Matt Petkovic - speed racer

[Scott Weberpal]

I couldn't help but notice "storm spotter" Matt Petkovic's reports in E. MN/W. WI today. Not only was there a "rotating wall cloud" reported with a narrow line (see image below), but his reports were at distances impossible to cover in the time between reports (especially on the winding roads of W. WI)...

1855 UTC - 2 W. Winona, MN
1906 UTC - 3 S. Waumandee, WI (about 25 miles from Winona, he covered this in 11 minutes...on hilly, winding road; most of which are difficult to travel over 45mph on).
1938 UTC - 1 N. Hixton, WI (about 47 miles from Waumandee, he covered this in 32 minutes, again on winding 2-lane roads).

Was he really out there?

This guy can drive!

Hmm...wall cloud?

 

[Dean Baron]

LOL I watched him too. At times his distance between position updates was 9 miles (SN updates ~3-4 minutes) which means about 3 miles/minute or roughly 180 mph. On top of that he had some bad reports.

 

[Tyler Allison]

Why do people have to ruin my day? We're investigating.

 

[Tyler Allison]

Note: I'm not saying this was fraud..I'm still investigating...but....

If I had more time on my hands I would love to be able to build in some analysis like you did right into the SN. Then give the advisors the ability to see that when they rate the reports so I don't have to be around to hit the eject button.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

On your end, can you see whether the position updates are via GPS or if they are manually entered?

 

[Tyler Allison]

Big brother knows all

 

[rdale]

Oh great - now nobody will ever use SN again...

 

[Tyler Allison]

Next month I'm announcing membership will require a blood and stool sample. I'm currently looking for folks to volunteer to be the collectors.

 

[Bart_Comstock]

You know it could be possible that he was riding with the Kirksville camero guy. That would explain how fast they were traveling. Let's just hope he had a light bar on.

Next month I'm announcing membership will require a blood and stool sample. I'm currently looking for folks to volunteer to be the collectors.

Why not just make people wear remote shock collars or have shock chips put into their brains so when they make a bad report they get a good zapping.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

Next month I'm announcing membership will require a blood and stool sample. I'm currently looking for folks to volunteer to be the collectors.

I'll be sure to eat some hot wings and have a few pints of beer the night before

 

[Karen St John]

Next month I'm announcing membership will require a blood and stool sample. I'm currently looking for folks to volunteer to be the collectors.

I just FedEx'd mine to you. You'll have to sign for it.

 

[cedwards]

Next month I'm announcing membership will require a blood and stool sample.

Here's mine.

 

[Chris Heater]

Any of you see the other spotter, Matt Luttrell, who practically wrote a book on his storm report? I can't say too much though. I made a mistake on my report today where I put in the report in as nickel sized hail but some quarter sized was mixed in. Will remember that for next time though!

 

[Michael Stanga]

I had shown this in another forum. amazing.

http://www.thewxpage.com/nonwx/what.jpg

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Any of you see the other spotter, Matt Luttrell, who practically wrote a book on his storm report? I can't say too much though. I made a mistake on my report today where I put in the report in as nickel sized hail but some quarter sized was mixed in. Will remember that for next time though!

So you didn't actually observe that size hail or what?

 

[Tim Shriver]

" couldn't help but notice "storm spotter" Matt Petkovic's reports in E. MN/W. WI today. Not only was there a "rotating wall cloud" reported with a narrow line (see image below), but his reports were at distances impossible to cover in the time between reports (especially on the winding roads of W. WI)..."

It does look odd. Good catch! We had about the same happen with a spotter
in one of our counties last year. Covering the distance he said he did was impossible.
The spotter got all pissed off when we asked him about it and said he would call the WFO directly.
We contacted the WFO and he did not call and submit his report.

Any way of contacting this fellow?

Tim

 

[Chris Heater]

So you didn't actually observe that size hail or what?

I observed it. Hailed at home so it was hard to miss. It was mostly nickel sized but a few quarter sized hailstone were mixed in. That's what I was saying...and I forgot your supposed to report the largest stone even if its mostly a smaller size

 

[Chris Gullikson]

I saw a black helicopter fly over my house...you reckon it was Matt?

 

[Johnathan Brouwer]

If this guy was using the default reading from SN, then he could be at the mercy of what the database says his location is. Not that I am trying to defend him, just that if you look at the position that is posted on the client version, sometimes it does not give a specific coordinate, just something like, "2 miles SW of xyz town"...

Perhaps that should be eliminated and replaced with the gps coordiates only?

 

[Jeff Snyder]

If this guy was using the default reading from SN, then he could be at the mercy of what the database says his location is. Not that I am trying to defend him, just that if you look at the position that is posted on the client version, sometimes it does not give a specific coordinate, just something like, "2 miles SW of xyz town"...

Perhaps that should be eliminated and replaced with the gps coordiates only?

I think the "2 mi SW of xyz town" is just there to make it easier to interpret your own location compared to the use of lat/lons. AFAIK, all reports are sent using the lat/lon pair from the GPS, so his reports should be collocated with his GPS position.

Now, I did notice that my Earthmate GPS drifted horribly a few times last year. For example, when we were heading towards the WY border from Hot Springs, SD, on a chase during the abysmal stretch of weather in late May, my GPS suddenly started to show me moving due southwest (in a perfectly straight line) at something like 205 mph, all while we were driving on some curvy roads at 45-50 mph. I actually had to turn off the GPS and start everything over (GPSGate, etc.) to fix it. I certainly would never submit a SN report if I knew that was happening though (unless the report was a very noteworthy, in which case I'd note that the GPS lat/lon was erroneous, and I'd estimate a new position). I doubt that's the situation here, though.

 

[Rob H]

This is the same individual that's being accused of stealing photos by several chasers on Facebook this morning. When it rains, it pours