Topics

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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 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 / Northeast Heat Wave :)

« on: July 05, 2010, 09:14:58 PM »

I know that a lot of people that I have spoken to across the country have noted that this week coming up could be the hottest it's been in awhile, especially here in Pennsylvania (Last year, Pittsburgh had one day over 90F. Now, all week is forecast to be in or near the 90s, with the highest temps to be tomorrow and Wednesday, both at 95, according to NWS. Philly, you ask? 100F, with humidities expected to increase as a front nears the region.) Lots and lots of record highs expected to be set.

I would expect that since a lot of you live along the eastern seaboard, that you're going to see likewise in the next couple of days.

Now, for discussion's sake, a couple of questions that I'd like to have answered (and I'll answer myself):

-What do you usually do to cool off when temps are this high? (Stay inside mostly, although occasionally I'll cool myself spraying a hose on mist straight up).
-What was the hottest day you remember? (Probably for me, OCMD, in 2004. ~96 and a ~73 degree dewpoint, heat index ~111. Thank God it was the beach.)
-Do you like hot weather as opposed to cold weather? (Yea, mostly because it's easier to turn on the A/C as opposed to heating up my car.)

The good thing is it's weather and not climate, so it should cool off later in the week. (Or so we hope.)

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Local Forecast / IntelliSTAR Gone Mad (during severe weather, of course)...

« on: June 23, 2010, 11:16:55 PM »

Today, we had some severe thunderstorms move through. Prior to the issuances of watches and warnings, Comcast's IntelliSTAR (#26280 for reference) went offline for a few minutes (probably a reboot of the system, but could have been anything - jumbled satellite signal, irresponsible janitor switching off the fusebox), but when it comes back and has to play "catch-up", some weird things happen.

I caught some of the events on my DVR, which was running but not recording at the time the "mayhem" began. Random warning tones and several warnings piled up on top of one another quickly, as the IS was probably digesting all of the warnings that were issued in the prior moments. Then, I hit Record about 1/2 way through, and watch what happens.

Video here:

The IntelliSTAR Has Gone Mad!

Note the random music bits cutting in and out, narrations overlapping each other, and random slides interspersed with national segments (Flavor X, I guess). Too much stuff to describe here (although if you're really dedicated, you could make a moment-by-moment of this video). A couple of people have already commented...hope you guys get a laugh out of it.

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General Weather Chat / FCC To Open Up Weather Data Band (?)

« on: June 12, 2010, 09:40:47 PM »

Got a message from the PSU meteo department's office from the FCC and UCAR, and figured since it was a public message, I'd share it with you. (I'm thinking for 80% of you, this is going to be way over your head, but for those who digest serious data from obs and all, this might be worth discussing):

The 1675-1710 MHz band is allocated on a co-primary basis for federal and non-federal use for the
Meteorological Aids Service and the Meteorological Satellite Service (Space-to-earth). Specifically, this
band is used for downlinks from certain weather satellites and radiosondes (weather balloons) that are
administered by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA provides
these services for weather forecasting, tracking of hurricanes and other storms, prediction of flooding and
drought conditions, and warning against other hazards to life and property.
We expect that this band is relatively lightly used, both geographically and temporally, and thus could be
shared by others. We seek comment on the utility of the 1675-1710 MHz band of spectrum for wireless
broadband services, and approaches to making the band available for such uses. It may be possible that
reception of the weather satellite downlink transmissions could occur at a relatively small number of sites
and be distributed via terrestrial services, such as over the Internet or other managed services. Thus, with
regard to incumbent satellite receive-only stations, we seek comment on the extent to which and manner
in which non-federal users directly access federally authorized Meteorological Satellite Service space
station downlink transmissions. We also seek comment on the extent to which non-federal users directly
1 Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan, Recommendation 5.8, p.86 (FCC, 2010). The
National Broadband Plan is available at http://www.broadband.gov/plan/.
2
access transmissions from radiosondes. Also, it may be feasible for radiosondes to operate using
substantially less bandwidth than they currently do, freeing spectrum for other uses, or for them to use an
alternative technology or relocate to other spectrum.
Although the 1675-1710 MHz band is co-allocated for non-federal use, the Commission's database shows
no active licensees in the spectrum. Non-federal entities such as universities, private sector weather
forecasters and others are thought to employ receive-only stations for reception of Meteorological
Satellite Service space station downlink transmissions, and in this case an FCC authorization for receiveonly
earth stations is not required. Therefore, the Commission has no information on the extent of such
non-federal use in the band.

So, essentially, FCC wants to use the spectrum (kind of like hard drive space in the radio waves) to put wireless communications, and move your weather data to perhaps small, finely tuned transmitters, who would then pipe it through the internet or some means like that.

For most of you, I would imagine this is a non-issue. But I know that many of you work for meteorological industries (WSI, TWC, AccuWeather) who probably love having the "raw feeds" from radiosondes, satellite imagery, and such. Also, if you are faculty in a meteo/atmsci department, this would probably affect the quality of the data ingested into the system This would be a big impact for you as noted.

Like I said, most of this is over your head. But if you know anything about this, do share. If so you so desire, the original document is found here: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-10-1035A1.pdf

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General Weather Chat / BUFKIT...pretty awesome!

« on: May 01, 2010, 12:38:06 AM »

I don't know how many of you have ever tried to use BUFKIT before, but if you are a weather geek like me and like to read model soundings, definitely you should try to use it. I discovered it about a couple of weeks ago (and am glad that I did.)

Essentially, what BUFKIT does is access raw data out of computer models such as NAM, GFS, and RUC for a given station, e.g. KLIT for Little Rock, AK, KPIT for Pittsburgh International Arpt, PA, and puts it into a GUI for deciding forecasts.

I actually played with it a bit at NWS last summer, but I am VERY  that NWS made it available for consumption. It's a bit of a hassle putting in the models you want (command line stuff in a complementary program called BUFGET) but once you get it programmed, it's AWESOME.

I have a screenshot below to give you an idea for what this is about. (I picked one to catch your eyes. Look at the Showalter and SWEAT indexes!) But definitely, if you Google it, try it. You'll thank me. 

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General Weather Chat / My crazy encounter with PA Severe Weather...

« on: April 25, 2010, 03:59:51 AM »

Glad to be back on the boards after the transfer...a lot of schoolwork had to be done, and now it's 4 AM and I'm still awake, heh  Anyways, for those of you who haven't seen it already on my YouTube page, I had an encounter about a week ago with a shelf cloud moving into State College, PA. I had my Kodak digital camera rolling, and you can hear me talking about how terrible the storm is on the video.

Severe Thunderstorm in State College, Pennsylvania - April 16, 2010

The true identity of this storm from April 16th of 2010 is a shelf cloud and not anything else I say. I just kept rambling on like an idiot  But I hope you like it.