One recent evening I was listening to the local news as they reported on a Tornado outbreak, in one of the Eastern States. The tornado(s) had occurred at night and the news anchors were horrified that the people would not know that anything was happening until it was all over.
Severe weather can occur almost everywhere on our planet. Within the last 10 years I have heard reports of Tornados inside of New York City, London, England, and in India. Tornados and Severe Thunderstorms can occur during the day but also at night.
Tornadoes vary in size from yards wide to mile wide machines of death. Tornadoes can pack wind speeds of tens to several hundred miles per hour. Tornadoes can pick up semi tractor trailers and toss them hundreds of yards, they can literally scour asphalt off of roadways.
Severe Thunderstorms can produce winds in excess of 60 miles per hour, hail larger than the size of a quarter, and dangerous lightning. Severe Thunderstorms will sometimes produce straight line winds that can tip over semi tractor trailers. Severe Thunderstorms can also produce a microburst. A microburst is a rapidly sinking column of air from a Thunderstorm, it can sink at several miles per hour to hundreds of miles per hour. Microbursts can topple full grown trees, flatten houses, etc.
I have lived in what is called Tornado Alley for all but 18 months of my 40 plus years (An all expense paid vacation to Bosnia, courtesy of Uncle Sam). I am in no way a weather expert. I offer the following information hoping that it will be of use to you.
During the months of Late March thru the middle of June I am hyper-vigilant when it comes to the weather. I will detail my routine below
a Find a local news station that you can listen to their weather forecast and at least feel halfway comfortable that it is accurate. You have some stations that sensationalize everything about the weather. These clowns will break into the regular programming just because the sky is getting dark. On the other hand you have the stations that are staffed by kids fresh out of school who are inexperienced and are only going off of a script.
By listening to the different stations available to you, you will be able to figure out who you can trust and who the clowns are.
Once you have an idea, listen to the station regularly. Listen to the 5-day forecast to see when storms are predicted for your area. This is your early warning system, think of the local weather guys as the cans on the string with the rocks in them, to let you know something is out there.
Also one note here when they say that there is a 40% chance of rain or storms, they mean 40% of the listening area for that station could expect to see rain or storms.
Refer to the web site of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. These guys know their business. They can’t predict where and when something will happen but they can give you an area and a day that they think it is going to happen.
The first thing about this site is they speak in weather terms so you will have to find a way to interpret them. The Weather.com and NOAA web sites sites have some good glossaries of weather terms.
When you first come onto the page look at the map of the U.S. they will encircle an area and give the probability for severe weather (slight, moderate, high). The “Conv. Outlooks” (Convective Outlooks) give you a synopsis of what they think is going to happen. You will need your weather-speak interpreter here. Watches obviously show you the watches. MD’s are Mesoscale Discussions. This is where the forecasters at the SPC give their impressions on what is now happening in a given area. If you look on the map you will see the area circled in red. Usually if an area is circled, it is about ready to go under a watch of some type.
This site is one that you have to play with and get used to and also do some research on weather-speak. But it can be invaluable with the information that you can get.
Another note here, if these guys start getting fidgety, then bad things are getting ready to go down. This is when they issue Particularly Dangerous Situations alerts.
I think back to the News Anchor and her bleating, “What do those people do when it is dark or at night and they are asleep?” My first thought was, “Well duh! You use your weather radio”.
Special receivers have been manufactured to tune into certain frequencies and would then activate the external speaker when a special tone was played, then the message was broadcast. The problem with this was that everyone was alerted for hazards that were 20-40 miles away and had little chance of impacting you. Today weather radios are much different. They use SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) technology and can alert you for hazards in the area or you can program in county codes to alert you to threats specific to the county(s) that you program. Weather radios are usually tested every Wednesday unless severe weather is in the area.
When programming you would think that you would want to program for just your county so that you would not have to hear what is going on two counties over. I actually do the opposite, I program not only the county that I live in but all of the surrounding counties. Usually you have the ability to program 10 county codes.
