2006 Season Review

[Karen Politte]

Mmmkay...........my brain is still frozen from feeding the birds in the garden this morning.

Is my math correct?? 3 tornadoes in 3 chases is a success ratio of 1:1, right??? How would I express that as a percentage???

I'm so dumb.

KL

 

[Tony Laubach]

Mmmkay...........my brain is still frozen from feeding the birds in the garden this morning.

Is my math correct?? 3 tornadoes in 3 chases is a success ratio of 1:1, right??? How would I express that as a percentage???

I'm so dumb.

KL

100%

Birds will survive til Spring, they have for years... wait til warmer weather before feeding them!

 

[Karen Politte]

100%

Birds will survive til Spring, they have for years... wait til warmer weather before feeding them!

LOL, oh well - thanks for the math refresher.

Actually, the birds thing is a hobby.......I do it because I enjoy watching them. Guess it makes me feel closer to nature. But - waaaaaaay off topic here I guess.

KL

 

[scott r currens]

Mmmkay...........my brain is still frozen from feeding the birds in the garden this morning.

Is my math correct?? 3 tornadoes in 3 chases is a success ratio of 1:1, right??? How would I express that as a percentage???

I'm so dumb.

KL

I think most people are using tornado days/chase days to determine success ratio. If you saw 12 tornadoes on one chase and zero on 11 more chases, your success ration would be 1:12, not 12:12. At least thats how I calculate it.

 

[Karen Politte]

I think most people are using tornado days/chase days to determine success ratio. If you saw 12 tornadoes on one chase and zero on 11 more chases, your success ration would be 1:12, not 12:12. At least thats how I calculate it.

Yes you see this was what was confusing me, as I was looking at other people's ratios and percentages and getting totally confused! With this equation we would have had a 1:3 ratio or a 33% success rate - but I'm just not sure whether people are using tornadoes vs. chase days or tornado DAYS vs. chase days.

KL

 

[Bill Tabor]

I was just doing tornadoes / chases which give a percentage. However I only had one tornado per chase so mine made sense. Probably this statistic refers to how many times you were successful with getting at least one tornado per the number of days you went out. In other words, for each day you chased how many of the days did you actually see a tornado? In this case multiple tornado days would only count as one "success" day.

I should probably make more of an effort to count my tornadoes and keep my yearly stats. There are lots that are interesting when you look back over the years. Plus it's a good way to reference things later when you are talking about them in discussions with other people. Oh, that I only had time to dedicate to just chase related stuff.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Wow I never realized how early this thread was started. It's sad I added about 7,000 more miles since my post on the year in review....and still never added another tornado. My tornado to chase ratio must have wound up right around 1 in 40 chases for 2006 lol.

 

[Marko Korosec]

Well even it was a bad year they said, I was pretty satisfied with my first US chasing last year. Here are some stats...

Chase days: ~17
Tornado days: 1 (May 5th)
Tornadoes: 1 (anticyclonic F0)
Biggest hail: golfball+
Miles travelled: ~10,500
Best structures: May 3th, 4th and 5th (TX)
States Chased: TX, OK, KS, MO, NE, CO, LA
Day I wish I could change our plans: May 4th (man, wish we wouldn't be lost in that labyrinth of roads, 4.25" hail reported on the storm we were)
Expenses: ~5000$ (28 days trip; plane, car, gas, motels, food, drinks, new camera,...)
MDT risks: ~7
SLGT risks: ~10
Success ratio: enough to come again this year

EDIT: What exactly tornado day means? Day when you see a tornado or a day with tornado reported on the storm you were but not seen it?

 

[Bill Tabor]

EDIT: What exactly tornado day means? Day when you see a tornado or a day with tornado reported on the storm you were but not seen it?

I always take that to mean number of days you bagged a tornado. So success ratio would be tornado days / # chases.

 

[Bill Tabor]

Wow I never realized how early this thread was started. It's sad I added about 7,000 more miles since my post on the year in review....and still never added another tornado. My tornado to chase ratio must have wound up right around 1 in 40 chases for 2006 lol.

Wow Mike, that has been tough. Reminds me of some of my earlier years of many miles driven and few good tubes. I've been lucky last couple years to have pretty good success when I go out. I just didn't get out a lot. My early years of rat racing everything 20K+ miles eventually wears you down a bit. As Gene says you learn to 'save your powder for another day'. Of course that may mean you'll miss some sometimes. I got out early some last year and then the pattern started sucking and going north. It just didn't look like it was going to produce much to me and so I stayed home - instead took a vacation to Colorado and also sold my house and moved to another. I forget now what screwed last year up so much. Wasn't it a long term ridge? It was amazing to see such a sucky May. I don't think I've ever seen it, but some of the more veteran chasers have.

So far this year is looking really strong to me. It appears almost like a normal winter down here. We have colder weather in February just like we used to 20 to 30 years ago. Will be interesting to see if that means storms will return to Tx in the March, April, early May time frame.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I forget now what screwed last year up so much. Wasn't it a long term ridge? It was amazing to see such a sucky May. I don't think I've ever seen it, but some of the more veteran chasers have.

It was a big trough in the east after May 9th that did the most damage.