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Sunday/Monday AM storm threat


free_man

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Over what towns?

West Hawley, just west of the intersections of rt. 116 and rt. 8a, moving NE through the Kenneth Dubuque state forest towards Hawley. West and later north of Plainfield.

The Dubuque state forest is a desolate place, occupied by whitetails and beaver and little else. The trees took a heavy toll in the ice storm of 2008 and trying to identify damage in there will be futile.

Tomorrow back in the office I'll post images. It's impressive.

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Just got a chance to look at the x-band data from yesterday. There was significant rotation and a very clear hook indicative of a funnel/tornado. The beam is about a mile off the ground out there and I haven't yet looked at the dual pol so it's hard to say whether it touched down at the moment. It's a no-doubter though... June 1st aside it's the most clear cut supercell funnel I've seen in this area in the six years I've been operating.

What, aside from GTG shear, a hook echo, and "broadness" of rotation indicates a storms tornadic potential? Would you look to see if the mesocyclone is elongated (depth?) through the atmosphere? Oriented closer to vertical vs closer to horizontal?

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Nobody cares about us.

Agreed.....I hate to bring up the stereotypical "Nobody in Eastern MA cares about Western MA" argument - but there wasn't even a Severe Thunderstorm Warning on that cell when it crossed the county line into Franklin/Hampshire county. It was pretty obvious to myself and others on this board....and the couplet looked very impressive (perhaps most impressive) when it was crossing into Franklin/Hampshire counties. This is a sparsely populated area, fortunately, but regardless - this is not acceptable - especially with the radar presentation. Perhaps it is time for ALB to take over responsibility for the 4 Western counties?

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What, aside from GTG shear, a hook echo, and "broadness" of rotation indicates a storms tornadic potential? Would you look to see if the mesocyclone is elongated (depth?) through the atmosphere? Oriented closer to vertical vs closer to horizontal?

He has posted some images in the past that show the actual elongation and depth - they are very good images - I wish I could describe it better but they are impressive data

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Agreed.....I hate to bring up the stereotypical "Nobody in Eastern MA cares about Western MA" argument - but there wasn't even a Severe Thunderstorm Warning on that cell when it crossed the county line into Franklin/Hampshire county. It was pretty obvious to myself and others on this board....and the couplet looked very impressive (perhaps most impressive) when it was crossing into Franklin/Hampshire counties. This is a sparsely populated area, fortunately, but regardless - this is not acceptable - especially with the radar presentation. Perhaps it is time for ALB to take over responsibility for the 4 Western counties?

Taunton deserves better bandwidth so that KENX data does not have to arrive via NOAAnet. I know the budget situation is lousy but perhaps it's time to explore some grants to fund fiber. There are some educational initiatives I have in mind that might be applicable. KENX should be queued up at all times when there are threats to the western part of the state. I wonder how much leeway individual offices have to pursue unique solutions?

We're also looking at ways to cover our costs in case they'd like to incorporate the X-band data into operations. We've modified AWIPS to ingest our data and it's been used operationally in the Norman FO for real-time severe events. In the next couple months we'll do the same with AWIPS2. Then, if we add a radar in Springfield and Hartford we'd really have something of value for the valley and combined with the extra bandwidth, the severe forecasting would likely improve.

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Taunton deserves better bandwidth so that KENX data does not have to arrive via NOAAnet. I know the budget situation is lousy but perhaps it's time to explore some grants to fund fiber. There are some educational initiatives I have in mind that might be applicable. KENX should be queued up at all times when there are threats to the western part of the state. I wonder how much leeway individual offices have to pursue unique solutions?

We're also looking at ways to cover our costs in case they'd like to incorporate the X-band data into operations. We've modified AWIPS to ingest our data and it's been used operationally in the Norman FO for real-time severe events. In the next couple months we'll do the same with AWIPS2. Then, if we add a radar in Springfield and Hartford we'd really have something of value for the valley and combined with the extra bandwidth, the severe forecasting would likely improve.

Excellent information and work. GR Level (or frankly, any other radar program) seems like - while not an official NWS product - something that would be viable for them to monitor in situations like yesterday for the western part of their service area with the bandwidth issues they have. June 1st was a unique situation and I don't think anyone was truly severely critical....in fact I defended them here...however, it seems yesterday showed that perhaps lessons were not learned on June 1st. I am just not sure how you can see a TOR warning in a neighboring forecast office area - have a report (such as the one in Windsor) of a tornado - have the radar presentation get more defined as it approaches the county line and not even issue a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for a good 12-15 minutes or so...the cell looked great on BV and SRV - you could see it was clearly severe criteria winds, if nothing else. Fortunately that area is extremely rural - and we may never know if a tornado touched down or not....but either way, it seemed to be a misstep on BOX's part.I have a lot of respect for the job they do, and am certainly not trying to be personal or attack - but this is something that is of concern to those of us here in Western Mass-

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He has posted some images in the past that show the actual elongation and depth - they are very good images - I wish I could describe it better but they are impressive data

Indeed, the high resolution shots are awesome. They give a much shaper image of storms and their associated features. A very cool and valuable resource.

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Haven't seen the official report yet, but the Gazette is reporting that they surveyed and "It was not a tornado".

Call me unconvinced, especially of the certainty of that statement. Regardless, it makes little difference, tornado or not.

http://www.gazettenet.com/2011/08/24/national-weather-service-finds-no-evidence-of-plainfield-tornado

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Haven't seen the official report yet, but the Gazette is reporting that they surveyed and "It was not a tornado".

Call me unconvinced, especially of the certainty of that statement. Regardless, it makes little difference, tornado or not.

http://www.gazettene...infield-tornado

I am also unconvinced. Even if it was just straight line wind damage -- where was the Severe Thunderstorm Warning?

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