Tornado Central

2008-10-02T23:48:00.002-05:00

I need to get some stuff off my chest after following the President campaigning and tonight's VP debate. Simply stated, I'll just be happy when the election is over. Every single election, it's always the same crap, with the same result. Where's the immigration policy overhaul and border security issues that were soooooo important in the last election? What about Medicare and Social Security? Does the public really have an attention span of only a few months to let the gov't (Congress and President) off the hook for these important areas of necessary reform?

Back to the campaign side... Both sides give misleading "facts" and only stick to talking points. Fox News always cheerleads the Republican candidate (at least one of their "post-debate analysis" commentators prefaced his "analysis" by saying he's biased from the beginning before declaring, shockingly, that Palin won the debate hands-down, no doubt); MSNBC typically cheer leads the Democrat candidate (Olberman's show proceeds the debate?). How many questions in this evening's VP debate did Palin actually answer? Geez, it seemed like Palin would very briefly mention something pertaining to the question, then shoot back off into whatever she wanted to talk about (usually energy-related, but other times something about Mavericks or "Nukular"). It just drives me nuts. Again, at least TV "analysts" aren't spouting about on frivolous garbage like lipstick on pigs, so it's some improvement over the past 3-4 weeks. The vocal people almost always have their minds made up, so watching media interviews or reading online "discussions" are usually quite unsubstantial. Why can't these debates be set up such that candidates MUST answer the question and can't revert to overused talking points? Why not allow candidates to talk to each other, ask questions of each other?

Candidate 1: "Actually, you didn't answer MY question... What do you think of *this or that*?
Candidate 2: [blah blah blah talking points blah blah]
Candidate 1: "Seriously, stop with the talking points. answer my question!"
Candidate 2: [blah blah blah I'll tlak about what I want to talk about]
Candidate 1: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAH"

If nothing else, the moderator(s) should be more forceful in demanding answers from the candidates. Both sides do this (particularly the Pres. candidates -- I thought Biden stuck to the topics pretty well tonight), and it almost defeats the purpose of a debate if the moderator lets the candidates talk about whatever they want.
One interesting comment from tonight was keeping the whole "the VP office isn't in the Executive nor Legistlative branch" mentality that Cheney has invoked as an excuse to avoid investigative matters continues with Palin. *shrug*

And since when is cutting taxes the be all and end all? Every Republican candidate for many years has vowed to cut taxes and reduce spending, yet spending is never reduced despite the tax cuts. The result? Incredible, record deficits from politicians who hark on about "fiscal responsibility". Sure, use tax cuts to get you elected, since few people want higher taxes. However, is functioning on so much credit really in the best interest of the USA? We already pay $450,000,000,000 (that's $450 billion) each year on interest on the debt, so hey, let's reduce gov't revenue even more so we pay more interest. Sure, there is SOME evidence that tax cuts can spur an economy. However, if gov't spending is not cut similiarly, all we end up doing is pushing taxes to future generations. I have ZERO faith that McCain will actually reduce spending (certainly not military spending, which is a massive part of his campaign and an equally massive part of the budget). In addition, there is a lot of spending that he CAN'T reduce much, such as many entitlements that will give us severe pain down the road. And McCain keeps using the "Earmarks" buzzword as if earmark spending is the reason why we aren't running anywhere near a balance budget. However, given the size of the deficits of the past 8 years (and the estimated 2009 deficit that will likely run >$500 billion), the "earmarks" are a very small piece of the pie. In addition, there are lots of beneficial "earmarks". Sure, lots of frivolous spending, but don't act like it's the reason why we're running unprecedented deficits.

* Despite some liberal social views, I consider myself more fiscally conservative than not. Actually, I don't care if our leaders want to increase gov't spending (i.e. fight wars abroad, fund national social programs, etc) as long as they can find a way to pay for it. Reducing taxes MAY yield more gov't revenue IF you assume we're on the correct side of the so-called Laffer curve. However, some politicians speak of tax cuts like they will ALWAYS yield more revenue. If that's the case, then let's just cut taxes to 0%, and I'm sure the gov't will bring in QUADRILLIONS of dollars, right? That's the impression I get when listening to some folks such as Larry Kudlow and some of the other conservative business analysis -- let's just completely get rid of the capital gains tax, and let's just get rid of every other tax while we're at it. It's apparently a great campaign tactic, but does everyone actually think that we can continue down the "don't tax but still spend" road of the last 8 years? Why wouldn't the Presidential candidates answer the question about which SPECIFIC programs they'd cut to reign in spending? UGH.

I don't really like paying taxes either, but I certainly realize that it's something that I must do if I want to drive on public roads, have some protection against crazy folks (i.e support police, fire, and other emergency personnel), fund consumer protection acts and have my food inspected (FDA, etc), and so forth. Heck, I know that I can't go and spend a lot of money on my Visa card without being to pay it off, so who would think the Gov't can?

The direction of the tax debate is frustrating deficit hawks in Washington, who worry that none of the candidates is charting a course toward a balanced budget. Meanwhile, Bush and other politicians are telling voters alarmed by a sagging economy that keeping the cuts past their 2010 expiration date can help revive the nation's fortunes, a claim many economists say is nonsense. ....
Far from acting as an economic tonic, the tax cuts "are neither sustainable nor beneficial" without massive cuts in government spending far beyond what Bush or any candidate to succeed him has proposed, said Alan D. Viard, a former economist in the Bush White House who is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The most popular cuts -- those known as "middle-class" tax cuts -- are more likely to slow economic growth than promote it, Viard and others said.
....
"If tax cuts aren't paid for, the extra debt hurts the economy more than any direct benefit from the tax cuts," said Jason Furman, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who is now at the Brookings Institution. "If you cut taxes without cutting spending, you're just shifting taxes to the future."
....
There is little disagreement among most economists on that point. Even the Bush Treasury Department found that failing to cut government spending commensurate with the tax cuts would leave the cuts with a "negligible effect" on the economy, Carroll said.

