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Severe Weather 2025

My sarcasm that day didn’t do me any favors. However, all is fine now and I don’t want to hijack the thread with old news!

I do want to bring up a point on Gary (independent of the damage discussion). Team Dominator came across as a bunch of morons during that chase.

I watched some streams yesterday and woo boy. Reed came across as an idiot, backing into Croft while he was blocking the road. I know some were saying Reed was stopped to keep traffic from getting too close because it was crossing the road, but my cynicism has me thinking he was doing it to keep the conga line out of his shot.

Then Jordan Hall was a complete donkey in the way he was talking to his girlfriend. Really soured on those guys this season.
Croft and Reed have no hard feelings about it, quite the opposite.
 
Welcome back @ColdFront! This forum needs more people like you, @buckeye05, @jiharris0220 and other level-headed, no bs contributors.

@Grand Poo Bah, you’re getting there too. Admittedly a bit of a rough start on this forum, but you’re generally level headed and willing to listen to criticism now.

Honestly, I’m gonna go on a whim and say this forum is not the same place it was when I joined four years ago. Literally every severe weather thread now gets clogged with uninformed “contributions”, or just blatant rage-filled sh!tposting whenever a tornado doesn’t get rated what someone thought it should have. (Honestly, during my first year or so on this site I was no exception to this, but everyone has to grow out of that phase eventually…)

The whole Matador debacle back in 2023 was the first major sign (imo) that things were going downhill on this site.

That’s not to say there isn’t any hope though. Overall TW is still a wonderful community of weather hobbyists and meteorologists just trying to enjoy the hobby, and the SigTor and SigTor Global threads are probably the best resources on the internet for not only sharing, but also doing tornado research. The day this site completely falls to the social media weenies is the day my world will end. Keep up the good fight, friends.
 
Welcome back @ColdFront! This forum needs more people like you, @buckeye05, @jiharris0220 and other level-headed, no bs contributors.

@Grand Poo Bah, you’re getting there too. Admittedly a bit of a rough start on this forum, but you’re generally level headed and willing to listen to criticism now.

Honestly, I’m gonna go on a whim and say this forum is not the same place it was when I joined four years ago. Literally every severe weather thread now gets clogged with uninformed “contributions”, or just blatant rage-filled sh!tposting whenever a tornado doesn’t get rated what someone thought it should have. (Honestly, during my first year or so on this site I was no exception to this, but everyone has to grow out of that phase eventually…)

The whole Matador debacle back in 2023 was the first major sign (imo) that things were going downhill on this site.

That’s not to say there isn’t any hope though. Overall TW is still a wonderful community of weather hobbyists and meteorologists just trying to enjoy the hobby, and the SigTor and SigTor Global threads are probably the best resources on the internet for not only sharing, but also doing tornado research. The day this site completely falls to the social media weenies is the day my world will end. Keep up the good fight, friends.
I read through the old EF debate thread archives... phew
 
idk i think something has to be done i wish people could like go and be required to take that training program again maybe to teach them to not get so close to a tornado i know that its their own responsibility and nobody is liable for them i just dont want to see anything tragic happen
There is the Oklahoma storm chasing bill: https://www.okhouse.gov/posts/news-20250206_2
I'm not sure how far along it is, but the gist of it is that it gives traffic priority to “licensed” chasers. Although I’m also not sure what “licensed” entails.
 
There is the Oklahoma storm chasing bill: https://www.okhouse.gov/posts/news-20250206_2
I'm not sure how far along it is, but the gist of it is that it gives traffic priority to “licensed” chasers. Although I’m also not sure what “licensed” entails.
right but i saw heard a lot of backlash behind that bill so maybe not something like that or something that wouldnt cause backlash
 
I read through the old EF debate thread archives... phew
Hey, there's some really good stuff in there! And it's especially crazy it was started in 2017. A lot of the comments were way ahead of their time. I remember being so frustrated with the EF scale and the lack of any discussion about it I just started randomly googling my feelings like "EF scale useless", "EF scale broken", "tornadoes underrated", etc. trying to find ANYTHING that verified what I was feeling. That's how I found this forum. Can't remember the exact search that brought it up, but finding the EF thread was beyond refreshing. I found a whole group of people who shared my frustrations and understood the nature of the problem so much deeper than I did. Then I came in guns blazing with all sorts of scorching hot takes and unpopular opinions lmao.

Took some time, lots of fact checking by other users, and some very heated arguments before I finally acclimated to this place. I feel like that's kind of the initiation a lot of people go through here. You have to have a certain level of passion to seek out and find this place, and it's usually boiling over due to the previous lack of an outlet for it, so confrontations happen until the user either finally sees reason or leaves. All other forums just ban those users and move on, but this forum molds them into respectable and knowledgeable weather enthusiasts.
 
I didn’t see that tweet about the pressure drop until now. If I’m interpreting that correctly, regardless of altitude, that is a ridiculous pressure drop if it’s being measured in hPa. A pressure drop of that magnitude would bring the storm’s pressure down damn near to 800 mb at the surface if that’s being measured at sea level, which is super impressive. I wish the image in that tweet was a little more clear on what that number represents though, because I’m guessing that’s what it means.

I think the previous record holder was Manchester 2003, which funnily enough was also in South Dakota. It was an F4 that had a 100 hPa pressure drop. If that number is in hectopascals, this beats that by nearly 100 more hPa, absolutely insane.
I sought out the original post on Facebook and it represents the drop in pressure, so yes it represents a drop to 800 mb. 70+ mb lower than the lowest Atlantic hurricane (Wilma 2005 at 882 mb). This extends far past the limits of Saffir-Simpson scale for hurricanes, and could mean the winds were FAR beyond the category 5 threshold. A hurricane with this pressure would likely have sustained winds exceeding 200 MPH. I'm sure it's not that simple, but still mind blowing all the same.
 
What can I do to make my presence here valuable?
Find what subject you’re passionate about and read! And then read some more. I assume you’re most interested in the damage aspect. Go and read the posts and opinions of our more knowledgeable members on tornado damage (@TH2002, @buckeye05 etc). They know what they’re talking about. Go read their analysis on damage. Then go read some more online. Find YouTube engineering videos or studies online.

Also it’s important to know what you don’t know. When I first came on here I specifically watched members like Fred, Andy, Richard Jacks, and @CheeselandSkies discuss set ups before they occurred. That gave me an excellent foundation of synoptic and mesoscale knowledge. Then I started reading published studies on historical events (4/27, 4/3/74 etc). I still go back and read old event threads on here and other forums, just to keep gathering more information on different events. I’ve gotten to where I could reasonably do a ELI5 (explain like I’m 5) to a layperson on the 4/3/74 superoutbreak both synoptically and from the mesoscale aspect. Find what you’re passionate about and expand on that deeper.

That baseline will allow you to contribute.
 
What can I do to make my presence here valuable?
I think adding more substance to some of your comments would help. Instead of just stating your opinion, maybe list a few reasons you feel that way or make a case for it. I've mentioned before with how much time you spend in the DAT, it'd be helpful if you actually downloaded and posted those pictures (which you've started doing more). I don't really have any problems with the way you comment the majority of the time anyways. You're usually the first to post preliminary ratings and damage tracks which is cool.
 
I think the previous record holder was Manchester 2003, which funnily enough was also in South Dakota. It was an F4 that had a 100 hPa pressure drop. If that number is in hectopascals, this beats that by nearly 100 more hPa, absolutely insane.
There was a 194 hPa pressure drop measured in a tornado at Tulia, Texas on 21 April 2007, though it's a somewhat suspect measurement (the tornado was only EF2).
 
I think Will/TornadoTRX has to take a lot of blame for overhyping this one. He claimed the night of that the house got slabbed and swept clean with zero pictures. Very strong and certain wording. Obviously with the drone shots we’ve seen, the home was another Central/North planes shitbox and the “swept clean” foundation was very obviously a garage.
excrement box? Come on, man. I get what you are trying to say but I highly doubt the hardy pioneers of early South Dakota had the capacity to build to withstand a significant tornado.

That house, however, stood many a violent thunderstorm, blizzard, hail storm, derecho, and God knows what else the prairie can devise in its century and more. I doubt those who lost it would appreciate this post.
 
There is the Oklahoma storm chasing bill: https://www.okhouse.gov/posts/news-20250206_2
I'm not sure how far along it is, but the gist of it is that it gives traffic priority to “licensed” chasers. Although I’m also not sure what “licensed” entails.
It very obviously, like too much professional licensure, means the state wants a kind of kickback to the expense of less well-off members of a community or profession
 
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