Storm Reports and other stuff on my mind

I frequently get asked for information on when the last hail storm was for a particular area. This is usually because someone has hail damage and the insurance company wants proof that it hailed before they will replace a roof. Hail damaged a roof of mine on Florida back in the early 90's but the insurance comapany never asked for proof! Then again, maybe they did not want to argue with a meteorologist.

If you find yourself needing info like this I have good news! The Storm Prediction Center now keeps a log of every severe weather event reported to every NWS office in the country. It's online too.

I pass on all our reliable storm reports to the NWS because I know it will likely end up in the data base for just such a need. Also, researchers in the future will need this info as well.

Here is where you can look at the log:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/

So the next time you have hail or significant wind damge form a storm...take a pic and send me the facts. You will be doing someone a favour!

Dan

Killer pictures that are making me go crazy

Every morning I open my email. There with the usual assortment of spam I can almost count on receiving THE PICTURES. What you ask are THE PICTURES?

They are a gorgeous selection of wall Clouds tornadoes and gust fronts.

All shot by some storm chaser over the last few years. Out in the plains, probably. I'd love to show them on air, BUT, we only show pictures taken by the party that sends them. Unless we can get an ok from whoever took it.

The problem is that I get these from people saying their buddy at work took them, or a friend in Texas took it on a recent trip. The latest was from Kansas. Now, many folks have also sent them to me just to make sure I have seen them, and I do appreciate that.. they are incredible. But, to set the record straight, they were taken by a good storm chaser who owns the rights to them (If I were him, I'd charge a pretty penny for those rights too!)

Amazing how these things get started on the net. There is another series of pictures taken by a crewman on an ore freighter up in the Great Lakes of a beautiful shelf cloud. Every time there is a hurricane in the Atlantic, I get a dozen copies of it... purported to be the hurricane in question taken by a ship that barely made it through...

I suspect that those who read this blog are not likely to fall for these things (you have to be a fellow nerd to read these things right?), and I am probably guilty of it myself! Still, at least I got it off my chest!

A chilly start to May

I got home Saturday morning as the sun was coming up. The latest severe weather has kept me at work in over 2 years! James Paul came in and made the night pass a lot quicker. We had time to work on some new scan settings for ARMOR. We also did some cut-ins when that line of wind came through around 3-4 am.

One good thing about breaking into programming that late..the only people usually watching are those are turning on the tv to find out about the weather! I have yet to get a viewer complaint about interrupting an infomercial.

That wind event is kind of interesting. Gust to 40-50 and it brought many trees down. Even some minor roof damage reported along with power outages. The wind was well ahead of the line of storms.

This is not unheard of. Sometimes a strong gust front will travel many miles ahead of a squall line and cause damage. Saw that happen many times in Oklahoma. Not too common here though.

It might have been caused by a gravity wave. The explanation of which is probably to long winded to include here and if I put math on here the web master will shoot me.
For you amateur Mets. out there, this is a real interesting page on gravity waves. (warning-there is math here!)
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/akq/GWave.htm#Synoptic

Was it a gravity wave or not. Not sure yet. I really have been to busy to look into it further but I know the Mets. out at the WX service are wondering about it too. Will let you know what I find out.

NW flow aloft means another week of below normal temps....do you see me complaining???

Later,
Dan