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Virtual Chase Thread 2012


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Posted
  • Location: on a canal , probably near Northampton...
  • Weather Preferences: extremes n snow
  • Location: on a canal , probably near Northampton...

Nothing much in store today, however, increased possibility of chaser action in Arkansas, Texas and Missisipi tommorow.

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Posted
  • Location: Leigh On Sea - Essex & Tornado Alley
  • Location: Leigh On Sea - Essex & Tornado Alley

Looks like another active few weeks coming up if some of the models are to be believed. Temperatures more akin to Middle to Late April and moisture returning. Could be some decent Virtual Chases over the next 2 weeks!

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Posted
  • Location: Caterham-on-the-hill, Surrey, 190m asl (home), Heathrow (work)
  • Location: Caterham-on-the-hill, Surrey, 190m asl (home), Heathrow (work)

The slight risk for today looking better than I thought it would. 10% probs for a tornado today for Arkansas, might sit it out at Stuttgart today

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html

Posted Image

Looking reasonable longer term too, although the trough moving in across western Conus is slow moving and takes it's time to have a decent effect this side of the Rockies for severe weather, it means when it arrives there should a long enough period of reloading storm potential hopefully. Though SPC give a fair bit of uncertainty:

DAY 4-8 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK

NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK

0323 AM CDT SUN MAR 11 2012

VALID 141200Z - 191200Z

...DISCUSSION...

CONSIDERABLE UNCERTAINTY EXISTS REGARDING THE EVOLUTION OF THE WRN

U.S. TROUGH BY LATE WEEK. THE ECMWF IS CONSIDERABLY DEEPER AND

FARTHER SOUTH WITH ITS JET CORE INTO NRN BAJA WHILE THE GFS ALLOWS

MORE SHORT-WAVE ENERGY TO EJECT INTO THE NRN/CNTRL PLAINS A FEW DAYS

PRECEDING. PRIOR TO THIS DEEPENING ALONG THE WEST COAST THERE WILL

LIKELY BE EPISODIC EMBEDDED IMPULSES/SHORT-WAVE TROUGHS EJECTING

NEWD ACROSS THE SWRN U.S./NRN MEXICO INTO THE PLAINS/MS VALLEY

REGION. IN THE ABSENCE OF MODEL CONTINUITY...CONFIDENCE IN ANY

SCENARIO WILL REMAIN LOW. THUS IT WILL PROVE DIFFICULT TO PREDICT

ORGANIZED DEEP CONVECTION CAPABLE OF GENERATING SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS

DESPITE THE EXPECTED GRADUAL MOISTENING/DESTABILIZATION THAT SHOULD

OCCUR EAST OF THE ROCKIES INTO THE MEDIUM RANGE.

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Posted
  • Location: Totterdown, Bristol, UK.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms, Hail, Torrential Rain
  • Location: Totterdown, Bristol, UK.

Looks like another active few weeks coming up if some of the models are to be believed. Temperatures more akin to Middle to Late April and moisture returning. Could be some decent Virtual Chases over the next 2 weeks!

Hi, have been watching weather.com and noticed its alot warmer across nearly the whole of the States than usual for this time of year due to the more northern position of the jet stream than usual (rather like in the UK) . Do you think the lack of cold air is likely to lead to a reduction in the chances of tornados during late spring? Not that I am that much of a professional!

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Posted
  • Location: South Staffordshire
  • Weather Preferences: Snow
  • Location: South Staffordshire

I feel a bit out of place surrounded by you 'severe weather experts' so please forgive me for the naivety of my knowledge that im going to display in this post but.. ever since I went to Florida around 5 & 6 years ago i've had a bit of a love for severe weather, tornadoes, tornado seasons and infact pretty much anything 'weather usa'. I remember every day sitting and watching Orlando's 'Local on the 8's' go round in circles and circles for hours and being equally as hooked by every single repeat.

