Sean Casey - VORTEX2

[Steve Worthington]

Exactly.
Simon and Justin on " Storm Riders" explain and educate. Their program is fun and exciting. If they don't need fake excitement and drama, why should Storm Chasers"?

"Storm Riders" is a good show except for me their monotone voices put me to sleep. I think they need to mix "some" excitement in to the show. Like I said, I like it but find it boring at the same time. I dont know how everyone chases but we do have allot of excitement in our chases. We joke around and cut up and make fun trips out of our long boring drives.

 

[Jason Foster]

There is two key huge differences that Storm Riders has compared to the point in this thread.

1) Storm Riders does not get anywhere close to the viewership. This within itself is a thing to consider when I point out no. 2

2) I have yet to hear a single complaint about Simon or Juston (sp?) conduct in the show, or even off the show. Not sure if Peacock Productions intended to remove drama or it was just a mater of the reduced production crew that go with Juston/Simon or why. But they certainly have not been criticized for conduct, driving habits, and more. Which Original Media (as much as I like them) should take note...chasers do provide 'natural' drama.

Their commentary is a little dry at times though...agree there Melissa.

 

[Mark Ellinwood]

"Storm Riders" is a good show except for me their monotone voices put me to sleep. I think they need to mix "some" excitement in to the show. Like I said, I like it but find it boring at the same time. I dont know how everyone chases but we do have allot of excitement in our chases. We joke around and cut up and make fun trips out of our long boring drives.

I can pretty much mirror your sentiments on this... While I wanted to watch Storm Riders, I just couldn't get into it. The entertainment value in-between the storm action is lacking.

 

[Andrew Burnett]

I'm not a die harder of this message board, but where does most of this talk about Warman and the SC show take place?

As little as I have seen about it, I figured it was kind of taboo on here.

I was trying to find the boards thoughts on Reeds attempts to get data and what use it was.

 

[Keith Hosman]

I'm not a die harder of this message board, but where does most of this talk about Warman and the SC show take place?

As little as I have seen about it, I figured it was kind of taboo on here.

I was trying to find the boards thoughts on Reeds attempts to get data and what use it was.

I'm guessing here, because what I know about the science of radar couldn't fill a thimble, but as Reed's radar is of a differend design than the ones used by Vortex2, I'm thinking the data it derived would be different as well. Also since the radar was fixed and doesn't turn on a radius unless the radar unit was pointed directly at the center of circulation it wouldn't get very good data.

For radar to work it has to reflect off of something, not just moving air, so there would have to be either condensation or debris for the radar to reflect off of.

This is where I get a bit confused by the whole thing of laying the radar flat and shooting directly overhead to measure the wind speed going up like Reed was talking about.

If someone has more information or ideas about this I'd be happy to hear them.

Another thing about Reed's radar that I don't quite understand, perhaps a design flaw, is that to raise it from horizontal (shooting straight up) to vertical they would have to get out and manualy raise the radar transciever to the raised position, I didn't see any motors or anything to move it from inside.

 

[Andrew Burnett]

I'm guessing here, because what I know about the science of radar couldn't fill a thimble, but as Reed's radar is of a differend design than the ones used by Vortex2, I'm thinking the data it derived would be different as well. Also since the radar was fixed and doesn't turn on a radius unless the radar unit was pointed directly at the center of circulation it wouldn't get very good data.

For radar to work it has to reflect off of something, not just moving air, so there would have to be either condensation or debris for the radar to reflect off of.

This is where I get a bit confused by the whole thing of laying the radar flat and shooting directly overhead to measure the wind speed going up like Reed was talking about.

If someone has more information or ideas about this I'd be happy to hear them.

Another thing about Reed's radar that I don't quite understand, perhaps a design flaw, is that to raise it from horizontal (shooting straight up) to vertical they would have to get out and manualy raise the radar transciever to the raised position, I didn't see any motors or anything to move it from inside.

Yeah this was exactly the type of things I was wanting to discuss but didn't know where to put it. I'm a big fan of out of the box thinking to get new angles on things or justify current methodology and was curious how this fit in or if Reed and Co had put out any white papers or such. I was also wondering the groups thoughts on the whole "Twister" cannon probe thing. From a laymens point of veiw that would seem to be usefull info.

Reed has claimed on his show to move into a science role. And as most know science is no good if not shared.

 

[rdale]

I was trying to find the boards thoughts on Reeds attempts to get data and what use it was.

