LOL - ok, with U's post, it's time to reveal ... (yeah, you caught me ... I tried my best to hide the thunderstorm symbol ... pesky things) ...
----------------------------------------------
Here's your solution:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/010908_rpts.html
The date was September 8, 2001, a date in which any weather news was quickly eclipsed by the events of 9/11 a couple days later. The day resulted primarily in a widespread squall line/bow echo event that caused wind and hail damage for the most part, with some tornado reports in central Texas in the Tail End Charlie cells.
From
Eric Nguyen's chase account that day:
SAW A ROTATING STORM IN YOUNG COUNTY, TX. NICE STRUCTURE FOR ABOUT 45 MIN. HAD PRONOUNCED INFLOW BANDING AND BEAVER TAIL FOR A WHILE. ALSO HAD A NICE ROUND BASE AND SOME STRIATIONS. WITNESSED A PERSISTENT MID-LEVEL FUNNEL COMING OFF THE NORTH SIDE OF THE STORM. STORM EVENTUALLY WEAKENED AN HOUR LATER. ON MY WAY HOME I SAW LIGHTNING STRIKE A TRANSFORMER 20 YARDS OFF I-35 WHICH EXPLODED AND SENT OUT A LARGE PLUME OF SPARKS AND SMOKE. THAT WAS THE BEST UP-CLOSE LIGHTNING I'VE SEEN IN MY LIFE.
Roger Hill intercepted in Abilene on this day.
Bob Conzemius targeted north Texas but states on his site:
I felt out of phase with the storms.
WLNS reports storm damage in Michigan
here.
------------------------------
Scoring
We should get more sophisticated with our scoring somehow (of course, it's nice to keep this informal too, so I don't know if I'm really for this - just thought I'd throw the idea out) ... found this example on the internet, which I don't think would really work for us, since these cases are mainly descriptive of atmospheric behavior more than they are of naming a specific county or city as a target for various types of severe weather. But we may be able to modify it somehow (if you're interested in getting serious that is). Mathematically, this may not be the best system (forecast scoring gets quite a bit more sophisticated than this), but the rules could be modified somewhat to fit the scoring system used. Here's an example:
If your target produced a severe thunderstorm warning, give yourself 2 points.
If your target produced a tornado warning, give yourself 5 points.
If your target was <25 miles to SPC Hail/Wind Event, give yourself 5 points.
If your target was <25 miles to SPC Tornado Event, give yourself 10 points.
And if your target was <5 miles to SPC Tornado Event, give yourself 20 points.
Award your points for the event with the highest point value. In other words, if you have both a tornado and hail/high wind event in your target window, you would count the tornado but not the hail, since the tornado is worth more.
---------------------------
Anyway - this was a fun one ... thanks to everyone who played -- nice work!