--> As Candidates Warm to Bush Tax Cuts, Economists Warn of Long-Term Effect (Washington Post - 3/28/08)

2007-12-11T19:54:00.000-06:00

I uploaded some pictures and a brief narrative of the recent ice storm in Oklahoma at http://www.tornadocentral.com/events/icestorm07.php . Alternatively, this page can be accessed by clicking on "Other" on the left, then clicking the appropriate link. Just FYI.

2007-12-09T22:41:00.000-06:00

I continue to see mixed freezing rain and sleet. Most of the day, I'd say the predominant precipitation type at my house (on Waterloo E of I35 along the Oklahoma / Logan county border) has been sleet (IP), though we did have heavy enough liquid precip about 30 minutes ago that it started overflowing the gutters (granted, they're clogged with leaves that I haven't had time to remove, but it's interesting nonetheless). I'd say there's ~0.4" of glaze on the grass and branches, but the solid surfaces (i.e. my concrete driveway) has a good deal of sleet on it, so walking isn't too bad (the sleet acts to bite into the glaze ice a bit, giving a little bit of traction).

The Missing or Calm wind obs on the Mesonet can most likely be attributed to frozen anemometers. I just took a stroll down the road, and I'd say sustained winds are 5-10 mph.

I'm quite fascinated by the persistance of the quasi-stationary band of precip that started about 24 hours ago along I44. Asphalt roads are still largely just wet, not surprising given 2" and 4" bare soil temps in the 34-36F range (see http://agweather.mesonet.org/soil/default.html ). The freezing of the roads will be slowed a bit as the freezing process itself, as I'm sure we all know, releases energy (i.e. latent heat of fusion slows the freezing process). I'm still looking to get out tomorrow morning to take some pictures. Some of my favorite winter landscape pics involve glaze ice.

FWIW, news is reporting 100 auto crashed since last night, with 8 fatalities (a count that doesn't include a multi-fatality collision in Okemah along I40 that closed that interstate). Enhanced rainrates expected given possibility of convection yet again tonight. The 00z OUN sounding (http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/soundings/07121000_OBS/OUN.gif ) showed ~700 j/kg MUCAPE, with a very impressive warm nose (~10 C at 850mb... in December!). Interestingly, there's also ~45-50 kts of effective shear (~35kts at updraft base / 850mb / increasing to 85kts at the equilibrium level / ~300mb) which may promote a little organization to some of the storms.

KTLX base velocity data at 0300 UTC indicate that the cold air is back down to near 2800-2900 feet in depth. If I recall correctly, the cold air deepened earlier this morning to near 4000 feet, so it's decreased in time lately. This is not surprising given the strength of warm air advection just above the cold dome. Eventually (most likely by tomorrow afternoon), the freezing line should move back northward. Of course, it's important to note that models have a strong tendency to underforecast the speed and intensity of these shallow arctic air intrusions, so I wouldn't be surprised to see subfreezing temps hold on a little longer than models forecast.

2007-12-09T03:04:00.000-06:00

I'm always fascinated to see moderate convection when surface temperatures are below freezing. A look at the Spencer, OK, mesonet meteogram (Spencer is just northeast of OKC), shows that it picked up 0.5" of rainfall in a 20 minutes time span near 1am. The temperature at the time was around 30F, and the temp has continue to fall to a current value of 28F. Not surprisingly, the anemometer appears to have been frozen, given that it's currently not reporting any winds. For ASOS/AWOS and mesonet sites, calm or missing winds are usually good ways to find where the precip has been falling as freezing rain (assuming ambient/environmental winds are >3 mph). A glance at surface obs on the OK mesonet show about half a dozen sites with missing winds (at a time when most wind obs in central and northern OK are 10-15 mph sustained).

FWIW, temperatures have also fallen into the teens in far northwestern OK, with 8-15 mph NNW winds likely continuing to bring in low-mid 20F temps closer to I40. These very shallow arctic fronts have a tendency to be underforecast by most models (both in intensity and speed), so this isn't too surprising.

07 UTC SPC/RUC mesoanalysis also continues to indicate >500 j/kg MUCAPE, supportive of a continued risk of thunderstorms and upright convection. The band of heaviest precip just N of I44 east of I35 in northeastern OK appears to be in an area of decent frontogenetical forcing (and the fun ageostrophic accelerations associated with such forcing). The 850mb cold front may be a good marker for the freezing rain - snow transition zone (or liquid - frozen transition zone).

The VWP from KTLX valid 0720 UTC suggests that the top of the cold layer is ~1800 ft AGL (I'm using the 2.5 degree base velocity data to pick that out easily; KINX / Tulsa / data suggests a similar depth). The cold air deepens to >3000 ft above the KVNX radar, pretty much in line with velocity data from KICT. Given this, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sleet mix in with the freezing rain closer to the OK/KS border west of I35. Well, maybe not, but perhaps close... Same mesoanalysis shows the 850mb front located near a line from Shamrock TX to Emporia KS to the NE MO / SE IA border area.

EDIT: It's important to note that, per OK Mesonet (see HERE), current 2-in and 4-in bare soil temperatures are in the mid 30s in most of northern OK. As such, the precip is not likely to freeze upon impact of roads. Elevated surfaces that tend to cool to ambient temperature more quickly (e.g. powerlines, trees, bridges) are likely icing up rather rapidly right now N of I44. I imagine that it may take until tomorrow night for most areas to see ground temperatures (at least 2" or 4" below bare soil) reach the freezing mark.

