Messages

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General Discussion / Re: It's Alive! STARs that have not worked properly before come back to life?

« on: August 10, 2011, 10:56:18 PM »

If you look at the video of the 4000 in State College, PA on the east side of town, in 2007 it had graphical problems (it's on my page from a long time ago; I did a CAM of it.) As of April 2010, this STAR is no longer having any graphical issues and is in mint condition.

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General Weather Chat / NWS Pittsburgh among first to receive dual-polarization radar

« on: June 28, 2011, 11:19:28 AM »

Good news for those of us in the Pittsburgh area....NWS states on their website that the on-site radar (PBZ) will be among the first in the nation to receive the dual-pol(arization) capabilities. Dual-pol, essentially scanning on both a horizontal band and a vertical band vs. simply horizontal, will allow for a more detailed picture of the weather, from improved precipitation type forecasting with bright banding, to being able to more accurately forecast hail and shear.

Note that from July 6 to 16, PBZ will be offline, so you will have to view Pittsburgh weather from the surrounding sites in Cleveland, State College, Wilmington, and so on. However, it is all in the good, and definitely is worth the money (I took a class while at NWS on the benefits of dual-pol....if you have GR2Analyst, it will mean an even more detailed picture of convection!)

I'm thinking the reasons why they picked Pittsburgh are not only because of the wide variety of weather (ice, snow, hail, brightbanding, all of which dual-pol radar is beneficial) but also because the radar is on-site (essentially next to the building) so that any malfunctions in the test phase can be fixed easily.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the dual-polarization radar, view more details here: http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/dualpol/

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General Discussion / Re: Graduations

« on: June 07, 2011, 02:33:24 PM »

Well, I graduated in December from Penn State, and so I missed out on the big May parties but I figured I would just throw it in here for your approval. 

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General Weather Chat / Re: Ball Lightning

« on: June 01, 2011, 01:28:37 AM »

It actually does exist....I've seen it before, as a manifestation of bead lightning. It's strange and really catches your eye, because the separate beads kind of split the bolt up. A few of them flickered about a half-second before the rest of the bolt. It is believed that bead lightning and ball lightning are connected by more than simply being lightning. The stories about the balls flying through windows and such are probably wives' tales, but I think bead and ball lightning are connected, and I will swear upon my TWCToday account that I've seen bead lightning on several occasions.

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General Discussion / Re: SKYWARNAL being Examined by the NWS

« on: May 12, 2011, 12:25:47 AM »

Being that I worked as an intern at the NWS, I doubt anyone there would care about you releasing warnings. Actually, candidly, if it would help people get the warning better, I think they would be all for it. (As an aside, this was one of the reasons why I didn't want NWS' duties being privatized. Imagine if AccuWeather copyrighted all warnings issued )

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Severe Weather / Re: Severe Weather Season 2011/Severe Wx thread

« on: April 27, 2011, 04:32:31 AM »

has anyone ever seen 10 tornado warnings all active in 1 state before?

I haven't....that's incredible, although it's been that kind of season Speaking of that, since I don't feel like creating a "contributions" thread, for the first time in memory here in Pittsburgh, TWC stated the possibility of tornadoes in a LF. Here's a video, courtesy IS #22420 and Comcast:

RARE Tornado Mention in 48 Hour Section of TWC Local Forecast

I think the only other time I have ever seen this was June 2, 1998, although I faintly remember 2007 having a "Storms may contain tornadoes" somewhere along the line. Usually, such a prediction is nowcasting (lots of tornado warnings issued will mean an indicator as seen above, but for the future, I think it is somewhat rare.)

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General Weather Chat / 20 Years Ago....April 26, 1991....

« on: April 24, 2011, 12:34:00 AM »

...one of the most infamous tornadoes, and accompanying tornado videos, occurred just outside of Andover, KS. For those of you who are too young to remember, watch the video and you'll recognize it right away.

Code 3 - Kansas Underpass Tornado - April 26 1991

Yes, it was the Kansas Turnpike Underpass tornado. Little known fact: Back in 1992, The Weather Channel released a video entitled The Enemy Wind (and no, it's not for sale, although I have thought of perhaps transferring it to YouTube). One of the tornadoes analyzed in the video was this tornado, along with the McConnell AFB tornado as it sliced through Andover. Afterwards, the supercell that produced the catastrophic Andover Tornado produced this tornado. This system also launched the career of storm chaser Warren Faidley.

After so many views in the past 20 years, it has been often said that people will hide under overpasses to dodge storms. However, this tornado was weak, rated an F1 at the time, and passed to the left of the overpass, with only weak peripheral winds. So, don't do as I say, I guess.

