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You are browsing the archive for tornado Archives - Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.

23 October 2019

Of all the Mistakes A Local News Outlet Can Make- This is The Worst

When a tornado moved right through central Dallas Sunday night, almost every TV station was in wall-to-wall coverage. The tornado was visible in lightning flashes, and this was not a “possible tornado”. It was confirmed, on the ground, and doing damage. Major damage. Yet, Dallas station KXAS did not break into programming for some time, and it was not because their meteorologists were asleep. They were tracking the storm and …

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14 April 2017

Supercomputer Recreation of an Oklahoma Tornado

A big hat tip to Tim Schmit at the Uni. of Wisconsin SSEC for this: Look at the animation below of a supercell with a large tornado that was re-created using a supercomputer. From the video tag on YouTube: Using supercomputers, a team led by UW-Madison CIMSS researcher Leigh Orf, successfully recreated a monstrous supercell that produced several tornadoes in 2011, one of which registered as an EF-5 and touched …

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24 August 2016

30 Deaths from Lightning in the U.S. So Far This Year. 12 From Tornadoes

Meteorologist John Jensenius at NOAA keeps track of the deaths from lightning each year, and I asked him to send me a list of the deaths each month, so that I could share. We are now up to 30, and it is worth noting that 80% of the deaths are male and 20% female, a fact that is not unusual, with far more males rather than females becoming victims each …

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27 July 2014

Rare Mid-Summer Tornado Outbreak Possible In Midwest Sunday

An unusually strong summer cool front is expected to kick off numerous super-cell thunderstorms Sunday across the Midwest and even into the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast. With thousands of folks at campgrounds and beaches, the possibilities that the storms may catch folks in the open and away from sturdy shelter is much higher than normal. Just this week, an EF1 tornado hit the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and left two dead and over …

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30 April 2014

NWS Weather Radar Upgrade Proving Wildly Successful

It was near midnight last night (April 28, 2014) when a strong super-cell storm developed an intense rotation as it approached Birmingham, AL (with a population of over a million people). Tornadoes are hard to spot at night (and they can often be wrapped in rain) making them invisible until it’s too late to take cover. While Doppler radar has made it possible to see this rotation inside a storm, …

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30 June 2013

Why Depending On Facebook for Severe Weather Warnings is A Bad Idea

James Spann  (meteorologist for the ABC affiliate in Birmingham, AL.)  spoke at the AMS Conference on Broadcast Meteorology last week, and made an interesting point about using social media for weather warnings. Be very careful! Young people especially tend to get most of their news and information from mobile devices, using social media apps etc. During the record tornado outbreak in April 2011, many viewers had no power, or were …

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19 June 2013

Tornado Over Denver Airport Today

..and from Meteorologist Nate Johnson, the view from the terminal Doppler Radar at DIA. The radar was so close to the tornado you could see the precipitation wrapping around the vortex!:

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27 April 2013

Reprint of NWS Announcement That Dual Pole Radar Upgrade is Complete.

NOAA’s National Weather Service completes Doppler radar upgrades Advanced technology proves valuable during severe weather April 25, 2013 Dual-pol data shows what type of precipitation is falling based on its shape.Download here (Credit: NOAA) This week, the National Weather Servicecompleted the dual-polarization technology update in Brownsville, Texas – concluding the 122 NWS radar site upgrades throughout the country. This new advanced technology is helping federal weather forecasters more accurately track, assess and …

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14 April 2013

I Participated In A Google Hangout As Part of National Environmental Education Week

I work with the folks at the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) in Washington frequently and they do a fantastic job. When they asked me to participate in  a Google Hangout as part of National Environmental Education Week, I said sure! A big thanks to NEEF and Google! It was a blast and I have had a lot of nice comments. You can see it here:

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11 February 2013

Tornado Strikes Hattiesburg MS. Tornadic Storms Rumbling into South Alabama As well.

There is only weak instability but the wind shear is very conducive to tornados ahead of a cold front. Meteorologists look at a particular type of low-level wind shear called the storm relative helicity. Values above 200 are a warning sign and above 300 are a BIG warning to look for tornadoes.  I am seeing values over 600 across South AL now so the threat remains.

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