EDIT 2: OGE System watch (HERE) is showing >1000 customers w/o power in eastern OKC. Of course, in the scope of things, this isn't a large number. However, I think this is only a hint of what's likely to occur in N of Tulsa through the morning. Latest TLX data shows convection and showers are redeveloping in the quasi-stationary zone along I44, from near Chickashaw to Norman to Stroud and Bristow. My house in Arcadia is currently between this band to the south and the intermittent activity nearer Perry and Guthrie. *shrug*

2007-06-14T01:46:00.001-05:00

Dan Dawson, Gabe Garfield, Nick Bierman, my wife, and I chased the tornadic supercell NNW of Fairview OK this afternoon and evening. Though our expectations were relatively limited, it ended up being an awesome chase. The motions at cloud base (both in the horizontal and vertical) were quite impressive. The first attempt we saw at tornadogenesis occurred just N of Hwy 412 W of Orienta late afternoon, with a decent funnel that excellent wall-cloud. A new storm developed to the south of that first cell, which promptly "killed" that first one. Fortunately, the second cell rapidly developed a wall-cloud, with excellent cloudbase motions again. At this time we noted 1.5" hail on the ground about 2 mi SSW of Orienta. A nice wallcloud developed, with funnel and all. Despite looking like an imminent tornado, it quickly occluded. So, we hopped back to 412, and made it a couple of miles W of Orienta before tornado-mania began. Over the next 10- 15 minutes (guessing -- haven't looked at tape yet), we observed at least 4 tornadoes. Most were relatively small and short-lived, but there was a "fat stovepipe" (tornado #3 I think). All tornadoes were from the same mesocyclone, but they were certainly different funnels and from different areas of "enhanced" rotation. Interestingly, before the last tornado from this sequence, I noted a very rapid sinking motion filled with "ribbons" of precip, something that looked an awful amount like a DRC. The tornado that followed seemed to be the longest-lasting, but it also became enshrouded in heavy precip, which completely obscured it for a while. That tornado looked to move southward too.

After that sequence, we meandered back southward to see what would happen with the next storm the was developing farther south. Supercell structure improved at this time, with nice curved bands feeding into the updraft/meso. Despite wanting to play the tail-end charlie farther south, we opted to stick with this one since it had pretty good structure and it was relatively mature. Given a very slow northwestward motion, we headed back north to 412, before working west into the Glass Mtns. We found a small area in which we could view the meso, and it was at this time that we saw tornado #5 to our SSW. It quickly became a lost cause as extremely heavy precip completely obscured the meso. With the supercell appearing to be a lost cause owing to a very HP nature at this time, we decided to hop southward to see what was next. Well, we didn't really get anything else meaningful, despite fears of very strong winds and large hail as we drove by Canton.

Overall, there is very little to be disappointed about with this chase! Our expectations were low, which may have helped, but I'd still consider this a great chase. And heck, it was even in Oklahoma! Despite 20-25kts at 500mb and 250mb (per 00z NAM initialization), strong instability, good moisture, good directional shear, and an old outflow boundary made for an excellent supercell that was essentially stationary for quite some time. In addition, it was great to FINALLY get my wife on a "good" chase (I like split infinitives).

I'll add pics and video stills this weekend.

2007-06-08T23:53:00.001-05:00

Been busy with some marginal chasing since mid-May, as we've had both radars in town since early May. I've added a bunch of pictures to various chases I've been on this year, most notably from 4-23-2007, on which I saw at least 7 tornadoes over the course of about 45 minutes. I've been able to add pictures from several other chases before mid-May as well, all of which can be seen on the 2007 Chase Logs page. I still have a few more chases worth of pictures to upload, but at least most of the logs are current.

Speaking of the radars, we were able to use two mobile Doppler radar this year -- the dual-polarized, X-band radar built by UMass, and a new X-band mobile phased array radar (MWR-05XP) developed largely by ProSensing, Inc. Below is a picture of the two radars in operation (from a late May chase in the TX panhandle):
** CLICK ANY PICTURE BELOW TO SEE A LARGER IMAGE **

One interesting event that occurred while I was out of town -- we apparently lost a tree near the side of our house to a lightning strike! It missed the corner of the roof by about 10 feet, so it was a fortunate miss. The "branch" was the lowest to the ground, and it was one of the largest on the tree. The "rip" in the trip is about 8 feet long, so, given it's location near the ground, I'm not sure if the tree is going to survive. I've been able to chop up most of the branch, but a 20 foot section nearest to the trunk of the tree is still attached. Below are a few pics of the tree:

KFOR (Channel 4) in OKC did a little story on our research group a few weeks back as well. My time on camera isn't much (they cut my answer to one of the reporter's questions), but Robin and Howie (obviously) get some time. Click here --> KFOR Story <-- to read the story. Click the video icon beneath the title of the article to view the video.

On a non-weather note, I posted a bunch of pictures from Lauren and Billy's wedding in early May. See here --> Lauren and Billy's Wedding <-- for pictures.

Oh yeah, before I finish up... I'll update the Pets webpage sometime in the next week. We have finished our animal expansion, as we're at max capacity when it comes to pets. Windy, Hailey, Rainy, Vorty, Doppler, Squirt, and Madison -- two rabbits, one hedgehog, one guinea pig, one dog, and two cats. Whew. The new kitten stands about 7 inches tall; he's a tiny little guy!

2007-05-03T18:35:00.000-05:00

No time to post much in the way of updates lately. I think the only significant event that happened since the last post was a crazy tornado-fest on 4-23 in southwestern Kansas. We saw ~7 tornadoes in the span of about 45-60 minutes, including one time during which there were 3 tornadoes on the ground concurrently. I've certainly never seen that before!

Tomorrow looks like a potentially excellent chase day in Kansas. I'm concerned about initiation and the location of dryline / triple point by late afternoon. The NCEP models have been quite underwhelming in terms of accurate dryline position (even the 12hr forecasts -- see 3-28-07), so I'm not sure what to think. Forecast hodographs display an excellent shear profile by 0z ahead of a dryline bulge in western Kansas.

Kim and I are leaving for Lauren's wedding Florida sometime early-to-mid morning on Saturday. As such, I'm not too keen on driving N of I70 tomorrow, since that'll likely mean an arrival back in OKC-area around 3-4am... If we leave ~8am Saturday, that doesn't leave much in the way of sleep.

