RE: Slash
<<Well golly gee, after 20 years in public safety I finally get to make a difference!!>>
Can you be more specific about that experience?
<<If you bothered to read and understand my first two "sentances" it could have saved you a little time on your cute little condescending response. I'll cover it again for you. Storm chasers and storm spotters do indeed go hand in hand as many chasers are the "licenced" storm spotters.
Actually all serious storm chasers are certified spotters and many provide the training for new spotters>>
Bold added for recognition of total lack of reality. If you believe "all"....
Credibility just went out the window with "all". Here's why:
Please take the time to do a youtube video search for “storm chaser” and please let me know how many you see that are just out there hot dogging for the adrenaline rush and how many are giving proper reports on a reliable network from a safe distance? Do you see some educated, “certified” spotting in any of those videos? You know, the ones using callsigns with antennas all over the car that look like nerds, you know... If so, then they are “Storm Spotters”. About half of those videos are the hot dogs I mention, the other half are either misnomers (The Discovery Channel series was close to being a misnomer, all of their spotters were trained, some of the ones in the clips mentioned HAM callsigns and you could hear amateur radio repeaters--most likely ARES trained but no way to know). How many of the hot dogs in those home made videos came close to death? Qite a few on the first few pages.
“Storm Chasers” are the morons you see in the videos out there for kicks. Still can’t tell the difference? If ALL “Storm Chasers” are “certified”, you wouldn’t see any idiocy in those videos now would you? Not from someone properly trained…right?
<< They do indeed report all things you fault the one example of not doing. You state "There very well might be CB'ers or cell phone Storm Chasers, who knows." Well being so informed about storm spotters, how has the fact that chasers use all the technology you posted escaped you?>>
Sure, NWS and local TV do get relayed CB reports and cell reports but I do not ever hear them quote an obervation as such. NWS personel consider CB and cell reports as untrained observations and will accept trained ARES spots over that information everytime, and will tell you that in the ARES training sessions.
<<They indeed use HAM, cell phones, VHF radios, high speed internet with Barons Threatnet, Weather Defender, GRLevel3,anemometers, GFS and NAM computer models, and on and on to be on top of these storms, and pass on the info to NWS, local 911 dispatchers, and the media. >>
Where to start?
A) If your network depends on cell phones and wireless internet via cell towers then your network will be as reliable as cell phone towers were in the Joplin, Alabama, and Kansas Tornado Disasters , not to mention Hurricane Katrina. This also goes for any cell or internet based communications system (not WIFI) that depends on it’s connection based on any wireless network. Dead/downed cell towers = dead system.
We’re talking about spotting tornados out in the field and not from the comfy confines of some CD office or local SO comm center in the basement of the courthouse…so let’s get back to bringing the real difference between those who are trained to help in the field and those who are out hot-dogging and being a potential part of the problem.
B) Computer models are fantastic. The latest color-weather radar technology WILL show what a trained eye can “possibly” distinguish as a building cloud wall as well as “possible” rotation. It will NOT tell you if that “possible” funnel, full funnel (rotating), or outright tornado on the ground or even what width the base is or even if the funnel is “hop-scotching”. Only a trained observer in the field can tell you for sure.
C) Once a tornado is on the ground and causing damage, deaths, fires, etc., do you really expect your local SO 911 or city 911 to be in the weather forcasting business? I guess if the county is highly rural and different SODs can set up at pre-agreed locations to “spot” before a tornado forms wouldn’t be a bad idea. They do that here PRIOR to bad weather but once a tornado is already on the ground those people have their hands more than full with more calls than they can handle.
D) NWS Kansas City (as well as NWS offices at big airports) have access to most all the radar, unmanned weather observation posts in the field, and all the technology you mentioned. What do they not have? Eyes and ears in the field, and that’s why they turn to ARES and ARES and NWS trained observers….I can assure you not one of those ARES members are not making left hand turns into the path of a rotating EF-2 while their passengers scream in fear so they can upload it to youtube.
<<I can only guess you are misinformed or confused about the nature of what's actually going on in the field. Not mention the storm chasers that go out every season to gather scientific data to aid in the forecasting of severe weather events. So again, spotters and chasers do indeed go hand in hand despite what it is you think.>>
Naw..30 years licensed HAM, 2 years LEO in a Tornado Alley town, 26 years professional broadcaster, 27 years ARES storm spotter in the field and as a "fixed" location observer...yeah, I just fell off the turnip truck.
Simple youtube video search shows exactly how many of the hot dogs are out there providing “scientific data”. I see Discovery Channel show folks doing it but not the htdogs.s. The research people are obviously trained and most likely ARES/NWS certified. The ones that come up giving out proper reports are indeed “Storm Spotters”—and I don’t see them getting themselves in harms way. Just look at the other videos of the hot dogs seeing just how close they can get to getting blown away.
If you can’t see that difference, I don’t know what to tell you.
Would you personally do it? Would you personally hotdog like that with only a cell phone vid or hand vid camera just for a youtube upload?
<<
Yes, there are people out there chasing who have no training, no experience, and are out there for the pure rush of it. And to state the obvious they have no business doing so??>>
Ya think? I wonder if that’s my entire point? Hmmmm. Ya think?
<< But to indict the entire storm chasing community like you have is just silly. What a load of crap.>>
Again, huge difference between “Storm Spotter” and “Storm Chaser”. It can’t get any more black and white obvious. If they have training, proper equipment, and follow basic safety rules they are “Storm Spotters”…those out there hot dogging and putting their own lives in danger are “Storm Chasers”.
<<I did read it. And what's crystal clear is you don't know wtf you're talking about. You can prepare for such events and your best chance of survival is an underground shelter such as this.
I won’t re-chew it all, but expecting any above ground structure to survive a direct hit by an EF-5,4,3 or even 2 for that matter is a possible falacy and those who do survive can thank LUCK and a higher being. Here in my area of the South, VERY few people have basements—even the newer homes (not counting the mansions on Lake Hamilton). Even the straight-line winds from a funnel clound not yet on the ground is more than enough to uproot /topple trees and blow trailer-homes over.
The underground shelter in your photo is a fantastic idea, and there are probably 10 people in this whole county that have one and and the ones that do have the old 1950’s concrete version with iron doors and haven’t been used in years. It should be a requirement that every trailer park owner should provide “X” amount of below ground shelter space for every trailer on their land but it will never happen.
It’s sad to say but most folks living in trailer parks are living paycheck to paycheck and even if the state or feds gave tax credits to brick & mortar homeowners for those who bought & installed an underground shelter—the majority wouldn’t do it then either.
There are also accounts over the years of people in those old fashioned below ground shelters and had the doors sucked off by 150 mph winds (and the negative air pressures) and people sucked out into tornados to their deaths. These accounts are few and far between (thank goodness) and those “plasti-shelters” are better than nothing. There is no 100% safe shelter against a direct hit from a EF-3, 4, 5 tornado, a shelter like that does give you some better odds but it's not 100%. I still wish everyone had one...even if just for the better odds.
<<Save your thanks and get better informed when it comes to the life saving business. The crap you post is irresponsible>>
I was thinking the same thing about anyone who would remotely lump properly trained and equipped observers with a paramount concern for their safety and others in the exact same category with the adrelanine-rush seekers filming away while their passenger(s) sob in fear for their lives.
It sounds like encouraging those with no training to go hotdogging into an EF-2 for kicks is just fine with you. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.
