Some Really Excellent Books

I am frequently asked about a good text on Meteorology. Many times it is a parent or grand parent of a school age child who has a fanatical interest in weather(I can relate to that!)

A few years ago the number of books with good info and not a lot of math and physics were hard to find. Remember too that another name for Meteorology is Atmospheric Physics..in other words a good background of math and physics is ESSENTIAL to really understanding weather processes.

When I was in school I always tried to learn dificuly concepts both ways..the mathematical proof, so to speak, of what was happening and then I demanded of my professors the "real world explanation"

I am happy to say that there are now a few excellent books with real world explanations and just enough math to give students (and anyone else interested) a real world view of how the atmosphere works.

So here they are:
For students at 6th grade level or below:
The USA Today Weather Book by Jack Williams
available on amazon.com and other sites

I met Jack in the state dining room at the White House(really!),he is a great guy and a good explainer of weather.

For those over 12 there are 2 books:
THE ATMOSPHERE by Lutgens and Tarbuck (9th edition)
SEVERE AND UNUSUAL WEATHER by Joe R. Eagleman

Both are available on Amazon (click the title of today's post).
The Lutgens book ain't cheap but is really good.

The Eagleman book has some very simplified sections but also has an excellent chapter on thunderstorm dynamics and the currently accepted theories on updraft rotation...you know MESOCYCLONES...if you want to know what really causes a tornado..this book is for you.

Ok, a long winded post to talk about 3 books but some famous scientist (or another down in the trenches weather dude like me) may very well get his start by your gift of one!

Dan sends at 4 am Saturday morning (I gotta get to bed!)

My Storm Cellar is a Ditch

This was passed on to me from the NWS office here in Huntsville. A good lesson to be learned...
Guess you could say this falls into the I never thought it would happen to me department.
***************************************************************************
Rankin County tornado victim: 'This time, it really hit'
(Brandon, MS)
04/06/05

By Cathy Hayden
chayden@clarionledger.com
And Joshua Cogswell
jcogswell@clarionledger.com

Tornado watches were in effect at mid-morning for much of south and east Mississippi as more bands of severe weather and squall lines moved through the state, including central and southwest Mississippi, the National Weather Service reported.

Numerous mobile homes were destroyed and damage was reported to roofs and vehicles in the Monterey Road area between Florence and Brandon and around Brandon-Star Road south of Brandon, officials said.

Herman Davis of Thomasville Road in Florence, MS. had just gotten home from his night shift job at Yellow Freight when he came face-to-face with the storms.

He pulled up in his driveway at 7:15 a.m. and saw one of the two mobile homes in front of his house spinning in the air. Davis, who weathered tornadoes in 1992 at his home, said he got out of his truck and jumped into the nearest ditch.

"I wanted to lay down in the truck, but it might start flying away, too," Davis said as he surveyed his property at about 9 a.m.

"I saw that trailer go up in the air," he said.

The mobile home that flew through the air belongs to his nephew, Twymond Davis, who was just getting ready to move into it. "It's totally destroyed," Davis said of the structure.

Brandon emergency services coordinator Byron McDaniel said he was able to sound the city's weather sirens about 30 minutes before the storms moved through.

He cited damage at Lewis Wilson Drive and Shiloh Road, and said no injuries have been reported in the city limits of Brandon.

There were numerous reports of mobile home damage in Rankin County, along with damaged roofs and downed trees and power lines. Some roads were blocked by fallen trees.

The Clarion-Ledger
201 S. Congress St.
Jackson MS 39201
(800) 367-3384
***********************************************************************
Only once have I felt that my life was in danger from severe weather. Piedmont Alabama on Palm Sunday 1994. While covering the tornado that had struck the church and killed several during the morning worship service, another storm came over.

Looking back at the video, I am almost certain it was a tornado that had not completely reached the ground. I was doing a stand up on tape and pointing at the rapidly approaching wall cloud, when the metal roof of a shed detached and headed right for my head.

My camera man had his back to it and the only warning I had time to give was DUCK!
After it barely missed us, I realized that we had a tornado developing right on top of us.

...and what did I do?

