2,000 synaptic superstars attending the Mensa World Gathering, beginning Aug. 8 in Orlando, will have plenty to flex their already agile minds. But few are likely to miss the presentation given by featured speaker Warren Madden: "The Eye of the Storm."

Photos by RICH ADDICKS/Staff (ENLARGE)

The Weather Channel's Warren Madden will tell Mensans about being a "hurricane hunter."

(ENLARGE)

Warren Madden's study contains more than 300 strategy games, indicating what he does when he isn't on-air or flying into storms.

ARE YOU MENSA MATERIAL? Take the quiz FOR MORE INFO: • American Mensa: us.mensa.org • Mensa in Georgia: georgia.us.mensa.org

Madden — a 42-year-old anchor on the Atlanta-based Weather Channel — maintains an exciting double life. As a member of the U.S. Air Force's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, he is a "hurricane hunter," one of those guys who straps into a jet and flies into the heart of the nastiest storms to take readings.

He is also that rare creature that seems to fascinate his brainiac cohorts: the famous Mensan.

The fact is, there aren't a lot of gods in the Mensa pantheon. American Mensa counts more than 52,000 members in its 134 chapters, including 1,051 smartniks in Georgia. (To qualify, you must score in the top 2 percent on a standardized test, usually an IQ test.)

But the list of "Famous and Notable Mensans" remains scrawny — comprising only 21 names. On this slim page, there are a couple of undeniable stars, such as actress Geena Davis and science-fiction deity Isaac Asimov. Then there are deniable stars, including Doug Hall, who was judge on the reality show "American Inventor," and Alan Rachins, who played Larry Finkelstein on the sitcom "Dharma and Greg." There are even four people who don't actually exist, including Lisa Simpson and the blue Power Ranger.

And there's Warren Madden.

"I was just giving an interview to a Dallas radio station," says Madden, by way of explaining his ascension to the pantheon. "And as it turns out, the [executive director] of American Mensa was listening. Somehow she knew I was a Mensan."

Mensans are funny that way. The director, Pam Donahoo, invited Madden to give a talk at the World Gathering, for which American Mensa is the host in the Mouse Kingdom.

Madden was on the Mensa fast track as a young child. "I started reading at a pretty early age. When I was in kindergarten and [the teachers] started showing us how to write in all capital letters, I already knew how to write small letters, too."

Not only that, but:

"From the time I was 5 years old, I knew I wanted to be a meteorologist," he says with an anchor's clear diction and an excited kid's animation.

"I was always looking at the newspaper, because it was something new every day. And I saw an article about this tornado in Texas. The front-page story showed a shell of a house, and I was fascinated by the idea that the winds could do this."

Madden graduated as the valedictorian of his high school class with killer SAT scores (730 verbal, 790 math) and went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then he scored so well on his GREs that he submitted the scores to Mensa. They snapped him up.

He's been at the Weather Channel since 1996 and, as an Air Force reservist, with the hurricane hunters since 1998. During a mission, he monitors the plane's data recordings and "basically text messages" readings to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Madden says these trips through the storm walls aren't always intense. "I recall going into Floyd in '99. The winds are blowing 130 mph outside the plane, and it feels like we're flying through calm skies. Then, I've been in storms where my eyeballs were rattling in my head so much I couldn't read the instruments."

Madden's schedule doesn't allow him to go to all the events sponsored by Mensa in Georgia, the local group, but he'd never give up his membership. He enjoys the social aspect as well as its status.

"You know, Mensans are a very varied bunch," he says. "The thought that they are all quote-unquote nerds couldn't be farther from the truth."