Weather Weeniness

Part of the rites of spring and pre-chase season are attending SKYWARN functions and other severe weather festivities. The first one I attended was in Amarillo. The presentation by the NWS WCM Steve Drillete was pretty good and very informative. Here, they use a spotter id system for calling in reports. So, I am all officialized now. I'll try to work with Steve and the NWS here to provide video and pics for next year's SKYWARN presentation since he strives to keep it fresh. I also sat in on the Amarillo Emergency Services meeting concerning their spotter group. However, they require you to be a deployed spotter and not a chaser. It's unfortunate that I had to pass since they are really needing more members.

Pictured below is the "West Texas Dynamic Duo" (Kanani and Jay) who attended with me. ;-)



Then, this past Saturday, I attended a severe weather fair in Lubbock. This was a pretty much the uber SDS therapy. David and Graham along with the Texas Tech folks had their vehicles outside for public inquiry. Inside was filled with various exhibits including science gadgets related to weather phenomena. It was staffed by Texas Tech students who did a great job explaoning various meteorological principles. My favorite was the static electricity generator. You'd hand crank this sucker up and depending on how far away the electrodes were from each other, would generate a loud spark. Poor David, the human lightning rod, had a "flashback" when it went off. He jumped like he had been hit. LOL!!

Below is the Texas Tech display of their various deployable probes. Their purpose is to measure conditions in and around storms, hurricanes, and perhaps even drylines. Each probe comes with a GPS unit and an electronic compass as well as a "black box" recording device. They simply deploy, turn it on, and go. No need to worry about anything else. Then when retrieved, the data is downloaded for analysis.






Here, electrical physics are demonstrated. The little tin pie plates stacked together floated away when he released them. The hand-cranked spark generator that freaked out David is just behind that.


This pic pretty much speaks for itself. Most of the other kids were only mildy interested. I think we are looking at a budding meteorologist and stormchaser. What was cool is that for a moment, I felt like I was looking at myself about 30 years earlier. ;-)




What would a severe weather awareness event be without making your hair stand on end?


The vehicles parked in front of the Science Spectrum in Lubbock which is a cool place all unto itself complete with an Omni theater. In fact, the weather service office is part of the building on the opposite side.


I also got to attend the formal SKYWARN Spotter Traning class to see their presentation. My folks also attended...their first ever. :-) I got to see some of my video and pics used as part of the training material which originated from Gary Woodall at the Fort Worth NWS. The WCM at Lubbock, Jody James, presented to the class. It was small, so I was able to introduce myself and chat with him and a couple of the other mets there at the office. I look forward to providing them with pics and video in the future as well as calling in live reports.

Interestingly, I discovered the great depth of stupidity concerning the Lubbock City Council and Mayor. Somehow, according to the information at the fair, they got it stuck in their thick skulls that they need 150 , yes ONE HUNDRED FIFTY tornado sirens for the city. And of course, the city can't afford it. By comparison, the City of Dallas only uses 94 sirens. That city sprawls about 385 square miles with lots of buildings, trees, creeks, rivers and hills making it more difficult to carry sound. Lubbock is 115 square miles (30% the size of Dallas) with little impedence to sound waves. A typical siren is good for about 3 square miles. So 115/3 = 39 sirens (rounded off). Heck, even 2 square miles results in less than 60 sirens. The cheapie sirens cover 1 square mile. That is still only 115 sirens needed.

I really would like to know where in the hell they got their information from? I discovered the above in about 8 minutes on the internet. Why do I think that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for a "study" by some nitwitted "consultant" firm? In any event, I and just about everybody else there signed the petition to get them to install sirens. Thankfully, the idiots in charge of the city put together a "task force". What that really means is that they want to keep stalling for time while keeping the peasants at bay. Just like most corporations, common sense has no place in such establishments. It is bureaucracy at it's finest.

David was gracious enough to introduce me to the mets for Channel 11 who he chases for. It was great to chat with John Robinson and Cary Allen as well as the marketing manager Josh. In fact, David gave me the grand tour of the studios and we watched a live newscast. Cary was working the weekend weather desk, and it was cool to see some of the toys they get to play with. In fact, for a brief second, I accidentally ended up in the wide angle shot at the start of the weather cast while persuing the internet for data the next day. DOH!!! He, David and I enjoyed a great dinner afterwards before calling it a day. I had a blast!!!! Thanks David!!

The pic below is the result of the mini-blizzard Sunday night and early Monday morning. 2-3 inches of snow with 35-45mph winds with at least one recorded gust of 69mph. The snow was wet and objects that were somewhat sheltered from the wind got coated. The incredible thing is that just about 18 hours earlier, it was in the 70's with people in t-shirts. I love living here!!! :-)