Speaking of Saturday... Looking at the 18z GFS and NAM, it looks like Saturday could see the best potential for a violent tornado outbreak that the Plains has seen in at least 3 years. The last time I saw a setup this favorable was 5-29-04, and that day was a little disappointing in terms of storm coverage (unless you were on the supercell in southcentral KS, in which case it didn't matter ;) ). Otherwise, I need to go back to the May 4-May 8 2003 time period to find a chase setup that resembles, in terms of areal extend and intensity of potentially-tornadic supercells, what we should see Saturday. Alas, I knew months ago that the only time during which I cannot chase this spring (May 5-8) would turn out to be a major outbreak time. Oh well -- I can't complain too much given how good of a season I've had so far this year. And hey, a lot can change in 48 hours. I wouldn't be surprised, however, to see a High Risk on the Day 2 outlook tomorrow.

2007-04-17T23:26:00.000-05:00

Looks like there's a pretty good possibility of at least one chase in the Fri-Sun time period, but I refrain from getting too optimistic until we get a better idea of the amount and depth of quality moisture that will be in place ahead of the dryline. The Gulf has been obliterated in the past week, so I'll remain on the pessimistic side until we see >65F Tds streaming past Austin and Houston.

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, Kim picked up a hedgehog from a fellow vet-schooler this past weekend. She took a picture of him yesterday:

Also, we fell for a mild-mannered, smart golden retriever "pup" this afternoon from the Guthrie animal shelter. Rainy (or Rainey -- I don't have the spelled decided upon yet) now makes the 6th pet in our household (an addition to the hedgehog, two rabbits, guinea pig, and cat). We don't have a fence yet, but she is remarkably calm, so that shouldn't be of pressing importance. We started crate training this evening, but, admittently, this will be somewhat limited until we can get her into a larger crate/kennel.

I'm running a little short on weather-related pet names. So far, we have Windy, Hailey, Vorty, and Rainy. Any ideas? Stormy, misty, gale, stratus/strato, nimby/nimbus, Rossby, ... ?

2007-04-14T23:43:00.000-05:00

A disappointing chase through northern Texas yesterday, though there was the potential for a much more severe (and tornadic) event. I just posted my chase log and map, which can be read on the 13 April 2007 Chase Log page.

Next chase day appears as though it won't be for at least 4-5 days, as a strong cold front is currently blasting through the Gulf of Mexico, which will significantly delay strong moisture return into the Plains. This is actually fine with me, since I have quite a bit of school work and thesis work to get done in the next week or two. That said, I'm never upset to have the opportunity to chase!

Oh yeah, we picked up another exotic pet today (our two rabbits are technically considered to be exotic pets) -- Vortie, the hedgehog. Yeah, vortie is an odd name (and a hedgehog is an odd pet!), but it's weather-related and not one that I want to save for a dog. Vortie joins Hailey, Windy, Madison, and Squirt as household pets. You can probably guess pretty easily which ones I named.

Those would be Vortie, Hailey, and Windy, obviously. ;)

2007-04-12T00:30:00.000-05:00

Model flip-flop continues regarding the setup for Friday. The trend in the NCEP models has been to shift the surface low to the west and south in time (in line with ECMWF forecasts from the past few days). My primary concern appears to be shifting from the location of the surface low and triple point (which previous forecasts indicated would be along the Red River near I35 by afternoon, while the latest 00z NAM indicates that the sfc low many actually be located quite a ways west of I35 -- much better for chasing logistics) to the degree of destabilization (or lack thereof). With strong warm-air advection occurring as the atmosphere tries to replace the currently cool airmass in place across the southern Plains by a much warmer (and more moist) airmass from the Gulf, I'm worried that we'll see widespread convection and cloudcover. Similar to 3-30-07, when widespread convection precluded destabilization and led to a bust, I fear that we'll see low CAPE. With 60-80kt 0-6km shear progged by the NAM, I'm not sure ~1000 j/kg or less CAPE will be sufficient to sustain updrafts. The NCEP models are still certainly in flux in terms of the Friday forecast, so only time will tell.

On a different note... OK, I can't avoid venting... Since when is "nappy-headed hoes" a racial slur? I'm so sick of hearing about the Imus media-made debacle! I've heard the term "hoes" hundreds of times in my life, and I've never considered it a racial term. Was it a smart thing to say? No, absolutely not. But, why is there such an apparent uproar? Since when should anyone care this much about what some radio personality says? I listen to the afternoon guys on Shade-45 on Sirius sometimes (it's a hip-hop / rap station), and I hear all sorts of jokes and comments about white people that much more racially-motivated than Imus's comments.

I think the apparent reaction to this has been much too extreme, and I think it's a direct result of the comment being made by a white man. How many times are the words "ho" and "nigga" used on rap and hip-hop albums? When those terms are so prevalent in popular music, why is it such a big deal when a white person uses them? I only mention "nigga" because of the media-storm involving Michael Richardson a couple of months ago, and I think the firestorms in the wake of Richards' and Imus's comments are quite similar. Why do people care so much what others say? Call me a 'cracker' or anything else -- I don't give a damn. Are we in 5th grade, when some comments by a random person can cause such "uproar"? The odd thing about all of this is that some of those who are screaming about the Imus deal are also those who use terms like "hoes" and others themselves. Oh the hypocrisy -- it's burning my ears!

Double-standard? Yeah. Hypocritical? Very much, and it's disgusting. If you want racial equality, then treat those of other races the same that you treat those of your own race. I don't hear much on the news or in the popular media lambasting hip-hop artists, rappers, and comedians for using terms like "ho" and "nigga". I can turn on Deaf Jam comedy on HBO any particular night and hear those terms used more than a dozen times, and the same goes for some radio stations. But, I forgot -- it's different when it's a white person using those words. If you want equality, then don't treat Caucasians any differently than you treat African-Americans. Where is Sharpton when 50 Cent releases his albums? Where is Jesse Jackson when Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle perform?

On a similar note, why is it socially acceptable to have things like "Mr. and Ms. Black OU" (other universities have these as well). If I start a group (White Student Association) and want to have a Mr. and Ms. White OU, I would be labeled a racist in seconds. Heck, I don't think I'd even be able to make a White Student Association (note that OU has a Black Student Assocation). Again, if you want equality, then don't voluntarily separate yourself from the whole. Grrr.

