Bill Tabor
EF5
I think enough went on this day for us to have a discussion thread. It was a very interesting chase in my opinion. I still need to get my final REPORT done and go through vids and pix and post. I'll probably do that tomorrow. Today I spent a bit of time looking at Delorme with my times, the gps position, along with NWS Warning locations and times, as well as SPC tornado logged times and locations. It is interesting to compare all these things and put together the actual scenario now that we know all the pieces. Another cool thing is to compare your location to the WDSSII Rotation Tracks. I created / requested the tracks for this day. Here it is for the rest of you to look at so you can compare it to your locations: http://tornadoxtreme.com/HSQKMT2DC2RS.zip
It's interesting to note the more intense areas of rotation tracks near the areas of actual tornadoes. I also determined that I was in reasonable position to see the Breckenridge tornado and Graford as I expected. But there are interesting surprises. For instance, when I was on fm576 I thought the primary rotation was to my east, but the NWS warning and the rotation tracks show it in the area between Albany and Breck. The initial NWS warning states 17 miles west of Breck moving east. When I finally started moving east on fm576 I encountered a feature that made me turn around and back up. It looked like a solid block (possibly tornadic) on the ground, and not far away to my north. I thought that was mostly out of the storm...but maybe not. Not sure, but possibly it started there and moved east where I believe I saw it again as a lowered funnel with apparent dirt whirls underneath. I say 'believe' because everything was happening so fast and I was dealing with lots of equipment, and navigation and driving, plus it was pretty hazy back in there and there was a lot of stuff to keep an eye on. That's kind of how the day went, and those of you chasing it kind of know what I mean.
Anyway, check out the Rotation Tracks. It is fun to play with in Google Earth. Use the .kmz file.
For all you developers out there I have an idea for a product for you. How about a tool for all of us chasers (and possibly NWS / SPC) that does post chase analysis, documentation, recreation, etc in a multi media format. Basically help in what I am already doing, but be an integrated tool to do all these things more simply and better. This would help us present our chases in a cool and exciting way, and help everyone see the big picture and learn everything about a setup and scenario. In particular I see the ability to overlay a map - such as Google, or Google Earth, with archival radar data, gps track information with times that we drove, rotation tracks, hail swath, warning times, Storm log data, and then have the ability to put in notes of info and photos and hyperlinks to video from that area. All of this would be properly sequenced in time. Would be cool eh? You would be able to look at a chasers file, and it would show everything including the storm, their path and positions relative to the storm, along with photos and videos for review.
It's interesting to note the more intense areas of rotation tracks near the areas of actual tornadoes. I also determined that I was in reasonable position to see the Breckenridge tornado and Graford as I expected. But there are interesting surprises. For instance, when I was on fm576 I thought the primary rotation was to my east, but the NWS warning and the rotation tracks show it in the area between Albany and Breck. The initial NWS warning states 17 miles west of Breck moving east. When I finally started moving east on fm576 I encountered a feature that made me turn around and back up. It looked like a solid block (possibly tornadic) on the ground, and not far away to my north. I thought that was mostly out of the storm...but maybe not. Not sure, but possibly it started there and moved east where I believe I saw it again as a lowered funnel with apparent dirt whirls underneath. I say 'believe' because everything was happening so fast and I was dealing with lots of equipment, and navigation and driving, plus it was pretty hazy back in there and there was a lot of stuff to keep an eye on. That's kind of how the day went, and those of you chasing it kind of know what I mean.
Anyway, check out the Rotation Tracks. It is fun to play with in Google Earth. Use the .kmz file.
For all you developers out there I have an idea for a product for you. How about a tool for all of us chasers (and possibly NWS / SPC) that does post chase analysis, documentation, recreation, etc in a multi media format. Basically help in what I am already doing, but be an integrated tool to do all these things more simply and better. This would help us present our chases in a cool and exciting way, and help everyone see the big picture and learn everything about a setup and scenario. In particular I see the ability to overlay a map - such as Google, or Google Earth, with archival radar data, gps track information with times that we drove, rotation tracks, hail swath, warning times, Storm log data, and then have the ability to put in notes of info and photos and hyperlinks to video from that area. All of this would be properly sequenced in time. Would be cool eh? You would be able to look at a chasers file, and it would show everything including the storm, their path and positions relative to the storm, along with photos and videos for review.
