Deck the Halls

Weather geeks are some of the funniest, geekiest people I know, myself included. This year, NOAA has put out their rendition of "Deck the Halls" using a commonly heard voice, that of the NOAA Weather Radio. It's music to my ears.

Have a Merry Christmas!!
~Dewdrop

Be prepared!

Well, if you listen to me, you have hooked up, or you immediately went out to purchase your weather radio. Hopefully, you purchased one that is SAME (Specific Area Message Encoder) code enabled. If not, don't freak, just having a weather radio could mean the difference between life and death. If you got one that is SAME code enabled, you are able to program your radio using specific codes, so your radio will only alert you when weather advisories pertain to that specific county. You can find codes for the counties you want alerts for by selecting your state at this link. Now what? Well, you wait for "inclement" weather. You will hear weekly tests of the EAS (Emergency Alert System), so the broadcasters can be certain the signal is going out properly. Anyone who didn't hear the National test of this alert system can recognize the value of the test. When inclement weather is present, the test will not occur. Generally, the alert in your area will start with a watch of some sort. Ideally, a severe thunderstorm or even a tornado watch will be issued for your area. A watch simply warns you that conditions are favorable for the weather described in the watch to occur. This should alert you to be aware and mindful of rapidly changing conditions, have your emergency kit ready. You should always have a disaster kit ready, but now's your chance to freshen it up, double check those batteries. Be mindful and vigilant. A watch means that the weather could happen.

Then, you might just experience a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning. When that is issued, it means one of two things, either those conditions have been witnessed by a credible source (SKYWARN spotter or law enforcement) or the radar that the National Weather Service meteorologists are observing is showing an imminent threat. If you are in the path of the storm, this is the time to get below ground, or if no basement is available, an interior room, away from windows. Cover up with a mattress; wear a helmet; put infants and small children in a car seat. Most injuries and deaths from severe weather occur when degree becomes projectile. Stay there until the warning expires.

... and that is how you stay prepared.
~Dewdrop

The first step... awareness

Oh hey, remember me? Probably not. I don't blame you. I've sort of dropped out of the blogosphere into several other social media outlets. I miss having a place to share and teach weather though, so I have decided that I would like to turn this back into a current weather teaching site. I am firm in my position that awareness (regarding weather) saves lives. I think that knowing some key information can help you to be proactive in preparedness. Being as passionate about weather as I am, many friends have taken to calling me during severe weather outbreaks. This scares me to death sometimes. The NWS has a very important tool in place that is designed to help people in the event of a weather emergency, the weather radio. I think every home should have one. You wouldn't believe some of the excuses I have heard from people about why they don't use theirs... it was annoying me with all those weather alerts... being the scariest. LUDICROUS!! They are there to warn you, to help SAVE YOUR LIFE! Don't turn off the alerts and worse... DON'T NOT HAVE A WEATHER RADIO! I think all homes should have weather radios built in. I think it should requires like smoke detectors. So...

STEP 1, LESSON 1: BUY A WEATHER RADIO!!

That is all!
~Dewdrop

Tornado powerful enough to rip the bark off a tree

SKY WATCH FRIDAY time! Please visit Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Louise and Fishing Guy, the team for SKY WATCH FRIDAY (click the word to link and participate!) Thanks to Dot and Tom, who were instrumental in the success of this blogging event. You should definitely come fly with us!

Over the past week, I have been discussing the impact of the tornadoes that hit south Georgia on February 19th. Grady and Thomas counties saw a significant amount of damage, first with the long tracked tornado (16.5 mile path) that reached EF2 strength near Thomasville. That tornado lifted, and a second more powerful EF3 tornado dropped no more than 25 miles away from my home. This picture is of the tree on Salem Road in Boston, Georgia that caused the National Weather Service to elevate the rating of this tornado to an EF3, estimating winds at 140-145 mph.

Enhanced Fujita Scale

You see, the winds in this tornado were so fast and powerful that they were able to rip the bark off of this tree. This same 300-400 yard tornado barely missed a home and caused significant damage to their out-buildings.