I frequently watch 'Storm watch' 'Weather in 60 seconds' etc on Weather.com and actually have a flick through the site most if not everyday. Im just wondering if you lot can push me in the right direction as to where I can find live forecasts daily, live streams on tornado days, live news forecasts like you see at the beginning of 'Storm Chasers' (of which I am rather sadly addicted and today acquired seasons 1-5 on dvd) etc. Just kind of everything thats going to get me as close to the action as possible.

Lastly, where do I view the maps and warning zone maps etc that have been posted in previous posts my members in this thread.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

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Posted
  • Location: on a canal , probably near Northampton...
  • Weather Preferences: extremes n snow
  • Location: on a canal , probably near Northampton...

http://www.chasertv.com/

this is usually quite good on stormy days, you can zoom in and out and lick on the chaser cars to see individual feeds

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Posted
  • Location: Aberystwyth, West Wales
  • Location: Aberystwyth, West Wales

For forecasts, discussions, radar and warnings use the Storm Prediction Centre - http://www.spc.noaa.gov/

Streaming I use chasertv and http://www.severestudios.com/livechase/

For news feeds I'd just google the county and state and see what it throws up, they usually only broadcast live on more eventful days though.

:)

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Posted
  • Location: Milton, Stoke-on-Trent
  • Location: Milton, Stoke-on-Trent

I use http://www.tornadovideos.net/full-screen-chaser-video.php for a basic radar and streams. Can slow down your browser a bit I find. http://www.intellicast.com/Local/WxMap.aspx?weather=hdRadarSmoothPaletteA is another good radar.

http://stormscapelive.com/ is really good too, Michael Phelps on there interacts really well with people in the chat (I've learnt a lot from his streams over the last year) and is one of the best out there I've found.

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Posted
  • Location: South Staffordshire
  • Weather Preferences: Snow
  • Location: South Staffordshire

Ahh brillant lads ill definetely be looking into using these on future chase days. Looks more active than I expected in the lakes at the moment.

One final question - is there an american weather forum such as this one to dicsuss weather or severe weather etc

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Posted
  • Location: Scarborough, North Yorkshire - 80m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: Tornadoey
  • Location: Scarborough, North Yorkshire - 80m ASL
Americanwx.com is a pretty 'noob' friendly forum which is very active (although it sometimes can be hard to find the Severe threads as they partition off by geographical area which is awkward during outbreaks which span multiple areas). There's a good range of discussion from pretty high level forecasting to your more usual amateur failcasts although it does tend to suffer from a bit of bickering and OT posting at times:) Also, there is TalkWeather.com which usaully get a good thread going for the big events (75+ pages on the last 2 outbreaks) but generally seems a little more laid back. the 2 main chaser forums are Stormtrack.org and Chasersforum.com. Stormtrack has a nice introductory forum and a good forecasts area but you'd be expected to be somewhat knowledgable if you were to participate. Still very good for the lurker and learner. ChasersForum tries to keep itself pretty locked down to all but the hardened Chaser. There are public forums, but a lot of the info is locked away for only the 'most dedicated chaser'. I tried applying but have not yet been accepted. Apparently spending 20% of my income and driving 8000+ each year on chaser trips isn't enough :p Both the last two only really pick up activity during the main tornado season... Edited by Gorky
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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

What is it like to be a storm chaser on the hunt for tornadoes?

Earlier this month, tornadoes ravaged parts of the US, destroying homes and killing dozens. As the tornado season there gets underway with devastating consequences, Ross McGuinness speaks to a storm chasing pioneer about the natural phenomenon...

Posted Image

Warren Faidley is the world’s first ever storm chaser. He even owns the trademark for the phrase but doesn’t he want to be known as one. He doesn’t mind if you call him a journalist, a lecturer, a photographer, a safety consultant, an author or an extreme weather adventurer. But call him a storm chaser and you get a negative reaction.

‘I don’t use the word “storm chaser†too much nowadays because it has become a word for the real screwballs – the idiots who go out and chase very dangerously that you see on TV,’ he said. Mr Faidley, who is based in Tucson, Arizona, said the plethora of recent reality programmes on something he has been doing since the 1980s had denigrated the practice. ‘The television shows don’t give the entire picture of what chasing’s about,’ he told Metro. ‘They just show people doing crazy things to put on YouTube.

‘Unfortunately, they make people out to be scientists or experts when they’re really not. But most chasers and spotters are very responsible, professional people who behave well and don’t break the law. They go out for reasons that have some purpose other than just trying to make it look dramatic.’ The 54-year-old has never felt the need to dramatise storms – there is enough danger doing what he does even when going by the book.

Mr Faidley has pursued thousands of storms and hundreds of tornadoes since 1987 and hasn’t felt the need to deliberately put himself in harm’s way. ‘I stopped counting at about 100 tornadoes,’ he said. ‘After that, I figured I wasn’t going to count any more.

‘I don’t try to get close to any of the tornadoe. But any time you’re near severe weather, things happen: storms change direction, it’s just the way it works. There’s always some danger.’ Mr Faidley is one of the few to survive a brush with both a Category 5 hurricane (Hurricane Andrew in 1992) and an F-5 tornado (the most powerful there is) in Oklahoma in 1991.

Of his experience with the F-5, Mr Faidley: ‘I had one pass in front of me on a high risk day – very, very close. ‘The tornado was actually so big it was hard to tell it was a tornado. It was like a big cloud of smoke or dust on the ground. Just being that close to it was a really nerve-wracking experience because you know what kind of damage those things can do so there’s a lot of respect for them.’

Mr Faidley has worked as a weather expert for Fox News and CNN in the past, and provided live reports during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He was also a consultant on the 1996 storm chasing movie, Twister, but said reality is a lot different to the film. ‘Things like Twister, that’s all fantasy,’ he revealed. ‘Years ago, they tried to put a probe into a tornado but it never really worked.

‘No scientific people would dare put someone near a tornado when they can use radar. One person with a bunch of instruments isn’t going to do any good.’

Mr Faidley sees his role as an important one – recording tornadoes through film or photography and keeping local weather services up to date with its movements. Earlier this month, more than 80 tornadoes cut across the US in one day, killing 41 people in the midwest and the south. Among those killed was 15-month-old Angel Babcock from New Pekin, Indiana, who was initially found alive after being thrown into a field from her home. Her parents and two siblings had already been killed in the disaster. Despite such tragedies, Mr Faidley believes deaths could be prevented.

‘Nobody in the US should die in a tornado’ he said. ‘You can see them coming, you’ve been warned for days in advance, there’s sirens going off... ‘It’s sad because it’s just apathy. People don’t care then when a tornado hits, they blame everybody. ‘It’s actually stupidity. I hate to say that but it is. No one should die.’

Mr Faidley is also looking forward to the day when tornadoes could become preventable. He said: ‘There’s a lot of scientists who say that will be possible some day. ‘In 100 years or so, they may be able to use lasers to prevent a large number of tornadoes but who knows?’

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/newsfocus/893032-what-is-it-like-to-be-a-storm-chaser-on-the-hunt-for-tornadoes#ixzz1p4vpq6ng

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Posted
  • Location: Fareham, Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms, Severe Weather events
  • Location: Fareham, Hampshire

Prog on Nat Geo tonight at 6pm, not sure if it's a repeat or not but I've Sky+'d it :good:

Tornado Destruction: Caught on Camera

Video footage captures the devastation brought by the outbreak of tornadoes that struck America in April 2011, the most active month on record

Category Documentary

National Geographic 6:00pm-7:00pm (1 hour ) Wed 14 Mar

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Posted
  • Location: Caterham-on-the-hill, Surrey, 190m asl (home), Heathrow (work)
  • Location: Caterham-on-the-hill, Surrey, 190m asl (home), Heathrow (work)

SPC suggesting potential for a classic High Plains/Panhandle chase on Sunday - along the dryline:

Maybe some potential for the same area too on Saturday along the dryline.

post-1052-0-36398600-1331729873_thumb.gi

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Posted
  • Location: Hayward’s Heath - home, Brighton/East Grinstead - work.
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and storms
  • Location: Hayward’s Heath - home, Brighton/East Grinstead - work.

SPC suggesting potential for a classic High Plains/Panhandle chase on Sunday - along the dryline:

Maybe some potential for the same area too on Saturday along the dryline.

Nick, do you know how wet the area around Amarillo is this year. Is it still in severe drought like last year?
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Posted
  • Location: Caterham-on-the-hill, Surrey, 190m asl (home), Heathrow (work)
  • Location: Caterham-on-the-hill, Surrey, 190m asl (home), Heathrow (work)

Nick, do you know how wet the area around Amarillo is this year. Is it still in severe drought like last year?

Still looking pretty dry in the Amarillo area and much of NW and W Texas:

Posted Image

Should be another weekly update tomorrow for the drought monitor.

Though I have noticed a fair bit of rain across Texas this month so far and the end of last month with storms quite widespread recently - so hopefully the trend for more storms in the southern High Plains continues this spring.

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Posted
  • Location: Hayward’s Heath - home, Brighton/East Grinstead - work.
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and storms
  • Location: Hayward’s Heath - home, Brighton/East Grinstead - work.

Still looking pretty dry in the Amarillo area and much of NW and W Texas:

Posted Image

Should be another weekly update tomorrow for the drought monitor.

Though I have noticed a fair bit of rain across Texas this month so far and the end of last month with storms quite widespread recently - so hopefully the trend for more storms in the southern High Plains continues this spring.

Thanks.

It will be interesting to see if this affects the dry line initiation this year. Things kind of died a death in the drought area last year.

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Posted
  • Location: Torrington, Devon
  • Weather Preferences: storms - of the severe kind
  • Location: Torrington, Devon

Sorry if i'm repeating old info

http://highinstability.com/

They talk storms, storm chasing, and general storm forecasting

Called High Instability. Gene Rhoden and Chuck Doswell

It's on every other Wednesday. 7pm central time

The bad news, the live show starts at 1am Uk Time

The good news, there is a show archive page, including one with Warren Faidley as guest

They will be coming up to their 100th episode soon

I like it, good show. Informative, they call a spade a spade, with some humour thrown in

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Posted
  • Location: Leigh On Sea - Essex & Tornado Alley
  • Location: Leigh On Sea - Essex & Tornado Alley

Going to be some great Streams over the next week.

USA In a Mid May like Pattern at the moment with temps in the 80's in Nebraska (Think 80f in Scotland in March and you will see how rare this is)

Slight Risk today across Middle Dixie Alley, then a nice Slight for tomorrow around Oklahoma. After a rest day on Saturday a lovely little Dryline Set Up on Sunday (More Akin to Middle to Late May) across fantastic chase areas, this risk then spreads a little further eastwards on Monday and I would not rule out further chase days on Tuesday and Wednesday at this stage.

March is the New May it seems :fool::acute:

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Posted
  • Location: Scarborough, North Yorkshire - 80m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: Tornadoey
  • Location: Scarborough, North Yorkshire - 80m ASL

Does look pretty juicy over there. One of the model runs a couple of days ago showed 70/60 temp/dp reaching well into Manitoba with an attendent threat of severe weather including tornadoes. It's backed down a bit on the Northern extent of the upcoming spell but I imagine it's pretty rare to get severe up into Canada that early... The event looks a little reminiscent of March 28th 2007, at least as far as location and the early nature of the setup. That was ultimately a moderate setup which massively overperformed with tornadoes through Texas, OK, KS, CO and NE. Obviously a lot can change and there are plenty of differences here but these setups can perform well, despite being early in the season...

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Posted
  • Location: Fareham, Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms, Severe Weather events
  • Location: Fareham, Hampshire
tornado reported in Dexter, MI. Photo's of damage here
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Posted
  • Location: Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire
  • Weather Preferences: Stormy...
  • Location: Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire

Finally there's a live feed from MI and it's looking pretty darned good!!

Thundering Skies Media

It's as nasty as it looks on the radar

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