Moore Tornado, NOW, live chaser footage

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More tornado warnings (purple) and as I thought, there is rotation developing around Cogar and Union City.

You can see how muddled the radar is, many red/green boundaries indicating multiple direction windspeeds/circulation. No pink areas indicating extreme hail/debris on the reflectivity plot but that doesn't mean it isn't there.
 
Scott Roberts live feed.. wow. Telephone poles snapping and stuff blowing up right in front of him as he was driving.
 
Got weather report from a storm chaser on GRLevel3 that cars are half engulfed in water due to flash floods in I44 near the Tulsa Park area.
 
Storm spotter stating outflow winds from the storm finally ejecting. This COULD be good news. Lets hope that is nice cool air that he is feeling => storm weakening. Certainly from the radar there isn't much going on at the moment other than straight line winds.
 
As it turns out, it appears that the Moore tornados on Friday killed three veteran storm chasers. You may recognise one of the names:

  • Tim Samaras (from Discovery Channels "Storm Chasers")
  • Paul Samaras
  • Carl Young (also featured prominently with Tim on Storm Chasers).
Tim was a much respected member of the storm chasing community and I believe holds the record for the biggest pressure drop measured in the Manchester (South Dakota) tornado using a ground placed probe. He was a pioneer for these type of instruments, cameras and sensors. It appears he was killed whilst storm chasing the OKC tornados near El Reno, when the tornado veered rapidly off its easterly course to strike north towards them.

RIP Tim. A great pioneer.


Goes to show, no matter how much experience you might have, you can never truly predict nature. I just hope Reed Timmer takes notice and tries to stop driving into the things. You play with matches and sooner or later you are going to get burnt.

Source:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...ahoma-tornado-along-with-son-longtime-partner

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/02/us/midwest-weather/
 
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Sad news indeed. Out of all the storm chasers, I would have thought Tim Samaras would have been the least likely to get killed by a tornado. He was very safety conscious. Slightly ironic that this news comes right after the euphoria of Sean Casey's TIV2 iMAX filmed intercept of an EF4.
 
Physichull I thought there was a weather thread on here I searched but couldn't find it.
Can I ask or can you dirct me somewhere.
I'm interested in the weather an all this stuff you seam to have radars and that any tips where I could learn more
 
Devastating news. He was very sceptical of online media such as twitter and facebook and rarely used them. How apt that his final facebook post (posted on 27th May) was this:

"Overnighted in Concordia, KS last night. In Super 8 lobby watching low clouds screaming to the west....what to do....what to do...hmmm..maybe do lunch and wander out west..

Everyone enjoy the chase--and hope that tornadoes wander over open country. Most of all, I reflect and appreciate the freedom this incredible country has to offer, and the ultimate sacrifices so many have made to make it happen.

Thank you. You are the true heros."
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Reed Timmer tribute:

Genius, pioneer in the science of meteorology, my mentor and someone I've looked up to my whole life, incredible father, a father figure to me in chasing who was always concerned about our safety as we were intercepting tornadoes. Selfless, passionate, and genuinely nice --

This morning my heart sunk when I found out Tim Samaras, Carl Young, and Tim's son lost their life on a storm chase a few days ago near El Reno. I'm still in disbelief.. this must be some kind of horri...ble dream. Of all people, Tim Samaras was the most controlled, safe storm chasing scientist I know. It doesn't make sense. It always seems to happen to the best people.

Tim was at the forefront of the science of meteorology, from his state-of-the-art invention the "Kahuna" to measure lightning in high speed, to his world record pressure fall measurement with his probes inside the Manchester F4 tornado on June 24, 2003. Tim, Carl, and Paul were more than great friends of mine, they are also pioneering scientists whose work has already saved countless lives, and will save lives forever.

I WILL MISS YOU GUYS SO SO MUCH! I just saw them on the road the last few days and will never forget the "twinkle" in his eyes when we were chasing a thunder shower in south Texas, and their passion in talking about storms.

RIP Tim, Carl, and Paul. I'll never forget you guys.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to your families. If you need ANYTHING at all please reach out to me.. I know Tim will be watching out for us every time we're chasing, and I'll dedicate our work in honor of my mentor, Tim Samaras. Love you guys
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I followed his facebook page along with only 2000 others right up until his death and from that you could tell he was also deeply passionate about lightning and filming lightning at high shutter speeds. Check this video out for some of his work:


Also, another very interesting lecture he gave:


And a podcast of his work that he was planning on for this storm season, recorded 3 months ago:

http://tvnweather.com/podcasts/13
 
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hargi said:
Physichull I thought there was a weather thread on here I searched but couldn't find it.
Can I ask or can you dirct me somewhere.
I'm interested in the weather an all this stuff you seam to have radars and that any tips where I could learn more
Click to expand...

Yeah sure!

For books, the best book I have found so far has been the Storm Chasing Handbook (2nd edition) by Tim Vasquez.

For online research, there are a few links that I can point you to:

This one is old, but brill:
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/home.rxml

This one is cluttered but is a good guide:
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/

Also, try this podcast:
http://tvnweather.com/podcasts/24


For weather forecasting, I use this:
http://www.twisterdata.com/
GFS models are for a few days to a week out, NAM a couple of days out and RAP for on the day of the storms to give accurate predictions. But its great for forcasting and so see the podcast above to get a good idea of how to use it.

I use this for a rough guide as I'm only really a beginner myself, so I use this to give me a clue as to where storms will likely occur, and then try to match the models to the prediction:
http://www.weather.gov/

For radar, no doubt there will be many products out there, but I use GRLevel3 which uses the (free) level 3 radar system. For more high resolution radar, such as what they present on US tv etc you will need GRLevel2 which uses level 2 radar. But there really isn't that much point and you have to pay a subscription service for the radar data. You can get a free trial of GRLevel3 here:

http://www.grlevelx.com/grlevel3_2/

It gives some great data though, all real time and updates as per each radar sweep, also updates with local weather reports such as media, storm chasers to give hail size, wind speeds etc.
 
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