2007-04-06T23:01:00.000-05:00

I've been too busy to post much on here in the past month, despite having gotten in 3 chases during that time. I have chase logs up for Feb 28th, Feb 29th, and Feb 30th, which can be read/seen on my 2007 Chase Summary page. It's worth noting that the Feb. 28th summary contains many pictures from a substantial tornadic supercell that occurred in the eastern Texas Panhandle. Here's one of my favorite pictures from that supercell:

I haven't looked at too much in the way of long-range guidance, but, last I loooked, it appears as though the next chances for chasing will be within a couple of days of next weekend.

2007-03-02T23:39:00.000-06:00

Two rather unsuccessful chases in the past 10 days... Alas, it's only March 2nd, so I'm not too disappointed yet. I was extremely surprised by the tornadic supercell that produced a few tornadoes (one of which was strong to violent) in southeastern Kansas last Wednesday. We also just wrapped up a significant tornado event in the southeastern U.S. yesterday. I wouldn't really call it an "outbreak", but it was a significant tornado event nonetheless. I happened to take some screen grabs from GR3 of a tornadic supercell as an EF3 tornado was churning through the southeastern Alabama town of Enterprise. Unfortunately, the tornado killed more than a half dozen folks in that town, many in a high school.
This blogging software automatically reduces the size of the image, so I suggest the full-size image HERE. If you aren't familiar with radar imagery, the most important things to identify are the hook echo (the "arm-like" feature of higher reflectivity that protrudes to the southeast from the west part of the storm above) and the "damage ball". This "damage ball" signature is caused by large amounts of debris being lofted by a tornado, which is exactly what was happening in the town of Enterprise. While many tornadoes loft debris, few are close enough to weather radars for the associated near-surface debris field to be sampled by a radar. See below for more imagery:

Reflectivity (tilt 1)
Storm-relative velocity (tilt 1) -- note the two intense couplets, indicating the potential of two tornadoes occurring at that time.
Storm-relative velocity (tilt 2)
32NM Base Velocity 1
32nm Base Velocity 2

2007-02-27T01:47:00.001-06:00

There continues to be some potential for Wednesday, but the setup faces similar obstacles as the previous one (namely, questionable moisture and initiation). Last night's NAM was forecasting southwesterly 850mb across most of the southern plains, which was ushering in very warm and dry air just above the surface. Through the past few model runs, however, the NAM appears to have backed off this forecast, with the more recent 00z run backing the 850mb flow to SSW by Wednesday evening. There appears to be an opportunity for a rogue supercell in a relatively narrow zone of reduced CINH in northcentral Oklahoma (+/- 50-75 miles), as upper-50s Tds (and maybe even >60F) combine with 65-75F temperatures ahead of the dryline to produce ~1500 j/kg SBCAPE. Questions of initiation remain, as there remains some capping which may suppress convection until after dark. There is a hint of a lobe of mid-level vorticity swinging through the area near 00z, but the "big kahuna" hangs back until ~12z the following morning, so we won't have much DPVA to help out. It'll be a tough call, but that's relatively common for this time of year.

The NAM forecast sounding valid 00z/01 at OKC looks rather tempting: http://beta.wxcaster.com/cgi-bin/par...TION ID=_KOKC

It's important to note that the GFS is considerably less aggressive with moisture return, indicate pitiful moisture depth (and magnitude). If this verifies, I'll look back at this post and shake my head, for it'll feel silly to even consider chasing given the look of the GFS forecast soundings....

2007-02-23T01:51:00.000-06:00

Potential for a decent chase day tomorrow, especially considering it's not even March yet. I'll summarize my latest thoughts below (taken from my posts on Stormtrack):

Model consistency has been quite impressive. In fact, I don't think the forecasts from the GFS have changed much since last weekend (Day 6). Sure, the exact position of the 500mb low has shifted 100-200 miles at times, but the overall pattern and timing (+/- 6 hrs) has remained relatively consistent. Props to the model, and props to the atmosphere for being in a pattern of relatively low uncertaintly and relatively high predictability...

Not much is new in the 00z runs, and I'm just waiting for the 4km WRF run to post (with explicit convection -- I've found this model to be very good at forecasting storm mode, though I don't think there's much uncertainty in that with this cyclone). I really do hope the NAM verifies better than the GFS, since there are significant differences in the lowest 200mb of the models. The NAM is quite a bit warmer in the boundary layer ahead of the dryline, which creates a low-CINH (or no CINH) environment. In contrast, the GFS keeps the boundary layer much more stable (much higher CINH) owing to considerably lower low-level theta-e. For example, compare the GFS and NAM forecast soundings for Gage, OK, HERE. The GFS seems to be 10-13F cooler near the surface ahead of the warm front than the NAM. The GFS seems to be wanting to keep a thick stratus deck in the warm sector tomorrow (looking at 850mb RH)...

Decent moisture is currently taking the scenic route by advecting through northeastern Mexico before heading northward into western Texas. For example, notice the much deeper moisture on the 00z BRO and MMAN (in far northeastern Mexico) compared to the pitiful CRP soundings. SPC / RUC Mesonalysis at 850mb shows the good moisture taking the scenic route as well...

Speaking of moisture... I'm terribly concerned about moisture and instability north of Oklahoma. Personally, I'm not giving Kansas much thought. That's not to say that I don't think anything will happen there, but I'm more confident staying in OKlahoma and Texas.

The 00z 4km explicit convection WRF is out, it forecasts discrete supercell mode through 6z --> http://wwwt.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/mmbpll/cent4km/v2/ ... To find storm cores, I like to view the "Total Condensate" product. Check out the splitting supercell in TX from 24h-27h (00z-3z)! No signs of MCS/squall line development until after midnight.

2007-01-23T20:38:00.000-06:00

Wow, I haven't blogged in quite a long time! There hasn't been too much to speak of in terms of chasing, so that partially explains the inactivity. I did chase in northern Texas at the end of November (my latest chase in terms of the calendar year), but it didn't net much. Otherwise, I've been working on a couple of projects for school, and a couple other side projects unrelated to school. Kim and I went up to Bluefin (in the far northeastern Minnesota town of Tofte) for a few days earlier this month... I'm still working on the pictures, and I hope to have them up later this week.

