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Severe Weather Vigilance, by Shawn J.
One recent evening I was listening to the local news as they reported on a Tornado outbreak, in one of the Eastern States. The tornado(s) had occurred at night and the news anchors were horrified that the people would not know that anything was happening until it was all over.
Severe weather can occur almost everywhere on our planet. Within the last 10 years I have heard reports of Tornados inside of New York City, London, England, and in India. Tornados and Severe Thunderstorms can occur during the day but also at night.
Tornadoes vary in size from yards wide to mile wide machines of death. Tornadoes can pack wind speeds of tens to several hundred miles per hour. Tornadoes can pick up semi tractor trailers and toss them hundreds of yards, they can literally scour asphalt off of roadways.
Severe Thunderstorms can produce winds in excess of 60 miles per hour, hail larger than the size of a quarter, and dangerous lightning. Severe Thunderstorms will sometimes produce straight line winds that can tip over semi tractor trailers. Severe Thunderstorms can also produce a microburst. A microburst is a rapidly sinking column of air from a Thunderstorm, it can sink at several miles per hour to hundreds of miles per hour. Microbursts can topple full grown trees, flatten houses, etc.
I have lived in what is called Tornado Alley for all but 18 months of my 40 plus years (An all expense paid vacation to Bosnia, courtesy of Uncle Sam). I am in no way a weather expert. I offer the following information hoping that it will be of use to you.
During the months of Late March thru the middle of June I am hyper-vigilant when it comes to the weather. I will detail my routine below
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Find a local news station that you can listen to their weather forecast and at least feel halfway comfortable that it is accurate. You have some stations that sensationalize everything about the weather. These clowns will break into the regular programming just because the sky is getting dark. On the other hand you have the stations that are staffed by kids fresh out of school who are inexperienced and are only going off of a script.
By listening to the different stations available to you, you will be able to figure out who you can trust and who the clowns are.
Once you have an idea, listen to the station regularly. Listen to the 5-day forecast to see when storms are predicted for your area. This is your early warning system, think of the local weather guys as the cans on the string with the rocks in them, to let you know something is out there.
Also one note here when they say that there is a 40% chance of rain or storms, they mean 40% of the listening area for that station could expect to see rain or storms.
Refer to the web site of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
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