Posts Tagged ‘tornadoes’
BLUNT TALK ABOUT SUPERCELL
I wasn’t aware of it until my publisher, BelleBooks, pointed it out, but May 4th is National Weather Observers Day. And maybe BelleBooks wasn’t aware of it until I mentioned it, but the month of May marks the climatological peak of tornado season (see graphic below). On average, more twisters rip across the U. S.…
Read MoreEl Niño and SUPERCELL (the novel)
Last week I blogged about El Niño and its connection, or lack thereof, to wintry weather in the Deep South. This week I’ll take a look at El Niño and its influence on severe storms–supercells and tornadoes–in the same region. There’s a late-winter/early-spring climatological maximum in Dixie of severe storms (before the focus of the…
Read MoreA ONE IN TWENTY-MILLION CHANCE–The True Story of the First Tornado Forecast–Part III
PART III After General Borum’s statement that Captain Miller and Major Fawbush were “about to set a precedent,” Fawbush composed the forecast–what would now be called a tornado warning (albeit one with a long lead-time)–Miller typed it up and handed it off to Base Operations for dissemination. Both men sensed their careers circling the…
Read MoreA ONE IN TWENTY-MILLION CHANCE–The True Story of the First Tornado Forecast–Part II
PART II On the morning of March 25, 1948, based on their hurried research, Captain Miller and Major Fawbush noted a significant similarity between the weather charts for that day and March 20, the date of the Tinker tornado. The two forecasters prepared a hand-drawn prognostic chart (computerized progs were still far in…
Read MoreA ONE IN TWENTY-MILLION CHANCE–The True Story of the First Tornado Forecast–Part I
In the mid-20th century, tornado forecasting was considered to be beyond the “state of the art,” or in other words, impossible. Twisters were deemed acts of God. And any meteorologist attempting to predict what the Almighty had in mind would have been labeled a fool, a charlatan, or a court jester. Maybe worse. Yet two…
Read MoreSO JUST WHEN IS “TORNADO SEASON”?
Weather-savvy folks are aware that North Atlantic hurricanes have an officially-defined season: June 1 through November 30. Most, but not all, hurricanes and tropical storms whirl to life within that 6-month period. There is, however, no counterpart for tornadoes. Twisters can and do spin up at any time of year with the threat peaking in…
Read MoreGLOBAL WARMING: THE NEW POPULAR BOOGEYMAN
DID GLOBAL WARMING TRIGGER THE DEADLY NOVEMBER TORNADO OUTBREAK? Certainly the devastating tornado outbreak of Sunday, November 17, will go down as one of the worst November onslaughts on record . . . but not the worst, at least in terms of the number of tornadoes. (It will be in 4th place.) The image below…
Read MoreSUPERCELL, A MORE IN-DEPTH LOOK
Beyond the one-line description of Supercell being “a fast-moving thriller set against tornado chasing on the Great Plains,” what the heck is the novel about? Here’s the “elevator pitch” for it (an “elevator pitch” means the author’s got only the duration of an elevator ride to pitch his/her book to an agent or publisher): Chuck…
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