As I listen to the President's State of the Union speech tonight, I find myself wondering if the money we've spent "fighting" terrorism is really the best use of that money. According to government reports, we have spent ~$500,000,000,000 ($500 billion) on the war on terror since 9-11-01. Much of that money has gone to the Iraq war, a war that was based on misinformation. Sure, it may be better that Saddam is gone, and it may have been worth the price if we had actually found WMDs and a link connecting Iraq to the 9-11 attacks. However, that's not the case. Instead, as many Americans that died on 9-11 have died in the Iraq war, with the vast majority of those occurring after our President claimed "Mission Accomplished!"

The interesting thing about terrorism is that the absolute risk is quite small compared to other dangers we face each day. Each year, approximately 45,000 people die on our roads. That means that, since 9-11-01, approximately 225,000 people have died on our roads. I have a massively greater risk of dying while I'm driving or riding in a car than I do of being killed by a terrorist. If you believe that the amount of money we pay (as taxpayers) should be somewhat commensurate / proportional to the degree of risk, then you'd see a reason to scratch your head. What happens if we put just 1% of the "War on Terrorism" money into increased automobile and roadway safety? Again, the chance of you, or someone you love, being a victim of an automobile accident is many, many times greater than being a victim of an act of terrorism. Sure, you can say that "Well, if you drive safely, you don't need to worry about anything". However, many "innocent" people each year die each on our roads, folks who are doing nothing wrong and just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can look at other sources of death (as morbid as that sounds) and see that government spending may go a long way in terms of reducing deaths from that source. Cancer research? Public health care? Public campaigns against obesity (there's an awful lot of tax money being spent on medical actions as a result of obesity, much is quite is entirely preventable)? Education programs in middle and high schools to help decrease smoking rates among teenagers? Millions of dollars in tax money is spent as a result of smoking-related illnesses, diseases, and cancers.

So, why do we spend such a large amount of money "fighting" terrorism? Are we naive to think that $500 billion saves more lives when spent "fighting" terrorism than when spent on domestic issues? I think part of it lies in the fact that we don't want "others" to come over to our "homeland" and kill "our" people. I think the idea of "foreigners" (many people seem to be paranoid of Middle Eastern'ers) threatening our way of life lets us forget (or shuffle under the rug) our own problems and our own actions that kill our own citizens. Along these grounds, I think USA citizens are starting to see through the fear-mongering of the past 4 years. Of course, we don't seem to have as much of a problem with "our" people killing "our" people (and I'm not talking about murder)... For example, obesity is largely preventable, yet think of the amount of tax money spent paying the medical bills of those who need medical attention as a result of obesity (either due to heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, medications, and so forth). Could some of the money we've spent on Iraq be spent to help reduce the obesity epidemic? I can think of many other causes that could result in an appreciable reduction in deaths in the USA if funded properly, and most of these causes are much more likely to affect Americans than terrorism. What about the millions of dollars that have gone to small towns for chemical weapon protection? There's an interesting USA Today article (titled "Homeland security money doesn't match terror thread ) that addresses this... Do small towns and rural counties really need hundreds of thousands of dollars in bomb detection, chemical weapon, and other "terrorism response" equipment? Sure, it's always good to be prepared, but at what point do we realize that spending an incredible amount of money is not the answer.

In the end, I hear a lot about the "war on terrorism" being a "war to protect our freedom". It's seems as though if we don't give the President unequaled power to spend as he pleases, all on the grounds of "fightning the terrorists", we'll all die a horrible, fiery death. Or worse, we'll all be unpatriotic. Heck, I'm sure some reading this will call me unpatriotic because I think we've been spending too much money fighting terrorism. I think, to the contrary, that I'm just as patriotic -- I want to protect my fellow citizens from the real-life, substantial risks that threaten the safety of many of us. I'm NOT saying we don't need to protect what we have. There are people out there who want to kill Americans. Period. I realize that, but they will always find a way to accomplish their mission. Some terrorism attempts may be stopped (reference the mid-August bust of the plan to blow up several jetliners between England and USA), but to think that we'll stop every single one is a little silly. When the risks to our lives are considered, one sees that "death by terrorism" is a relatively minor risk compared to those associated with preventable health conditions, roadways and driving, and other leading causes of death. And, like terrorism, many innocent people die doing things we all do every day (driving, etc). So, is the $500,000,000,000 we've spent really the best way to reduce American deaths and preserve our quality of life? Does the $500,000,000,000 spent make us feel safer and more "free"? I'd rather see money spent to subsidize automobile safety programs (e.g. subsidize car manufacturers to require side-impact air bags and active electronic stability systems, two features which would likely save as many lives in the US in the next couple of years as was lost on 9-11). Heck, look at the education system in many urban areas of the United States. Why can't just 1% of the terrorism money go to schools that can't afford textbooks now? Does the $500,000,000,00 spent fighting terrorism preserve our "quality of life" better than improving our education system (something that could be accomplished by reappropriating even 10% of that money to schools). In the end, what betters our society and life more? I'd argue that giving more money to the hundreds of public schools that are in shambles or increasing the amount of federally-subsidized college student loans would improve our quality of life more than the $500,000,000,000 we've spent fighting a risk that is, by all standards, relatively minor.

2006-11-05T01:26:00.000-06:00

Well, I've been more busy in the past week than I've been in about 2 years. Some unexpected issues with my SLS work has meant long hours in the front of the computer. In the end, I'm happy with the way both posters have come out, which is the important thing I suppose. I'm leaving tomorrow morning to drive to STL for the conference, so I won't be able to blog for at least the next week. My parents are coming to town next weekend, which is always fun. I'm currently working on 4 research projects (3-20-06 cold-core event, 25 May 99 dust devil - GBVTD analysis, 4-24-06 El Reno photogrammetric analysis, and differential attenuation correction to X-band dual-pol radar data), so I expect it to be a very busy couple of months. The GBVTD project may be winding down, but the other three will stay on my plate for at least the next 6 months. The 3-20-06 and 4-24-06 projects are potential papers, and the differential attenuation correction project will likely end up as my thesis. Fun times.

