Chuck's Blog

4-27-11 Tuscaloosa Tornado RAW FOOTAGE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv1VjiJ3eYE&feature=relmfu

Global warming?

Cape Town – Winter has struck with a vengeance in the Western Cape with some towns recording their first snow falls in almost 20 years.

Click for more info

New Tornado Alleys.

An analysis of F3 to F5 tornadoes turns up new Tornado Alleys.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/access/id/58411/name/ls_tornado_map.jpg

How a hurricane is born

Snow Rollers on the Camas Prairie

On the evening of March 31st, 2009, Tim Tevebaugh was driving home from work east of Craigmont in the southern Idaho Panhandle. Across the rolling hay fields, Tim saw a very unusual phenomenon. The snow rollers that he took pictures of are extremely rare because of the unique combination of snow, wind, temperature and moisture needed to create them. They form with light but sticky snow and strong (but not too strong) winds. These snow rollers formed during the day as they weren’t present in the morning on Tim’s drive to work. See them here:

Snow forecast for Hawaii

That’s correct folks, 1 to 3 inch snow forecast for Hawaii!

WWHW40 PHFO 100145
WSWHFO

URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HONOLULU HI
345 PM HST THU APR 9 2009

…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR BIG ISLAND SUMMITS…

.A PERSISTENT UPPER TROUGH WEST OF THE ISLANDS WILL SEND BANDS OF
UPPER LEVEL MOISTURE OVER THE ISLANDS THROUGH FRIDAY…BRINGING
PERIODS OF WINTER WEATHER TO THE SUMMITS AND UPPER ELEVATIONS OF
THE BIG ISLAND.

HIZ028-101445-
/O.CON.PHFO.WW.Y.0008.000000T0000Z-090411T0400Z/
BIG ISLAND SUMMITS-
INCLUDING…MAUNA LOA AND MAUNA KEA ABOVE 8000 FEET
345 PM HST THU APR 9 2009

…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM HST
FRIDAY…

A WINTRY MIX OF PRECIPITATION WILL AFFECT THE BIG ISLAND SUMMITS
THROUGH AT LEAST FRIDAY. SNOW FALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 3
INCHES…WITH SOME ICING…IS EXPECTED THROUGH FRIDAY.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…

A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW…SLEET…OR
FREEZING RAIN WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR
SLIPPERY ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES…AND USE CAUTION WHILE
DRIVING.

Red River flooding

More great but very sad flooding photos.

Click for photos

Mt. Redoubt on Radar

Alaska Volcano Observatory: Great radar loop from the Mt. Redoubt volcano eruption.

Click here for the interesting radar loop

Red River Racing Toward My Doorstep

Many of you may know that I live on the Minnesota/North Dakota border. What you may not know is that the border between the two states in my neck o’ the woods is the Red River, which is about 2 blocks from my front door, and is getting closer by the hour.

Click for info and photos

Ban on using the word “tornado”

Written by James Spann.

ON THIS DATE IN 1952: A: The ban on using the word “tornado” was
actually issued in 1886 and ended in 1952. In the 1880s John P. Finley
of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, which then handled weather forecasting
for the USA, developed generalized forecasts on which days tornadoes
were most likely. But in 1886 the Army ended Finley’s program and
banned the word “tornado” from forecasts because “the harm done by a
(tornado) prediction would eventually be greater than that which
results form the tornado itself.” The thinking was that people would
be trampled in the panic if they heard a tornado was possible. The ban
stayed in place after the Weather Bureau, now the National Weather
Service, took over forecasting from the Army. A tornado that wrecked
52 large aircraft at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., on March 20, 1948,
spurred Air Force meteorologists to begin working on ways to forecast
twisters. The Weather Bureau also began looking for ways to improve
tornado forecasts and established the Severe Local Storm Warning
Center, which is now the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. The
ban on the word “tornado” fell on March 17, 1952 when the new center
issued its first “tornado watch.”

James Spann
abc33/40 Birmingham, Alabama