Thought I would share this with you early so you could celebrate the anniversary.

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General Weather Chat / Re: 3D Storm Software used during severe weather.

« on: April 24, 2011, 12:26:20 AM »

Really? That is interesting to know a forecast office would use it

When I was at NWS as an intern, we used it for severe weather forecasting all the time. Typically, the software would find rotation before the forecasters would....so GR2Analyst is a lifesaver (literally).

I don't want to pony up the $250 to install it, and don't feel like running 10 million virtual machines, so I'm holding off - for now. Once I get a job that pays a bit more than $7.25 an hour, I might think a little more about it.

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General Discussion / Re: What is the highest-quality video of the Intellistar on YouTube?

« on: April 24, 2011, 12:22:11 AM »

I can only offer a crapload of WeatherSTAR Junior videos if you want them; otherwise, don't look at me, I'm just the piano player.

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General Discussion / Re: Youtube to Quiz Copyright Infringing Uploaders

« on: April 17, 2011, 02:50:18 PM »

Expel Me From YouTube "Copyright School"!

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Severe Weather / Re: Severe Weather Season 2011/Severe Wx thread

« on: March 23, 2011, 11:29:38 PM »

NWS is likely to investigate a possible tornado here in Western PA today, near Greensburg, PA in Westmoreland County, about 50 miles from downtown Pittsburgh. The video that's been going around the Internet is this one:

Tornado near Greensburg(Hempfield) PA on March 23rd 2011

. Pretty cool....can't wait until NWS figures out whether or not this was an actual tornado (although one tends to be biased from the funnel-shaped appendage, NWS still has to look at the damage to see if the patterns insist on a tornado rather than micro/macrobursts. Funnel clouds, despite their looks, are NOT tornadoes.)

To add to it, I had my camera ready as I was leaving for work, and snapped some video of decent sized-hail near my house. Video:

Severe March Thunderstorm Dumps Hail In Pittsburgh

Not really big, although the long axis of the stone was probably 3/4" to 1". We didn't get the biggest hail...Pittsburgh reported golf-ball size hail, which is typical of early spring storms.

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General Discussion / Re: P2P

« on: March 18, 2011, 11:52:05 PM »

You forgot Fenopy

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General Discussion / Re: House Budget Proposal Could Devastate the NWS’s Watch/Warning Forecasts

« on: March 18, 2011, 11:50:53 PM »

Here's a fleeting thought (but makes sense in some ways): Why doesn't the National Weather Service charge for their advanced products, model access, and such? Like you can still get a Weatheradio feed, current conditions, and of course, advisories, but why not charge $5/hour to private forecasters such as AccuWeather, TWC, TV stations, etc., for an unfettered feed to model data, hydro forecasts, maybe $250 a month for BUFKIT, $1000/month for the dual-pol, and so on? Based on the fact that as described before, it is going to happen regardless? Plus, as an aside, you have a tiered system, and of course, educational systems get the stuff for free from .edu IP ranges.

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General Discussion / Re: Gas prices in your area

« on: March 08, 2011, 01:30:28 PM »

I use 89 for my car (87 isn't good unless you have a four-banger; I have 281 cubic inches of displacement to feed )and that's running about $3.48 in Pittsburgh. Best part is I only get 7-12 mpg in my car.

While on the topic, I told other people this (and not to stump speech, but put a jab in). I think $4 gas will motivate Americans to start considering use of other fuels. I think once a gallon hits $4.50, it's never going to go back down. (Google "Peak Oil" and you'll see what I mean). If they can create a decent way of using CNG for cars, you won't have to ever worry about shelling out $100 a tank like some in California are doing right now Natural gas just doesn't have enough octane in it to make a decent engine, plus it only gets about 1/3-1/4 of the supply, so you can't go cross country with it. But I will say this (especially in PA): With the Marcellus Shale fields being tapped, you're going to have dirt cheap natural gas, drilled in America by Americans, and shipped literally out of your backyards, by American companies whose land is owned by Americans. A win-win situation, if you ask me.

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Forecasting / Re: Ask The Weather Expert!

« on: February 25, 2011, 09:54:29 PM »

I have a minor in Meteorology, so I kind of am a semi-expert in the field  I was asked today what the ideal conditions for freezing fog would be....my initial response was that it was far easier to do it in the mountains than around sea level because of more consistent cloud cover and cooler temps, but I wonder if in marine climates, if advection fog would be able to freeze the water more easily because of its higher dewpoint temperature. What do you think? (Like I said, it's a little bit more complicated of a question.