2006-10-25T23:59:00.000-05:00

Whew. I've been busy with a slew of work (both research and school), including getting my material ready for the upcoming SLS, which is 10-11 days away. I'm still having trouble with one of my projects, which is putting me on a deadline. Ugh, pain in the butt!

I have finished uploading a bunch of wedding photos. See the wedding page for the pictures.

That's all the update for which I have time. I really shouldn't chase tomorrow since I need to solve this GBVTD problem, but I really can't deny a chase at the end of October! It'll be 20F and snowing before we know it (oh wait, who am I kidding...), so I can't let a decent chase op pass me by. At this time, I'm favoring the northern play near a warm front in northern OK, but we'll have to see how quickly (or slowly) the pacific front cruises through western and central Oklahoma.

2006-10-01T23:58:00.001-05:00

Well, I should finally have some more wedding pictures up online next weekend. My mom picked some pictures from the photographer last week, but she hasn't had time to mail them down to me. So, until I get those, I can't really show much else. Some of the pictures from the photographer are really good, so I'm excited to get them online.

Otherwise... I started to make a "2002-current" Chase Tracks Map like the annual maps I posted about a few days ago, but I realized that it would take quite a bit of time. I should have made the annual maps differently, which could have made it easier to make an "accumulated" map. Oh well.

You know, one of the least discussed aspects of the war in Iraq seems to involve the amount of money that we are spending on the war. Several years ago, I never gave much thought to the national budget deficit and debt. After learning more about it, however, I wonder why few others seem to care. In the end, even the federal government needs to pay for what it buys, just as you and I need to pay our credit card bills. Sure, it's nice to say "I want to keep more of the money that I make", while also demanding better public health care, newer roads, and more federally-supported services, but does one not see the problem? The federal debt has ballooned in the past 5 years, with nearly 30% of the current federal debt (which is about $8.5 TRILLION right now) coming from deficits since 2000. There is a law that limits the amount of money that the government can borrow, but Congress ends up raising the debt ceiling when necessary, which allows us to borrow more money. Oh course, it's important to realize that we're borrowing a significant amount of money from foreign governments. Is there not a national security risk when foreign governments (such as China) control a significant portion of the federal loans (estimated to be near 50% at this time)? Is it not ironic that, when the goverment continually reminds us that we are trying to become more self-sufficient, many fail to realize that foreign governments are controlling a very large portion of the federal government's spending? Note that we NEED their control at this time, since our country would collapse if they stopped lending money to us.

We're talking about a balance between spending and income. Spending has risen sharply with the Iraq war, with the war cost passing the $0.5 TRILLION mark recently. Meanwhile, permanent tax cuts have been popular political moves that helped the current administration stay in power during the last set of major elections. Sure, it may have helped jump-start the economy, but you'd be hardpressed to prove that it has resulted in more income for the federal government. Reviewing, we see that there has been ballooning spending and decreasing income. What would Visa (and their lawyers) say if I kept charging more while refusing to pay? Eventually, they'll stop allowing me to borrow. In the meantime, I'd pay massive interest charges, which is exactly what the federal government is doing now. Per the US Treasury Department, almost $400 BILLION is spent each year on the INTEREST on the national debt. Don't we have many better things for which we could spend that money? While the current administration heralded a "less-than-previously-estimated" annual deficit earlir this year, they failed to mention that even this deficit was nearly unheard of before 2000. Sure, it's slightly better than they had estimated (note that the latest revision to the "estimate" came not too much before the official deficit was released... apparently, they have poor estimates, or, more likely, they intentionally overinflated the deficit estimate so they could "beat" it), but it's still astronomically massive. Sure, some folks will say "Yeah, but nobody has had to deal with an event on the scale of September 11th before, either". That's true, much of the money now is going to improved security (TSA, etc), but that doesn't mean we don't have to pay for it. If we want improved security, we MUST pay for it. The employees of the TSA are not working for free, neither are the soldiers in Iraq, and multi-million dollar aircraft aren't donated for government use. If we want to "take home more of our paychecks" (i.e. lower income taxes), then we must be able to live with reduced/fewer government goods and services. If we spend a massive amount of money to secure the country, and "spread" Democracy to other countries, we simply cannot afford to permanently enact massive tax cuts that reduce government income. Doing so results in exactly what we have seen in the past several years. Again, the tax cuts probably did kickstart the economy, but they still cost the government billions upon billions of dollars.

The following is taken from an article in a local newspaper, written by two Fellows of the Brookings Institute (HERE):

Making the tax cuts permanent would generate large, backloaded revenue losses over the next 10 years. Combined with a minimal but necessary fix to the government's Alternative Minimum Tax, making the tax cuts permanent would reduce federal revenues by almost $1.8 trillion over 10 years — and that's in addition to the $1.7 trillion of revenue losses already locked into law. By 2014, the annual revenue loss would amount to $400 billion, or 2 percent of gross domestic product — almost the size of this year's federal budget deficit.

· Paying for the tax cuts would require monumental reductions in spending or increases in other taxes. To offset the revenue losses in 2014 would require, for example, a 48 percent reduction in Social Security benefits, a 57 percent cut in Medicare benefits, or a 117 percent increase in corporate taxes.

· Over the long run, making the tax cuts permanent would cost as much as repairing the shortfalls in the Social Security and Medicare Hospital Insurance trust funds. Thus, to the extent that Social Security and Medicare are considered major long-term fiscal problems, making the tax cuts permanent should be seen as creating a fiscal problem of equivalent magnitude.

This problem is not going to get any better, unfortunately. Nobody will get elected on a platform of raising taxes, and anyone who tries to contain spending will be eaten for lunch during the next election cycle ("Senator ABC doesn't value the safety of our roads... Why would you like him put your precious family at risk?"). A war that has no end in sight doesn't help matters much either.

