Weather Oppo: Storms are now. If you're down south, be prepared!

[derp]

[Mr.Ontop]

@derp For the 'Bama Oppos, and I know there are a few here, You know who you have to follow so that you don't get blown away like Dorothy and Toto.

https://www.alabamawx.com/?p=240852

[Chariotoflove]

@derp
Hey, since you're on the weather topic, care to share what you know about how weather info is gathered and used to plan military missions? I mean in general. We had a thread here today about Hurricane Hunter squadrons with the USAF, so there's clearly a whole fascinating system of data collection/analysis beyond just the satellite stuff we see in civilian broadcasts.

If you feel free and interested in talking about it, of course.

[Mazda616]

@derp We are under a wind advisory now in western Kentucky and soon to be under a tornado watch. The whole area is a little gun shy after December’s tornado outbreak.

Winds have sustained at 30-40 MPH ahead of the front and have gusted to over 50 all day. Isolated power outages already. Front comes through at 7-ish tonight.

[Albino Kangaroo]

I'm down in New Mexico right now and yesterday we had quite a bit of wind. I think it was is the tail western edge of what is now moving Eastern and hitting Alabama. It's so dry out here and sandy / dusty that it really picks up the fines on the ground on the edges of town and distributes them all over the place. My minivan was covered in a thin film of rock dust. We went out briefly for a hike yesterday and we're getting tossed around a little on the highway. Thankfully it was only a 1 mile stretch that we had to go.

[BicycleBuck]

@derp

I'm working from home this afternoon so I don't have to brave the weather in traffic. My wife has been live-streaming the weather all day.

[facw]

@derp Stay safe Oppo!

[I love KTM's and Puch's and Audis]

@Mr-Ontop said in Weather Oppo: Storms are now. If you're down south, be prepared!:

@derp For the 'Bama Oppos,

hey thats me.

alabamawx.com is an excellent resource. i'm in the ham btw, you?

[Highlander]

@derp Wow, now that's what I call rain.

[Mr.Ontop]

@I-love-KTM-s-and-Puch-s-and-Audis No, I call SoCal home now, but I grew up in Gadsden, so I know the drill.

[ITA97]

@Albino-Kangaroo We did have some wind yesterday. Where are you at in NM?

[I love KTM's and Puch's and Audis]

also radarscope is worth the money. its the best radar app by far.

[derp]

@Chariotoflove it's definitely a factor for all sorts of things. ISR, Aviation obviously, but some other things you wouldn't think about.

Don't want to get too far into the weeds on it, but the gist of it is weather can either have no effect, render some systems/things unable to operate, or have minor to major impact on the effectiveness/capabilities of things depending on the type and severity of weather.

as to how it's gathered, well. meteorologists, duh. typically air force folks who have that MOS/job code, but if they're not available (they generally are at high enough levels of joint/combined operations), or more specifically their products aren't available, we can use local wx forecasts as well.

[Chariotoflove]

@derp So the local stuff is considered reliable then? It seems to me that for a long time now, everyone pretty much gets the same data in this country from the same place. Then, the local stations put their own spin and branding on it.

[ShrimpHappens]

@Chariotoflove This is total speculation based on what some of my local folks put online, but I think a lot of what they do is take the handful of large-scale computer models and compile them, using their education and experience, into useful information for us, which is largely timing and impact.

For instance, leading up to our last snow event (March 12), one local meteorologist I follow commented how one certain model typically overestimates in our area.

[ttyymmnn]

@Chariotoflove

Well, George Patton asked a Chaplain to write a prayer to stop the snow during the Battle of the Bulge, and it worked. So there's that.

[ShrimpHappens]

@Mr-Ontop I'm not even in his coverage area, but everyone still knows who he is.

[Chariotoflove]

@ttyymmnn said in Weather Oppo: Storms are now. If you're down south, be prepared!:

@Chariotoflove

Well, George Patton asked a Chaplain to write a prayer to stop the snow during the Battle of the Bulge, and it worked. So there's that.

I remember that.

[Roadkilled]

@derp
My flight to Tampa normally flies a fairly direct route, but we went pretty far south to get around these storms. I fly this route three times a year, but this is the first time we have gone over the Gulf of Mexico from Texas.

[derp]

@Chariotoflove sorry, local forecasts more so for the specific area from a reputable source, rather than any specific places weatherman.

[Zymosan]

@Albino-Kangaroo

I think we got your dirt here in Oklahoma. Thanks.
It looks like it rained mud here.

[BicycleBuck]

@Chariotoflove said in Weather Oppo: Storms are now. If you're down south, be prepared!:

@derp So the local stuff is considered reliable then? It seems to me that for a long time now, everyone pretty much gets the same data in this country from the same place. Then, the local stations put their own spin and branding on it.

You aren't wrong. I remember an article from years ago about how the commercial forecasters were trying to force NOAA and the National Weather Service to continue providing their data to them but stop providing it to local news stations and the general public. These days, the weather is a combination of NOAA & NWS data plus public weather station networks, private weather station networks, and local weather radar data from institutions and news channels. Being in Dallas, you're probably aware that the University of Oklahoma and several of the news channels in OKC have their own doppler radars for tracking tornadoes. The academic institutions have federally-funded regional weather organizations for studying weather and climate. The southern regional climate center was housed here at LSU but TAMU outbid them and the center moved (https://www.srcc.tamu.edu/). The climate data I posted a few weeks ago was developed by the SRCC while it was at LSU and a couple of my friends were responsible for building those tools and datasets. They have live feeds from various centers showing past, current and predicted weather going out several months. I wish I could share it but everything is licensed through cooperative agreements and I can't even get to it myself.

If you're interested in contributing to the cause and want to earn some crypto in the process, WeatherXM will pay you (in cryptocurrency) if you buy a weather station and connect the feed to their data stream. I found out about it from one of my weather buddies at LSU. He's had an installation running for a while, but I haven't asked him how much he's earned.

[Chariotoflove]

@BicycleBuck
Cool, thanks.

The one tidbit I do remember from college was from a friend with a meteorology major. He told me it was really hard to break in to good meteorologist jobs, that eh field didn't have much opportunity.

[BicycleBuck]

@Chariotoflove said in Weather Oppo: Storms are now. If you're down south, be prepared!:

@BicycleBuck
Cool, thanks.

The one tidbit I do remember from college was from a friend with a meteorology major. He told me it was really hard to break in to good meteorologist jobs, that eh field didn't have much opportunity.

Yeah, I would guess that if your goal is to be part of a meteorology team, then you're limited to bigger cities. So, two or three people per station, two or three stations per city, two or three cities big enough per state.... That can't be very many jobs.

[Chariotoflove]

@BicycleBuck said in Weather Oppo: Storms are now. If you're down south, be prepared!:

@Chariotoflove said in Weather Oppo: Storms are now. If you're down south, be prepared!:

@BicycleBuck
Cool, thanks.

The one tidbit I do remember from college was from a friend with a meteorology major. He told me it was really hard to break in to good meteorologist jobs, that eh field didn't have much opportunity.

Yeah, I would guess that if your goal is to be part of a meteorology team, then you're limited to bigger cities. So, two or three people per station, two or three stations per city, two or three cities big enough per state.... That can't be very many jobs.

Or national weather service.