Ed Lizard

The Navy has been using phased array radar (The AN/SPY-1) since the early 1980s. I do not know if that radar measured Doppler frequency shift, or just calculated target speed by change in location of the target per change in time. I suspect it is more a money issue than a technology issue, but even when budgets are a priority, it would seem timely and accurate severe storm warnings is something most people could agree about.

IIRC, the pre-88D radar could be aimed and tilted to measure things like storm tops, I think the transmitter-receiver was actually aimed. I could be wrong...

I asked earlier- the absence of rain wrapping on the Tuscaloosa-BHM tornado, seemed odd for that part of the country. I have an amateur theory that extreme vorticity kept the updraft well separated from the rain, but it is only theory. I don't know if I have ever seen storms with bases that low not be rain wrapped on video. I originally thought the Tuscaloosa cell was rain wrapped from a distance on that tower cam, as it got closer it only appeared that way because of how low the wall cloud base was, and the amount of debris.

IIRC, some communities had power issues in AL because of the morning storms, and warned cells may not have been accompanied by sirens.

Going in the other direction, I can remember right after Katrina and the floods reports suggesting the death toll would pass Galveston. I would not be surprised to hear death tolls in excess of the actual death toll, even befor ethe actual victims are found and recovered.

Does anyone have a real problem with Los Angeles or Miami having minimum requirements for new building construction in earthquake or hurricane prone areas?

I clearly stated it was for new builds, obviously retrofits impose an undue burden. But if California and other earthquake prone areas can mandate minimum contruction requirements for new builds, ditto much of coastal Florida for newbuilds likely to experience hurricane force winds, than I don't think it is an undue infringement on civil liberties to have safe rooms or shelters as part of the new build code. On an unrelated note, so many Dixie Alley storms seem to be rain wrapped or obscured, and the Cullman and Tuscaloosa storms were so (frighteningly) photogenic, very low cloud bases but not obscured by rain. I'd be interested if anyone theorized why, I did notice on radar presentations the hooks were rather elongated, with the base of the hook and attendant debris ball well removed from the main part of the cell. Don't know if that was a function of strong inflow winds or what.

A saferoom clearly did its job, the home is destroyed, but the family is safe. Every new build in Tornado Alley and Dixie Alley should be mandated as part of the permit with a safe room or underground shelter.

I believe the trailer park affected in the Andover, KS tornado had a community shelter, underground, I assume. Every trailer park should have one, since more common strength tornadoes can do so much damage to those.

I had a pretty good idea it would be a bad afternoon, and I'm no expert reading skew-Ts, looking at the 18Z special balloon releases, and people had the past 3 days picked out as especially dangerous this time last week. Two of the 18Z soundings, high instability and incredible helicity.

Every situation is different, the NWS mets and on camera mets can't predict exactly where the core of the tornado will pass, besides regular traffic patterns heavy rain or hail will further slow traffic- they give the advice that works best the very vast majority of the time. From TV camera perspective, the population density looked fairly high, there was a lot of foliage, and some terrain. And if you're going to give a warning to people to evacuate by car, you have to do it early enough for it to work, and with the vagaries of predicting the exact track, you will be forced to "over warn", have people who would have wound up in the periphery (or beyond) of the circulation get into their cars and hope there weren't any accidents of flashing reds at intersections because of electrical blinks caused by wind or lightning. Its like the flu vaccine or a prescription drug, for a very small number there are side effects, for most there is a great benefit. I don't know how else to explain this.

Tornadoes, especially strong ones, are rather rare this part of Texas. But maybe mandating a reinforced concrete interior saferoom or a reinforced underground shelter for all new construction in 'Dixie Alley' might not be a bad thing.

Since the majority of storms aren't F-4 or F-5, and the NWS or TV station met is probably not an expert on traffic patterns in the area, the standard advice is the best, and a TV met who ad libbed and caused a massive traffic jam that was then hit with mass fatalities, I don't know if he/she'd be legally/civilly liable or not, but her or his career as a TV met would be over.

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It differs in every situation. In the 1979 Wichita Falls tornado, most fatalities were in cars, people trying to escape by car and getting caught in congestion. In the Jarrell, TX tornado, it was an F-5 in a rural area moving under 10 mph, it could have easily been outrun by car, most of the fatalities were in a single subdivision where I assume most people had sheltered in an interior room. Since there are so many variables, like storm speed, population density and therefore the likelihood of congestion, and since so few storms are EF-4 or EF-5, it would seem to be the advice that would work best most often, even if not 100% perfect, is an interior room on the lowest floor.

I heard mention of G2G velocities 1000 feet off the ground maxing 200 knots on these storms. Anyone know if there is some kind of empirical relationship between that and near surface winds?

No, they can't flow over overshooting tops exceeding 50k feet. They fly around.

Lost the cam...

I don't know Alabama well, how close is the Tuscaloosa cell to the Alabama campus?

Hope this isn't a stupid question, but what are those appendages by what I assume is the tornado?

They needa 30% prob for Day 4 and beyond, IIRC, which often means smaller areas than one might expect. Reading the texts, they clearly know where severe might happen, even when not colored in, but there is a standard for predictability.

As just a dedicated amateur, I have noticed that only 1 TV station in Houston, KHOU, has all degreed mets. Gene Norman has an MS in meterorology, he replaced Dr. Neil Frank who had worked at NHC as chief met. Maybe if AMS didn't give the seal of approval to communications and broadcast journalism majors because they took a 60 hour certificate program designed for people who don't have a math and science background, maybe they'd be more broadcast TV work for the pro-mets. I feel for the guys who really want to be mets, my Dad who knew mets at American Airlines (he worked with Harold Taft in the 1950s, DFW area people know the late Harold Taft) said the money was poor and talked me out of it. If it is what people really want, then go for it. But at schools like A&M, OU, and Penn State that have petroleum engineering programs, starting BS pay is over $90k, and all those calculus, diff e.q. and physics classes are required for a BS in pet eng.

At Texas, petroleum engineering program, any class that was a pre-req for another class required a minimum of a C. Differential calc was a pre-req for integral calc, which was a pre-req for diff e.q. Physics 1 was a pre-req for Physics 2 which was a pre-req for statics and dynamics. The two chemistries were a pre-req for properties of petroleum fluids, etc. "D for Diploma" only really worked senior year, and 1994 was a bad year in the oil field, you wanted the best GPA possible. Now, about six figures starting pay, some pet eng forums, but none where the degreed engineers get brightly colored tags and extra respect. And while there is money in oil, it isn't anyone's hobby.

MHO. Not been to Penn State, but they have met and petroleum engineering. Ditto Texas A&M. Ditto Oklahoma. If you've already taken differential and integral calculus, differential equaitions, matric algebra, classes in fluid mechanics, 2 semesters of physics, know you're various dimesnionless constants like Reynolds number, have heard of Navier-Stokes, maybe have already taken programming classes in something like Fortran (when I was in it) or maybe C or whatever languae is hip now, than you're almost halfway to a petroleum engineering degree. Starting salaries with a BS, right about $100,000... Edit to add- Oh, diff e.q. Just gotta pass it. If you don't go to grad school, you'll never see it again. BS level engineers use mainly computer programs. Black box. No heavy thought required. Some reservoir types sub-specialize in reservoir models, where supposedly programming classes, and mass balances, and solutions to the radial diffusivity equation come into play, but avoid reservoir. However, I still can differentiate and integrate the natural log of e to the x. Not that I need to know that.