No better answer than one from the expert:

http://cadiiitalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/chasing-mythology-1.html

 

[Jeff Duda]

I'm guessing here, because what I know about the science of radar couldn't fill a thimble, but as Reed's radar is of a differend design than the ones used by Vortex2, I'm thinking the data it derived would be different as well. Also since the radar was fixed and doesn't turn on a radius unless the radar unit was pointed directly at the center of circulation it wouldn't get very good data.

For radar to work it has to reflect off of something, not just moving air, so there would have to be either condensation or debris for the radar to reflect off of.

This is where I get a bit confused by the whole thing of laying the radar flat and shooting directly overhead to measure the wind speed going up like Reed was talking about.

If someone has more information or ideas about this I'd be happy to hear them.

Another thing about Reed's radar that I don't quite understand, perhaps a design flaw, is that to raise it from horizontal (shooting straight up) to vertical they would have to get out and manualy raise the radar transciever to the raised position, I didn't see any motors or anything to move it from inside.

From what I recall hearing on the show and in various other places, Reed is attempting to measure vertical winds in the tornadic circulation. Radar energy in the microwave region can and does reflect off of things that appear to be in clear air such as gradients in refractive index. That is how the NPN profilers can measure horizontal winds in clear air. Also, I think Reed assumes it's a given that if you're close enough to a tornado, there is some physical object, most likely condensed water vapor, or debris, or just enough turbulence, to get the radar beam to reflect.

 

[Keith Hosman]

No better answer than one from the expert:

http://cadiiitalk.blogspot.com/2010/11/chasing-mythology-1.html

Yeah, I had read that before. And I agree, the data that they would capture isn't really going to improve warning times.

It may however improve buiding design if they get a batter idea of how wind and debris moves at ground levels. As someon ho spent a good bit of my younger life in the construction trades, I have seen a lot change as far as building codes from better understanding of how storms can effect buildings.

 

[rdale]

Maybe... What I've noticed on storm surveys (and in my current "new house looking" mode) is that there is a WIDE variety of construction techniques - regardless of codes. I'd have to think there are better ways of determining wind impacts on buildings than hoping one probe gets into one tornado. That's not a large dataset.

And remember - the number of homes that will get destroyed by a tornado next year is SO SO small (especially when you compare to the number destroyed by fire, floods and winds) that the last thing I'm willing to increase my mortgage by 10% is for additional tornado reinforcements. I'll pay the money to protect my house from 100mph winds, but I'm not going to invest a cent to make my home stand up 5 seconds longer in an EF4.

 

[Melissa Jablonski]

There is two key huge differences that Storm Riders has compared to the point in this thread.

1) Storm Riders does not get anywhere close to the viewership. This within itself is a thing to consider when I point out no. 2

2) I have yet to hear a single complaint about Simon or Juston (sp?) conduct in the show, or even off the show. Not sure if Peacock Productions intended to remove drama or it was just a mater of the reduced production crew that go with Juston/Simon or why. But they certainly have not been criticized for conduct, driving habits, and more. Which Original Media (as much as I like them) should take note...chasers do provide 'natural' drama.

Their commentary is a little dry at times though...agree there Melissa.

Okay, a little. My post is too short.

 

[Melissa Jablonski]

I can pretty much mirror your sentiments on this... While I wanted to watch Storm Riders, I just couldn't get into it. The entertainment value in-between the storm action is lacking.

To each thier own. I can't stand The other program. To much "Drama".

 

[Verne Carlson]

Flash forward twenty years - after many millions of dollars of NSF grants and many tornado data sets the perfect tornado-proof home has been designed.

 

[Jerry Prsha]

Flash forward twenty years - after many millions of dollars of NSF grants and many tornado data sets the perfect tornado-proof home has been designed.

Of course then we'll have more drowning deaths in the underground pool...

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Radar energy in the microwave region can and does reflect off of things that appear to be in clear air such as gradients in refractive index. That is how the NPN profilers can measure horizontal winds in clear air. Also, I think Reed assumes it's a given that if you're close enough to a tornado, there is some physical object, most likely condensed water vapor, or debris, or just enough turbulence, to get the radar beam to reflect.

Given the small antenna size and the purpose, I'm assuming the radar has a very small wavelength... perhaps in the mm range (W/Ka band). Meteorological radars in this band are typically referred to as cloud radars. As a matter of fact, the ARM project operates several vertically pointing cloud radars. Example of data from a cloud radar is given below: