Potential for big storms today in Kansas and Oklahoma. Tornado Watch 147 remains valid until 10 PM CDT this evening for the following areas In Kansas this watch includes 11 counties In south central Kansas Butler Cowley Harper Harvey Kingman Reno Sedgwick Sumner In southeast Kansas Chautauqua Elk Greenwood This includes the cities of... Anthony... Arkansas City... Augusta... El Dorado... Eureka... Harper... Howard... Hutchinson... Kingman... Newton... Sedan... Wellington... Wichita and Winfield. Live stormchasing broadcasts: http://severestudios.com --------------------- Courtesy of lomcevak NewAlright, here's a start for stuff to put in the OP. If there is anything else or another question, I can add that. I have a bunch of links to observations, soundings, radar, satellite, models, etc on a site I put together to keep track of everything. I use SPC, COD, Pivotal Weather (PW), and Tropical Tidbits (TT) the most. COD has everything. http://wxsme.weebly.com/wx-links.html Radar stuff: Radar Fundamentals (NWS/Iowa State) How to read and interpret radar (Iowa State) NWS Jet Stream Doppler Radar Description of radar products (RadarScope) - near the bottom under "Radar Products" RadarScope (Apple and Android) - $9.99 one-time fee (9.99/year for lightning and a few other additional features) GR3 - 21 day trial or $80 one-time fee. Free NOAA/NWS radar feed, what I use at home. If you do happen to buy or get the trial, let me know and I can get you better color tables to use...the defaults suck. GR2Analyst uses Level 2 radar, essentially what is used in NWS offices. More expensive, data hog (if you chase with it). Iowa State has a free feed, otherwise you need pay 3rd party vendors for a reliable feed. Pykl3 (Android, not sure about Apple) - $9.99 one-time fee; I have this as well, it's nice but I prefer RadarScope for mobile. Pykl3 has more integrated GIS features and is more customizable than RadarScope Some app recommendations: aforementioned radar COD nexlab (only for iPhone) Weather Radio - essentially a mobile weather radio, can get NWS alerts based on your location SPC mobile NWS mobile forecast widget - the find your location feature doesn't seem to work; just plug in your zip Comet modules are used extensively in met classes and in the workplace: Skew-T - long module but covers everything you could ever want to know. Convection (some are quite technical, but if you're bored and want what a lot of met students get in the classroom (sans the equations), it's good - The first 3 are the most fundamental Decent algebra-based met textbook, focuses more on physical understanding, not the math: https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/books/Practical_Meteorology/ The Weather Prediction website is a very thorough resource on most anything you would want to read about. Geared toward forecasting and has very little, if any math. US Tornadoes "Forecasting" stuff: Basics Boundaries and gradients What could go wrong SPC YouTube Tornado forecasting series, heavy emphasis on soundings and observations; highly recommend. There are 9 total videos TornadoTitans info on storm basics, skew-t/sounding, etc (haven't watched, but probably good enough to get a grasp) NWS Louisville Science Officer has tons of radar and storm dynamics stuff Hodographs - easy way to display winds throughout the atmosphere and shear Supercells A couple of papers on how tornadoes form and how the phrase "clashing airmasses" is highly misleading/physically incorrect way to describe how severe thunderstorms form. What we know and what we don't about tornado formation Clash of the airmasses To get a thunderstorm you need 3 things: 1. Moisture (hard to get clouds and rain without moisture) 2. Lift (hardest to diagnose; there was much better large-scale ascent last night (March 6) in Iowa and Minnesota than there was further south, large reason why those discrete supercells in AR and MO didn't get going until late) 3. Instability (updraft strength/speed is directly proportional to instability --> higher instability = stronger updrafts Need a 4th ingredient to get severe: 4. Wind shear (change in direction and speed with height; Generally, you'll see southerly-southeasterly winds at the surface that quickly veer (turn clockwise) west-southwesterly above the surface) This is key to storm organization; shear helps to organize storms and prevent precipitation from falling into the updraft, cutting it off. Shear also helps induce vorticity (spin) in the atmosphere that gives rise to mesocyclones (rotation of supercells). Supercells are amazing in that once they start to rotate, they self-sustain. The rotation induces mid-level low pressure --> "sucks" air up from below --> enhances the updraft and strength of the storm, augments the buoyant instability available to the storm. This is a reason why you can get supercells in an environment that some might consider to