So, what should we do? I don't know. The best way to start is by voting for those who will have the backbone to actually deal with this problem. Anyone under 35 years old will have to face the dire consequences of years of gargantuan deficits in another decade or two, so it's in everyone's interest to deal with this problem now. We WILL need to repay the debt some day, and the most likely form of repayment will be fueled by greatly-raised taxes. Do we want our children tomorrow to bear the financial consequences of our actions today? It seems that much of the American public are so short-sighted that they cannot think of our financial healthy 20-30 years down the road. Or, the political landscape and the way by which we judge political candidates creates a situation akin to political suicide should any candidate run on a platform that would act to fix this problem.

2006-09-27T16:34:00.000-05:00

I've been busy with school, but I have made a couple additions to the website in the past couple of days:

New videos! April 24th, 2006 (El Reno tornado) and March 30th, 2006 (Strong rotation west of Pauls Valley)

Annual chase tracks maps for 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, and 2002

I'm going to work on Annual chase tracks maps for the past few years through the coming week. I don't know why I never thought of doing that before, but it's kind of a neat idea. At any rate, that's the latest.

2006-09-26T00:24:00.001-05:00

I've added several new chase logs and pictures in the past few days...

Now online: Wedding pictures taken by Kim's mom! (I have 1200 more, including the ones from the photographer, that I'm still working on!)

Chase logs from September 15th, September 16th, and September 21st.

A bunch of lightning pictures from September 1st, 2006.

2006-09-15T12:46:00.000-05:00

Gabe and I are heading out to far nw OK soon. I'm more impressed with today than I am tomorrow, with a pretty classic "day-before-THE-day" event possible. Moisture return is much better than models were suggesting it would be a few days, with upper-60s to low-70s in southern OK. Strong shear profiles characterize most of the area betweeen AMA and OMA (with NAM forecasting 50-55kt 0-6km shear be evening). Abundant insolation and the decent moisture should yield moderate-strong CAPE, though warm mid-level temperatures will limit lapse rates and CAPE. Best low-level shear should be located the farther north we drive (max in NE near 50kt LLJ axis), but I have serious doubts about moisture recovery the farther north we go. So, for now, the favorable juxtaposition of moisture/CAPE and low-level shear is leading us to far nw OK (or adjacent portions of the ne TX panhandle and sw/sc KS). I'll probably sit out tomorrow, since it looks like the winds will veer ahead of the front. Farther north (into IA) looks good, but storm motions will be fast. The NAM has FINALLY come on board with the rest of the operational models, showing much better agreement with the positing and timing of the cold front. The latest forecast even opens the possibility of a chase on Sunday.

2006-09-11T02:12:00.000-05:00

Been busy with school (and turning 24! LOL), so I haven't written much here (obviously).

I have finally processed and uploaded a slew of honeymoon pictures! Our honeymoon adventures can be read and viewed on the Honeymoon page . Between the two of us, we took several hundred pictures, and I tried to narrow down the number I'm putting online as much as possible, so as to avoid making people look through hundreds of pictures (or having people not look at all).

Next project -- wedding pictures! As I've said, we have more than 1000 pictures (and likely nearing 1500), so I doubt I'll be able to post-process them beyond running my simple resize and watermark script. I'm aiming for having those up and ready by next weekend.

2006-08-31T01:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I FINALLY have my honeymoon pictures processed and ready to be uploaded. Now, I still need to work on honeymoon pictures that Kim took, but that shouldn't take as long. After the honeymoon pictures are up, it's time to work on wedding photos.

Random tidbit: Ernesto fooled everyone.

Interesting tidbit: For whatever reason, someone opted to stay on Wake Island to take observations during a very close call with Ioke. For those who haven't followed Ioke, it has fluctuated between a Cat 4 and Cat 5 for nearly the past week. It crossed the International Dateline a couple of days ago, so it's actually a typhoon (or super typhoon) now. At any rate, Wake Island looked as though it would experience a direct hit from the eye, but it now appears as though it'll just get a glancing blow. Fortunately, someone was crazy enough to stay behind on the very tiny island to take observations. If you follow THIS LINK, you can view the observations, which are being made every 6 minutes! To view the 6-min obs in text format, go to the bottom of that page and click on the "View Data" button. While this is quite fascinating, I'm legitimately concerned for the person providing these data. I should note that the "person stayed behind" is 2nd-hand information (from someone who heard it on the news), so I cannot say with certainty that this is correct (not to imply that I would be able to say with certainty had I heard it on the news myself).

2006-08-27T02:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm still working on wedding and honeymoon pictures. I've had quite a bit of work/school stuff to get done recently, so I haven't made much progress. We did get the pics back from the photographer, so I'll try to put those up in due time.

Meanwhile... I was able to take some lightning pictures this evening, as a line of storms developed to the northwest of Edmond. I have about 8 that I'll put online tomorrow, but here are two of my favorites:

2006-08-12T01:04:00.000-05:00

Well, not enough time to blog again in Hawai'i. We arrived safely Thursday afternoon, after only a slight security-related delay in Seattle Thursday morning. My goal is to get a slew of honeymoon pictures up on this website by next weekend. Between Kim and I, we have about 400-500 honeymoon pictures. I shot all 300-350 of my pictures in RAW format, so I need to thoroughly post-process each and every one of them (or at least all those that I want). About the wedding pictures... Kim's mom has more than 100 of them; my mom has about 75; Nick and Jasmine took a slew of them; the photographer took something like 800; there are 15 rolls of films from the disposable cameras at each table. That's a LOT of pictures. I'll try to pick and choose carefully so as not to end up with a 200 minutes slide-show that nobody will want to watch. My goal is to put up the best 40 or 50. I have full copyright of all of the pictures the photographer took, so I should be able to put those online as well. In the meanwhile, we also need to unpack our apartment stuff, and I really need to make progress on a couple of posters that I'll be presenting at the SLS conference in St. Louis this fall. Oh yeah, school starts back up soon too... I'll post here when I add pictures, but it may be a month before I have wedding and honeymoon pictures online.