OceanStWx

It's going to be a north of 84 kind of winter.

That usually works out well in the winter.

Yeah, it's not placed in a good spot for us either. Right about where we normally try to view it, unless we can get some curtains higher in the sky.

Nice dense wind too. If we can just keep the convective debris clear, things look good.

Impressive given the amount of moonlight out there. I tried, but had no luck with the naked eye.

MWN reporting AURBO now.

MWN still in the clouds too, but reporting BINOVC now. So they might be able to spot any activity soon.

Clouds stole my aurora, and now clouds are stealing my severe.

Local area fogged in just in time for things to go to town. That was agonizing to watch knowing how good the display was. I literally could see the glow driving in my car as I passed breaks in the trees on the way to the GYX area. Arrived only to find stratus and fog streaming in off the water.

Got my first reds in November I guess it was 2013 here at the office. It was pretty cool to be able to see that with the naked eye. Ekster says this event Tuesday probably would've looked better in photos, but was more brief.

Since moving to work at GYX, I've seen them at the office at least a half dozen times in 5 years. And that's just at the whim of when I was on the schedule in the evenings. I actually was able to see this past one with the naked eye in Portland.

Nice catch, and excellent use of depolarization.

I would have a hard time believing true sleet (i.e. total melting even with latent heating going on). It's not unprecedented though, as the Groundhog Day blizzard in 2011 saw similar reports in northern Illinois. And if lightning was as prolific last winter as in 2011 I would have to imagine at least some graupel production would be going on to generate those kind of charge separations necessary. If truly intense upgright convection formed, I could envision a scenario where enough super-cooled water was lofted to form hail from these suspended graupel particles.

I think my best involved a strong clipper. We got about a quarter inch of solid glaze ice and winds were sustained 35 gusting to 45/50 mph behind the system for the evening launch. Now our UA building has doors that face north and south, so a westerly wind is basically pick your poison for which door to attempt to run out. I set the sonde up outside in an easy position for my free hand to grab it, because I know the balloon is going to catch the wind right away. This is something I had done many times before. So I come out the door and now the balloon grabs the wind and I'm being dragged down the ice with absolutely no traction to stop. I slide right past the sonde and end up crawling on my hands and knees to get back to it. After all that effort the balloon still got caught in an eddy and the sonde ended up bouncing. I mean that balloon is never going to lift you off the ground, but without traction is will take you for a ride. I can only imagine how it reacts once you're over hurricane force.

Those high wind launches are always your best stories, and the ones you'll remember. Though I can honestly say I never had the pleasure of even approaching 65 mph.

Well I'm not sure the reaction extended that far up the chain, but my guess is that politicians were leaning heavily on department and agency heads for answers as to why so many people died. These politicians of course had no prior knowledge regarding the forecast/warnings and just see the end result. The service assessment began this week, and what I'm personally hoping comes out of it is a focus on preparedness and response/action. Some of these deaths were inevitable, but I also feel that a number (probably significant) of them could have been spared with better preparedness leading up to and better response during the event.

I attended a conference where one of the surveyors gave a presentation on rating the Elie tornado. It was interesting how they went about it. Even though it directly impacted some man made structures they didn't feel like they had enough information to go on. They ended up using video (from a tripod) to track debris of known size to determine wind speed. Regardless, great thought, effort and care went into that rating.

Higher than HQ from what I understand, as in "what did we do wrong to have so many people die?" Edit: I do, however, think we should question how we can keep fewer people from dying. But I don't necessarily think anything was done wrong.

In addition to two other EF3s that went through Marion County.

I understand that infrastructure was compromised from morning convection, but this is my opportunity to preach preparedness. Many large events are often preceded by morning convection, some of which is severe and does damage. Especially with an event as well forecast as this, I don't think there should be thousands of people being caught off guard. A $20 weather radio with back up batteries can go a long way. For every inconvenience of being woken up in the middle of the night for a false alarm, there is a life saved and that's worth it. I know it pains me to hear these stories about "no warning" when in reality it was not receiving a warning. I can't imagine how it feels for the many, many warning forecasters out there who issued good warnings but had people perish anyway. I have already heard some disturbing reactions from the higher ups in DC, and it will be very interesting to see how the service assessment plays out. Will it be a blame game or will we actually figure out some new ways to reach people and disseminate the message.

I see what you're saying now, but still seems odd to me to have a tornado that short produce damage that extreme. Truly a violent vortex if that's the case.

My guess is that this is the path length in the CWA only. If you check out a map, it is roughly 3 miles to the AL border. That information will likely be updated for final storm data purposes, once HUN finishes their surveys.

Paraphrasing a FEMA administrator in Tuscaloosa, they haven't even gotten to the damage in northern Alabama yet (i.e. Hackleburg, Phil Campbell, Decatur, etc.).

As did the latest CNN interview I saw. Leading them into the answer by asking if they heard, "any alarms before the tornado hit." I appreciate the hell on Earth they just went through, but Ringgold, GA was struck hours into the event. I don't understand how this could take people by surprise, to the point that they were outside when the tornado hit and they only ran inside when they saw a neighbor's roof come off.