have marginal instability. In an ideal or classic case, supercells also can deviate to the right of the mean wind flow in their environment. What's the significance of this? This deviant motion enhances the low-level helicity --> enhances the shear and "spin" potential. Supercells are beasts that, by way of internal dynamics, can significantly enhance it's environment. Despite all of this, some research shows that only about 15% of supercells actually produce tornadoes. You can get tornadoes from non-supercell storms as well; also embedded within a line of storms. Often these squall line or QLCS storms have embedded supercellular circulations within them, rather than a discrete, classic supercell. Getting timely warnings out for QLCS tornadoes remains quite elusive as these things can form, produce damage, and dissipate within a few scans of radar or less (5-10 minutes). other great sites: https://tornadochannel.com Want to see the satellite imagery from the new goes-16 satellite, COD has an experimental page: http://weather.cod.edu/satrad/exper/
In high school, my parents were out of town and had a few buddies at my house having a few brews. Big ass storms started filing in, so we hopped in my Jeep and drove out to meet the storm coming in in Cheney (about 20 minutes from my hometown). We camped out there (had a few more beers) and watched the rain/hail, then followed it for a bit once the intense stuff went by. Ended up seeing a small tornado in a field following it back toward my house. Storm dissolved shortly after that and we headed back to my place. Lotta fun, pretty exciting but it was pretty dumb of us to head out there with no information other than an AM radio. Lol.
Unfortunately I've never seen one. It seems like it's been way to chilly today for a Tornado, doesn't it require a big temp change?
i just got home, and was thinking about this thread...wind is blowin pretty good in Stillwater right now, and i heard all kinds of alerts on the radio about big storms in the state, but they're mostly further out west. we're only under a tornado watch for the next few hours here :curses:
That's what I was thinking but if you look at the fronts right now, it's nuts. We're in a cold front, but there's a warm front rolling and a stationary front hovering around the state as well. Pretty crazy weather day overall. Link to follow Reed Timmer from Discovery's StormChasers show live: http://www.tornadovideos.net/live
My senior year at Ole Miss I was on the phone with my dad who called to say there were tornadoes in my area and wanted to see if everything was ok. I told him it was getting dark outside (it was like 3 in the afternoon) but I didn't think there were any tornadoes. Just as I said that my roommate yelled to come outside. Walked outside and saw a tornado about 2 miles away going away from our house. It was awesome and definitely made the sound of a train like they say they make. I'd love to do a tornado chase after that experience, they're incredible. /cool story hansel.
I was in a tornado when I was in HS. Pretty crazy shit. My dad had to take out six inches of soil from our yard to make sure he got all the glass that had been buried into it by the wind. All my clothes had glass and fiberglass in them. Tornadoes haven't been nearly as cool since that shit.
It was so dark here for a few minutes that it was ridiculous. I was positive that I was about to get struck again. Had the dogs in the basement and everything.
When I was living down there a couple summers ago (summer of the Manhattan tornado) the weather in Wichita was ridiculous. Lots of fun storms.
Boarding a flight from Tulsa to Dallas as I type. The captain said its going to be pretty "bumpy" haah Should be a fun flight.
Well I just survived two tornadoes today...They werent very big but they still fucked alot of stuff up. Id take pictures but I have to go find somewhere else to study because our power is out. Shit like this seems to always happen during finals week
Live feeds for anyone interested. http://www.tornadovideos.net/live I just realized that our storm chasing thread was deleted. 5 pages of solid greatness.
Here is some of the damage...the place with all the boats they show first is like 3 blocks from my house. place was a piece of shit anyways http://www.koco.com/video/23511950/index.html
been watching the news for a while here now, glad you're all good...looks like a lot of shit got fucked in that area, also saw them reporting 1 death last i checked
weather.com really pumped up a tornado outbreak today and there wasn't shit going on in Kansas (a few exceptions near the ok/ks border).
I like them except when they are coming at my house, or when they knock my power out when I'm trying to study for my final tomorrow
I'm more interested in how they form and shit like that. :lookatme: I'm an atmospheric science major so I guess I have to like them? :lookatme: