Families who understand weather?

[Karen St John]

The thread about Reverse Chasing got me thinking...how many people have sat down with their families and taught them how to interpret radar? Let's say you're not in the house, could your spouse or older kids can at least monitor the situation more closely than weather warnings can allow for, and maybe evacuate if that's possible?

In a sense, I'm asking how well anyone has passed on what they've learned about chasing, for the safety of their families?

 

[Scott Taylor]

Interesting question. It's just my two sons and myself at home these days, but my oldest shares my interest of severe weather as well as driving out west to 'chase' it. While we've never delved into forecasting, he's gotten pretty decent at using GR3 or radarscope, picking out inflow notches with the more classic signatures, going to SRV and finding velocity couplets, recognizing areas of possible hail, storm tracking, etc. He just turned 16 but he didn't really express the interest until recent years. Seems to be coming along pretty well so far!

 

[Casey Osburn]

I have an 8 year old who, at the first sign of a storm, pulls out my laptop and opens up GRLevel3. He'll tell his mom, grandma, friend, whoever will listen...all about where the heavy rain is. He'll go to doppler mode and look for a doppler signature (although not sure he'd recognize it unless it was terribly obvious). It's more cute/funny than anything, because when the weather gets seriously hairy, he goes into scared-mode and heads for the basement, which is good.

 

[John Fertsch]

i brief my family about stuff, but they just blow it off and don't take it seriously. Frustrating. They have to hear the word tornado from the local news channel before they start to take it somewhat serious.

 

[Bob Schafer]

I've really done a ton of nowcasting for family and friends, most of whom are over 1000 miles from me, but they don't really try to educate themselves. The most serious situation they have faced in the last 15 years was when a supercell headed straight for them, just a few miles away, nice hook, and TOR'ed. This was in Columbus OH, and it was a couple years ago. I called and told them that they really needed to get in the basement for about 10 minutes.

10 or 15 minutes later I called back with the all-clear. The hook had passed. I said it was now safe to leave the basement. My niece laughs and says "Well, Uncle Bobby, nobody actually went to the basement." She was still outside, halfway through with washing her car. While we were on the phone the sirens went off (yeah, AFTER the danger was gone... naturally...) There was, in fact, a tornado that did some slight damage northeast of them.

 

[ChristofferB]

I have an 8 year old who, at the first sign of a storm, pulls out my laptop and opens up GRLevel3. He'll tell his mom, grandma, friend, whoever will listen...all about where the heavy rain is. He'll go to doppler mode and look for a doppler signature (although not sure he'd recognize it unless it was terribly obvious). It's more cute/funny than anything, because when the weather gets seriously hairy, he goes into scared-mode and heads for the basement, which is good.

That was really cute Kids these days, huh?

 

[Mike Johnston]

It's a good idea, provided the family member(s) are reasonably competent to learn the basics of radar interpretation. But, to learn you have to be motivated and usually that means taking on interest in something. Unfortunately, none of my family members have any interest whatsoever despite my efforts to encourage them. Frankly, I'm not even sure they know their cardinal directions or how to read a road map.

As my wife has spent most of her life along or near the coast, she does respect hurricanes and has experienced several close calls with them. (Hugo especially spooked her.) But, somehow she has conditioned her response to severe weather to a hurricane response. On the few occasions we have had a tornado warning, her first instinct has been to want to go to the grocery store to get provisions! When I explain to her that this storm will be over in 15 minutes, we aren't planning to hunker down for 3 days, and the last place she wants to be is driving around town, she has finally relented but I never got the feeling she really understood what I was saying. On the one occasion I had to get the family to actually take shelter in the interior bathroom, they squealed and pouted about the inconvenience of it all and insisted on being "let out" before I would have liked.

Now, much of my extended family lives in Kansas and Missouri, and they absolutely listen when I call them to alert them about severe weather headed to their local area. Sure, they're usually already well attuned to what's going on, but since I know precisely where they live, they appreciate someone looking out for their specific location on the radar.

 

[Elinor McLennon]

I had drilled radar, maps/landmarks, etc into my kids heads for years. No idea how much was absorbed until last season. My 21 yr old daughter did an amazing job nowcasting. She's been trying for several years but last year it was apparent that she had been listening. also, if my kids want to know what's really going on with the weather they ask us rather than listen to local media hype. lol Which sounds great til the evening I fell asleep while monitoring radar at home for some local storms. I was awaken by the following "MOTHER, get up! There's a *****)&%^&$#^*((&*% tornado headed for the house. What kind of storm chaser sleeps through a tornado?" Ha ha ha
Great question and I've often wondered this: why do people wait til the day of a high risk to start figuring what they would do IF..........?

 

[Jeff House]

Molly and the Tornado by Matt Deighton (Illustrations Jason Nocera) is a great book for young children. It helps them manage fear and learn what to do. It won't teach radar interpretation but it is a big help when the alerts start on TV. Unfortunately the book is hard to get. AMZN showing unavailable at the moment.

 

[John Olexa]

Well, I'm my myself now. Grown daughter lives in upstate NY. I don't know how much she remembers from when she was younger (25 now) but she does have and pays attention to her NOAA weather radio.