Right. Good Thursday morning. Whether we need, there’s a lot of questions that have backed up. We’re gonna do rapid fire Q&A. But first, you need to watch the Storefront Freaks podcast live. Tonight. We are gonna be interviewing Doctor Josh Warman, also Dr Karen Koseva.
Both of these guys operate the Doppler on wheels and this is just gonna be absolutely amazing. They’ve recently recorded what may be the highest wind speeds ever recorded in a tornado.
And that awesome Greenfield more tivortiacy tornado we’re gonna be talking live about at 9:00 Stormfront Freaks on YouTube. And as our fearless leader of the storefront freaks, Phil says, like, which one of these is gonna be better for your mental health. So quick Q&A. We’re gonna start with this one, which Noab Espanol. I don’t do Spanish, so what levels talking about?
But the question I liked was, I remember the movie from 95,96, that be twisters, the sequels coming out and, oh, I got a surprise for some of you. I ask, is vulnerability measured by its origin or but what it destroys in its path?
So tornadoes are rated on the EF scale, the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Used to be just the Fujita scale, then it became the enhanced one. And basically damage correlates to certain wind speeds. Like they know if certain, like if a certain diameter or branch comes off of a tree, you had at X wind speed. They know by certain construction in a building what damage you see, what wind speed that correlates to.
So after tornado, they go out and do a storm survey because we don’t know exactly, you can’t like directly measure the winds in a tornado very easily. So they do the storm survey. And to do that, they estimate what the wind speeds were and look at the damage to determine where it falls on the EF scale, from EF zero to EF five. Can meteorologists predict microbursts? I believe they can be seen on radar.
Yeah, kind of. How often do microbursts happen? How often they happen can vary throughout different parts of the country, but they can be forecast.
So when we’re taking a look at SQT, if we have low level moisture, you have a mid level dryer and then strong winds aloft. This is actually like a signature letting you know that you could have these potential for microbursts, which are these very strong downbursts of wind, very strong, will flatten trees for like a mile or two straight. What’s the difference in a microburst and an intense thunderstorm has wins and straight line wins in it, stuff like that. A microburst is a specific event that can happen in a thunderstorm. So once again, it’s that like sudden downburst of wind.
You can have dry microburst. You can also have wet microbursts. So microburst isn’t like straight line wins just coming out of the storm in the front of the storm. Like it’s a very specific downburst and downdraft that comes out of those thunderstorm clouds. Here’s a really cool series of photos starting right here that someone took of a microburst.
This isn’t a question, but when weather predictions talk about dew points set of relative humidity, it’s like giving wind speed and furlongs per fortnight. That was just worthy of highlighting. Okay, can you explain what a radar indicated tornado is? Does that mean it’s confirmed? When a tornado warning comes out, there’s two ways that they will identify this.
They’ll either say it’s spotter indicated or radar indicated. Spotter indicated means somebody saw it, which definitely means it’s most likely there. Radar indicated means they see that little red, green coupled like this one that passed over my house on Sunday.
That image shows what’s moving towards a radar, what’s moving away from radar and helps tell us where there’s rotation. Doesn’t mean it’s absolute, means it’s possible. No more on this page. Why are weather apps unreliable? Because very few of them have meteorologists behind the scenes. And what they’re doing is they’re tying the weather app to one specific weather forecast model.
And as you’ve seen, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. They all do better at certain times at certain things. And in order to really get the forecast well, you need to look at all the different models and understand where their strengths and weaknesses are.
So when you’re looking at one weather app, they’ve tied everything they show you to one specific forecast model. Come Heller, high water. Whether it’s right or wrong, you’re not getting the input of a meteorologist. All right. I’m in mass. I’m sure by taunt.
And sometimes I have a hard time figuring out where the line cuts off for warnings. Any tips? I don’t have a ton of tips. Here’s like a map of what Sunday’s warnings look like everywhere and what you notice, the weather moves west to east.
And what they do, you know, is how it always expands cuz there’s a little bit of like a buffer and like, is it moving? Easters are gonna end up moving slightly east northeast or east southeast or what have you.
So really just kind of taking a look when the warnings come out, trying to zoom in as much as you can see where they are. The warnings, if you click on them too, are able to look at, it will list the cities that are affected and that can be really helpful as well.
So if you’re in the box, as we say in meteorology, respect the polygon. That’s what, you know, these little things are. But, you know, zooming in to check it or really reading the list of cities affected might be your best way to go.
I often wonder how thunderstorms can develop when the sky is covered in clouds. And I could see why you think that, right? Like you want the sun to shine through and the clouds provide shade, which doesn’t give you the heating to give you this bubbling and boiling effect. But clouds can also be really helpful. So when we’re outstorm chasing in the Midwest, we look for a cumulous field to come because that’s an indication of like lift and the bubbling and the boiling and we know the lids off the pot and things can really take off.
So sometimes you need some of those initial clouds. The other thing is, if you don’t have those clouds, you don’t have the moisture either. So it can be, the clouds can actually be helpful in an indicative too of the weather.
So I have a favorite app that sends tornado warnings to your phone. The one I have seems to be discontinued. That stinks. I love my radar. It’s my absolute favorite in the entire world. Sorry, not so sorry.
In fact, my love for that app cost me a tremendous opportunity. That’s a funny story. Over a beer sometime. Alright, so that’s it for the Q&A. We’re gonna go ahead and wrap it up. Today’s Thursday in New England. Should be beautiful. Friday should be really nice, too.
Questionable weather moving back in for the weekend again, but we’ll take a look at that later. So watch Stormfront Freaks tonight because this interview is gonna be amazing. And like I said, I’m also working on something for Twister’s big surprise, Kevin.