• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Smoke Makes Tornadoes More Likely to Strike?

Steve Miller

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What could fires in Central America have to do with the deadliest outbreak of tornadoes in recent U.S. history? More than you might think, according to a new study. Researchers found that smoke wafting north from the Gulf of Mexico worsened the already-stormy weather brewing across the southeastern US on April 27, 2011. That afternoon, 122 twisters tore across the country, killing 313 people.

"It’s not that the outbreak happened because of the smoke." Pablo Saide, of the University of Iowa, and an author of a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. [Pablo Saide et al, Central American biomass burning smoke can increase tornado severity in the U.S.] "What’s happening is that this smoke, it interacts with clouds and with solar radiation."

Smoke consists of tiny particles, called aerosols, which can have complicated effects on weather. So Saide used a model to explore whether these particles influenced the tornado outbreak of April 27. He found smoke made twisters more likely to strike, and more ferocious when they did. However, at the moment, weather forecasts don’t consider aerosol particles.

"This is difficult because weather models need to be finished very fast—because you want weather predictions for today, not for tomorrow. And including these aerosols makes it slower."

But Saide thinks it’s worth it. He says understanding the role of smoke and other airborne particles will help forecasters predict when weather conditions might change from dreary to deadly.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/smoke-makes-twisters-more-likely-to-strike/
 
This was addressed by Brooks et al. when published... It's WAY too far-reaching for just one instance to make ANY conclusions on. Put this in the "Ehh, interesting, but a bad conclusion" file :)
 
This study is somewhat poorly researched. There were lots of rumblings in the academic community when the publication of this article was first announced a few months ago.
 
This author was really brave to put his name on this article. To attribute a small amount of severity of April 27th to some smoke is way too much credit. The atmosphere that day was insane and likely won't be similar again for a long time. As Jeff said, "There were lots of rumblings in the academic community" along with a lot of facepalming and snickering...
 
I love that we live in a scientific society that comes to such conclusions after a single event. It's kind like the Climatologists who have squandered trying to predict the future. The Farmer Almanac does a better job.
 
It's kind like the Climatologists who have squandered trying to predict the future. The Farmer Almanac does a better job.

Tell me about it... But I'm not sure I'd call AccuWeather a "climatologist" group... They consider their 45-day forecasts to be actually meteorologically based! Sigh...

And don't even start on the fringe sector who deny climate change science. That's potentially far more damaging to our society than a smoke study. But we digress :)
 
The key word in the article is "complicated", which can be translated to "unknown". The real advance in storm (weather in general) forecasting will come if the government gets serious about increasing the number our weather observation sites, especially the rawinsonde network (http://www.ua.nws.noaa.gov/nws_upper.htm). Satellite (top-down) observations can't yet match the accuracy and quality of rawinsondes, although radiometers (bottom-up) soundings are much better -- but they are very expensive and don't measure winds.
 
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