I would like to say that I followed the advice I have given to people by the thousands over the years.

I did not..
I took 4 or 5 steps toward the nearest building (the one that now had no roof) until my mind settled.
Finally, I said to myself..you idiot, GET IN A DITCH.

Which I promptly did..When I looked up covered in mud I saw my photographer had joined me there, and he was still rolling!

By dark that evening, images from his camera of me cowering in a ditch were being shown world wide on CNN. The next day by Bill O'reilly.

The moral of this story and the one above....
GET IN THE DITCH

Dan Sends Thursday 7 April 2 am

Armor Images

James Paul and I went over to UAH today and spent some time with Dr. Walt Peterson.

Walt is a Senior Research Scientist who has been with us from day one on ARMOR. (Advanced Radar for Operations and Research) He has extensive experience with Dual Polarimetric radars (something VERY FEW meteorologists can say)

We looked at some images of the Feb 21st hail event. I am going to attach some images from the archived data to today's Blog.

The first image is a range height scan taking a cross section of a cell near Athens. You can see an intense echo through the middle. This is a line of very high reflectivity. Out in the plains this would almost certainly be hail but around here in the warm humid atmosphere..It is sometimes just heavy rain.

This is where dual pol. data can be very helpful.

The next image is the same view but we are looking at differential reflectivity. This is basically comparing the vertically polarized pulse with the horizontally polarized pulse.

Since rain drops are shaped kind of like smashed hamburger buns when
they fall, (didn't know that, did ya!) and they will reflect the horizontal and vertical pulses differently.

Thus you will have a high differential reflectivity (ZDR) in rain.

Hail on the other hand tumbles as it falls and appears to the radar to be mainly spherical. This causes the ZDR to drop to lower levels.

In the second image you are looking at ZDR and the white is the low ZDR: indicative of a mix of rain and ice particles (hail included).

You can clearly see the ice in the upper part of the storm and if you look closely near the bottom at the 20km range you can see indications of ice near the surface as well. We had many reports of hail from this storm. (A warning was issued).

Thought you who read this Blog might like to see this..I showed it on air at 10 pm but time did not allow for the more detailed explanation above.

We are learning a lot about the use of dual. Pol. data. Many other meteorologists will need to learn it soon as well because the NWS plans to upgrade all the NEXRADS to Dual Pol. in a few years.

For now we are the only TV weather department in the world running a dual polar. radar. (The link above is to our partners at UAH..they have a great web site with more Armor info)


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Spring Evening

I took this picture Sunday evening just before the memorial Mass at St. Mary's in Huntsville. It was a beautiful Spring evening. (One forecast I got perfect last week!)

Dan

Forecast Blog

Forecast Blog

Looks like today will be the nicest day of the week weather wise. Each model run is slowing down this upper low and I am holding the rain back until Wednesday instead of Tuesday night. Upper lows like this have very cold air aloft, so storms with hail are likely. Sometimes in the Spring we will see cold air funnels with these systems. That might happen this time and if it does it would probably be Thursday or Friday.

One thing to remember with upper lows...The timing is difficult..The forecast is usually pretty easy ..clouds and rain. Some storms with hail..but just WHEN the low will pass over and when it will move out is the question! Right now I think it will be gone by Saturday..

Guys out at the NWS sent out some interesting climate info today (It is fun to look that stuff up..wish I had more time to do it.) The Winter we had was fairly warm..As we all know. No measurable snowfall either. If we go without snowfall until Jan. 12 2006 then we will break the record for the longest period without snowfall here in Huntsville. The old record is 1070 days starting back in March of 1920!

Some other info: January and February combined were the 9th warmest on record. It has also been a dry start to the year with only 10.17 inches of rain from Jan-March. Normal was 17 inches!

Climate info is the NUMBER 1 requested item from viewers here in the office. The NWS runs a climate archive here: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/climate/hsvcli.html
If you need data for a court case you will need a certified copy form the Climate Data Center in Asheville, NC. (That will cost you money, but not as much as having a Meteorologist testify!...I really dislike doing it;)

Dan sends at 5:42pm Mon 4 April 2005