If I am asleep at night and my weather radio goes off for a Tornado Warning for the county to my west I can then get up and see what I need to do by listening to either TV or Storm spotters. As an aside here, have a scanner with your local storm spotter frequency. They will be able to tell you when stuff is happening and may see that Tornado forming that the weather guys are not seeing yet on radar. If you do not know the local storm spotting frequency try the local Amateur radio frequencies. If all else fails local fire or law enforcement frequencies may give you information.
By programming in the surrounding counties I have more time to wake up and to decide do we go to the shelter, or other courses of action. If you only have just your county programmed in, you may only get the warning when the thing is coming down on top of you.
Usually these radios cost between $30 to $100. The radio also broadcasts current NOAA conditions, forecasts, hazardous weather outlooks for most areas.
So as I am writing this it almost has a “defense in depth” process feeling.
- Use your local news stations weather as an early warning.
- Use the Storm Prediction Center as a tool to see what the actual hazards are.
- Use your Weather Radio as a trip wire to warn you that the wolf is at the door.
- Listening to your local storm spotters, they can give you up to the minute information on what is currently happening in your area.
Next, After the Schumer has hit the fan and there is no Internet, NOAA, or Uncle Sugar.
You will need to setup your own off grid weather station. I purchased something similar to this one, several years ago. These instruments give you rudimentary Temperature, Humidity, and Barometric pressure. Barometric pressure decreasing would increase the likelihood of rain or a storm.
Or, Thermometers are pretty cheap and can be obtained at dollar stores. Here is a set of plans to build a barometer.
Here are instructions for a Hygrometer.
Also, you will have to do your own observations of the conditions around you. As you will not have your weather person to tell you about the weather.
Clouds:
Here is a link to a web site that describes various cloud types. In summary:
- Cirrus Clouds indicate that there could be rain within 36 hours.
- Cumulus Towers indicate possible rain later in the day. Watch cumulus towers if they continue to build they will become Cumulonimbus Clouds.
- Cumulonimbus Clouds – (Thunder Heads, Anvil Clouds) Severe weather makers.
- Wall Cloud – Usually under a Cumulonimbus cloud. This is a cloud that is part of the cloud structure but is lower than the surrounding cloud structure. A wall cloud will rotate, and usually produce tornados.
- Mammatus Clouds – Usually seen from under the storm itself, are formed by sinking air as the thunderstorm is dissipating.
Plants:
- Oak or Maple leaves will curl in high humidity, which usually precedes Rain
- Pine cone scales remain closed in high humidity, but will open in dry air.
- Plants will release their waste in low pressure, generating a compost type smell indicating approaching rain.
Wind:
- Easterly winds usually indicate an approaching storm, Westerly winds usually do not.
- Strong winds can indicate pressure differences which can signal an approaching storm front.
- Wind changing direction can signal the passage of a front.
Sky:
- A rainbow in the west indicates a lot of moisture in the air and the possibility of a storm moving towards you.
- The old saying of “Red Sky at Night, Sailors delight. Red sky in the morning Sailors take warning.”
Red sky at night, Sailors delight; The red sky is caused by dust particles stirred up by a high pressure system. This means dry air is headed toward you. - Red sky in the morning, Sailors take warning; That high pressure system is now to your East. Low pressure has moved in.
- If the moon is reddish or pale, dust is in the air. If the moon is bright and sharply focused then high pressure has cleared out the dust.
- A ring close around the moon is caused by the moon light shining thru cirrus clouds which means rain can be expected within 36 hours.
Animals:
- Herd animals (Cows, horses, sheep) will usually cluster together prior to a storm.
- Large numbers of birds sitting on power lines can indicate low pressure
- Birds will fly higher in high pressure.
- Animals will usually get quiet just prior to it raining.
- Crickets can be fairly accurate at telling you the temperature. If you add the chirps a cricket makes in a 14 second time period and add the number to 40 you should come up with the temperature within one or two degrees Fahrenheit. Obviously the temperature would be over 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Ants will stay near their nests and will even cover up the hole on their mound, when they detect low pressure. They will also build up the sides of their mound to shed the rain.
- Bees can also detect when the pressure is low and will hover around their hives and will not be in your flower beds.
Hopefully this information will be of some use to you not only now, but maybe some of this will be helpful after the Schumer has been flung. Keep your powder dry!