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Weather Banter

WesL

"Bill, I'm talkin' imminent rueage"
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So going back to childhood, I've always wanted to see what the inside of a radar dome looks like. Well today is the day. Check out this great FB post from NWS Hastings.

Ever wonder what it looks inside a NWS radar dome? Check out this video which shows the radar antenna at work. While this isn't a typical radar scan, it gives an example of how the radar antenna turns and changes elevations. Severe weather is possible this week and we rely on the radar to detect and analyze storms.


 
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warneagle

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Got out of work at lunch today because the A/C in the offices on the top floor of the Museum where I work broke and it's like 92F here.
 

WesL

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This. Is. Funny. (and strangely true)
 
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KoD

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Neat composite from May 24th 2016 near Dodge City, KS
h0u302zx74k01.jpg

I was rather disappointed by how many people on Reddit thought these were 7 simultaneous tornadoes. This is a fantastic composite shot with credit to Jason Weingart.
There's a 4x larger HiRes image here as well [3760x2507] = 2.93MBytes
 

rolltide_130

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Neat composite from May 24th 2016 near Dodge City, KS
h0u302zx74k01.jpg

I was rather disappointed by how many people on Reddit thought these were 7 simultaneous tornadoes. This is a fantastic composite shot with credit to Jason Weingart.
There's a 4x larger HiRes image here as well [3760x2507] = 2.93MBytes

The Dodge City supercell is one of the top 2 or 3 storms of this decade IMO. Up there with Pilger from 6/16/14 and Coleridge from only 24 hours after Pilger.
 

WesL

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I watched WHNT 19 in Huntsville last night and I see they are now calling themselves "The Weather Authority". Does that bother anyone else?
 

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I watched WHNT 19 in Huntsville last night and I see they are now calling themselves "The Weather Authority". Does that bother anyone else?

I just see it as more cheesy marketing. WAFF (WHNT's main competitor for the folks not in North AL) has their "First Alert" million watt radar in Limestone County. The two marketing teams from each station are always looking to try and one up each other.

The term "Weather Authority" doesn't really bother me, maybe because there's just so many of them. It's obviously not true unless you're the NWS, but the average joe gets 95% of their weather info through the media outlets, even if the NWS is the one transmitting it.

If anything, I'm not a fan of Greg Forbes' TORCON index. It's just essentially taking SPC's forecast style and doubling both the values and the area. Also, his calling for a "significant" threat for Saturday several days ago across pretty much the entire swath of Dixie really put me off (Even though he's significantly backed off his wording, that was frankly an irresponsible forecast based on what the overall model consensus was IMHO).
 

warneagle

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Oh no we're going to have the torcon argument again...

(I really don't have a strong opinion about it, although if it were my decision I would just use the SPC's probabilistic output rather than coming up with something home-brewed like that that comes across as sensational. I know it's all about #branding these days, but I feel like standardization across platforms is a desirable thing.)
 

rolltide_130

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Oh no we're going to have the torcon argument again...

(I really don't have a strong opinion about it, although if it were my decision I would just use the SPC's probabilistic output rather than coming up with something home-brewed like that that comes across as sensational. I know it's all about #branding these days, but I feel like standardization across platforms is a desirable thing.)

The index itself I'm fine with. I'm just put off by how its often applied sensationally to attract viewers and likes/shares. It makes no meteorological sense to call for a significant severe weather outbreak the following Saturday when it's Monday. That would be the equivalent of SPC issuing a 10% hatched tor outlook on a D6. Doing that is just fishing for views IMHO.
 

warneagle

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Yeah, I get that. TWC in recent years has had a bad combination of sensationalizing events (naming the winter storms raaaaage) and then not adequately covering them when they happen (the Tennessee tornadoes a couple weeks ago).
 

WesL

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Yesterday and today is the 25th anniversary of the Blizzard of 1993.
That was an amazing storm. I remember being like 12 and being stuck in the house with my parents and my grandmother. My mom got smart and kept us all in the living room with the fireplace and nailed up blankets over the doorways. We had plenty of meal type food but snacks were in short supply. I remember complaining about this at some point and my mom handed me a jar of green olives and said try this. I credit the great '93 Storm for my love olives and later on my love of vodka martinis.
 
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That was an amazing storm. I remember being like 12 and being stuck in the house with my parents and my grandmother. My mom got smart and kept us all in the living room with the fireplace and nailed up blankets over the doorways. We had plenty of meal type food but snacks were in short supply. I remember complaining about this at some point and my mom handed me a jar of green olives and said try this. I credit the great '93 Storm for my love olives and later on my love of vodka martinis.
I wasn't born yet but my parents have told me stories about this storm over and over.

My dad was just leaving work as the snow started to fall. My mom was out of town on a business trip in Pittsburgh and the meeting was postponed from Friday the 12th to Monday the 15th because of the storm. She said she got back to her hotel about 30 minutes before the snow arrived and she said it went from being fairly clear to a complete whiteout in a few minutes, and that it was the only time in her life that she'd ever seen thundersnow. My dad was trying to call her hotel the whole time, but couldn't get through, and ended up calling her boss to see if she was safe. Meanwhile, she said she had a hard time sleeping because of the wind, which apparently felt like it was shaking the hotel. Both my parents later said it was one of the scariest storms they lived through.
 
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