Link to Thomasville tornado damage report
Link to Boston tornado damage report
Link to slide show of damage
Link to Examiner articles

It was when my weather radio went off alerting me that something was coming that I checked the radar and saw the monstrous supercell tracking my way. That was when we took shelter in the "safe spot" in our hallway, sitting behind a mattress. This powerful and tornadic supercell tracked for over 4 hours from Alabama, into the Florida panhandle, and into Georgia, where it finally interacted with the moisture boundary and exploded into a powerfully destructive tornado. This was a frightening night for us, but not nearly as frightening as it was for those who actually were directly impacted by the tornado.

All that being said, the Storm Prediction Center has severe weather forecasted for the next 3 days, with Saturday being my big weather day, as well as most of Georgia. It starts in the central plains states today and works its way eastward in the coming days, placing me smack dab in the middle of an area of slight risk for severe weather on Saturday.Given the uncertainties in timing of Saturday's main event, the forecast is very powerfully worded.

MODELS ARE BEGINNING TO FAVOR POTENTIAL FOR AN OUTBREAK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS...INCLUDING TORNADOES... SATURDAY INTO SATURDAY NIGHT OVER A LARGE PORTION OF THE SOUTHEAST...AND HAVE BEEFED UP (official weather terminology... lol) PROBABILITIES ACCORDINGLY.

EXPECT ONGOING STRONG/SEVERE ACTIVITY AT BEGINNING OF THE PERIOD. ACTIVITY WILL ALSO LIKELY INTENSIFY NEAR AND AHEAD OF THE FRONT INTO SRN GA/NRN FL AS BOUNDARY LAYER DESTABILIZES BY THE EARLY TO MID AFTERNOON. THREAT SHOULD MANIFEST ITSELF AS BOTH FAST MOVING BOW SEGMENTS AND ISOLATED TORNADIC SUPERCELLS.

A daytime outbreak in my neck of the woods, and I have CPR training and rain-checked Valentine's Day. Plus, my wonderful gtb severely sprained his ankle at work yesterday (I don't even want to get into our 5 hour ER visit...) How do you storm chase on crutches???!

The northern half of Georgia needs to keep an eye on Friday night, as the greatest threat there exists during the overnight hours...

GA FRI NIGHT/EARLY SAT: CYCLOGENESIS OCCURS OVER NRN LA. SUPPORT OVERNIGHT STRENGTHENING OF STORMS...AND POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENT OF ONE OR TWO CONVECTIVE CLUSTERS. THESE SYSTEMS SHOULD MOVE GENERALLY E...WITH EMBEDDED STORMS POSING A THREAT FOR SVR HAIL...WIND AND ISOLD TORNADOES.

I really hate night time events. Fortunately, you have a little time to run out and get that weather radio!

The Armor of God

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

~Ephesians 6:10-18

Have a lovely day!
~Dewdrop

Weather Radios save lives!!!

It's been extremely disturbing to me as I have talked with local folks about Wednesday night/Thursday morning, how many were completely oblivious of how bad and how close to home it was. I hear... "There was a tornado?!" Christine mentioned in her comment on my other post, a topic that I was planning to cover in great detail today. Weather Radios, NOAA Weather Radios are an essential life-saving device for every household, as essential as a smoke detector... especially, as is the case with my county, a county without a tornado siren, as ridiculous as that is! (According to my county's emergency manager, plans are in the works to acquire a siren.) **The image is of the weather radio I use**

As Mini-Dew shared with her friends, the story of us hunkered down in the hallway behind a mattress, she talked to many from the same general area, who 1. slept right through it, 2. didn't even know there was a storm and 3. don't have a weather radio! Don't have a weather radio?! Don't have a weather radio?! Why not?!

Anywhere you live in the United States, you need to have a NOAA weather radio. Weather radios are much more advanced than they used to be. EAS tones are loud enough to wake me from a solid sleep, which is not an easy task, but they awaken me, and I treat all weather advisories very seriously. If you get one that is SAME enabled, you can set yours up to only alert you for relevant warnings for the counties of your choosing. On Wednesday night, my radio sounded 5 times. The first was prior to me going to sleep, and it alerted me that the National Weather Service (well, the SPC) had issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch (remember, that means conditions are present for a good chance of severe thunderstorms, which COULD include tornadoes), which included my county and surrounding counties. I had expected at least that given the approaching frontal boundary moving in from our north, and I actually expected a tornado watch because of the interaction I anticipated with the moisture boundary feeding in off the Gulf. I knew it would happen. I knew it would happen at night. The only thing I didn't know was specifically where that initiation would occur, but I had an uneasy feeling all week to that point that it might be in my neck of the woods, but that depended on the speed of the approaching cold frontal boundary. After falling asleep, my weather radio blared announcing a tornado warning (a tornado warning means that a tornado is likely in the area, seek shelter immediately) in my neighboring county, indicating that this was an actual tornado with significant damage reported in its wake, and that anyone in its path should immediately seek shelter in their safe place (basement or interior room in a STURDY STRUCTURE-- remember the pics of non-sturdy structures...). The exact warning...

AT 112 AM EST...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR WAS TRACKING A TORNADO (not doppler indicated, but a tornado) 23 MILES WEST OF QUITMAN...OR NEAR THOMASVILLE...MOVING EAST AT 60 MPH.

* THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR... QUITMAN BY 135 AM EST...

THIS IS A VERY DANGEROUS AND LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. NUMEROUS REPORTS OF SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE HAVE BEEN RECEIVED ACROSS GRADY AND WESTERN THOMAS COUNTY. IF YOU ARE IN THE PATH OF THIS STORM YOU MUST SEEK SHELTER IN A STURDY SHELTER IMMEDIATELY! THIS IS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION!

A very dangerous and life threatening situation... numerous reports of SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE have been received... IF YOU ARE IN THE PATH OF THIS STORM, YOU MUST SEEK SHELTER IN A STURDY SHELTER IMMEDIATELY! THIS IS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION! Over the past couple of days since the tornado event in south Georgia's, Grady and Thomas Counties, I have covered aspects of the event, from being in the middle of an immediate threat *live* to the significant damage and subsequent aftermath and recovery. This was a serious threat to life and property!!!

The damage captured in the above slideshow was caused by a very large, dangerous and destructive 400 yard wide EF3 tornado, which touched the ground no more than 25 miles from my home, and the persistent tornadic supercell subsequently raced my way, still showing signs of rotation on the radar, most likely dropping a funnel very close to my home (a spotter reported a tornado, but nothing on the ground can substantiate that report, but given radar signature, the number of visually obstructive trees on the road it was seen, I have no doubt that a funnel was most likely seen.)... and people (not us) were sleeping because they don't have a weather radio and didn't realize there was a threat... because they had gone to sleep after channel 6 weather news had reported that the threat was over... because the weather radio they do happen to have was annoying them with all the EAS tones blaring, and they actually removed the plug and the batteries (jaw dropped, what?!) The threat was real, the threat was right at our back door, and families were sleeping right through it. They were in imminent danger... their children were in imminent danger. The 2nd EAS tone alerted me to go check out the situation and see whether or not our situation was an imminent threat to our lives... radar confirmed, and a courtesy call from Mike confirmed. The cell was ablaze with energy, strong signature, most likely a tornado coming our way. I had just made the decision to get me and my family to our "safe spot" when the 3rd EAS tone came announcing our tornado warning. Exactly my area, we got under a mattress. It was after 2 long tracked tornadoes that the SPC issued a tornado watch, that being the 4th EAS tone with a bit of irony in my eyes as I crouched on my floor, holding tight to my daughter, as she held our dog behind a mattress in my hallway. Man, that was eerie. When I got the all clear from the the Weather Brigade (my storm chasing team), I checked radar, posted an "I'm ok." I crawled back into bed in time to hear the 5th and final EAS tone of the night... a tornado warning for the county to my northeast. Actually, in my grogginess, I think I cut off the radio for a 6th announcing a severe thunderstorm warning or watch for my eastern counties, but I knew that it didn't pertain to me.

THIS WAS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION!

Buy your weather radio today! Seriously.

Check out this article... reverse 911 emergency alert system was not activated before the Thomas County tornado, and the emergency manager is now on unpaid administrative leave.

Have a lovely day,
~Dewdrop