Weather or Not

Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

Archives for 2010

On the Operational Usefulness of Live Storm-Chase Video Streams

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A few weeks ago, I provided the following text (minus a few minor updates) as parts of two comments on a BLOG entry by Chuck Doswell, and in response to other commenters. Since it’s a marginally related topic to that post, worthy of stand-alone status, here you go…
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The whole idea that these Discovery TV chasers’ in-situ tornado data “improves warnings” is just plain bogus–not only for research-related reasons discussed by Chuck, but in real-time warning situations also. None of the actual measurement data that are being collected in and near tornadoes is getting to the NWS watch or warning forecasters immediately, if ever!

So…

What is being used for real-time warnings instead (besides radar and, in some cases, mesoanalysis)?

1. Visual reports of wall clouds, funnel clouds and tornadoes via SpotterNetwork and HAM radio as a part of standard storm-spotting operations that already exist anyway, and
2. Increasingly, live video-streaming of salient storm features from chasers and spotters so equipped.

Many NWS forecasters actually pay attention to live streams, at least to the extent that approved software and bandwidth allow. Live-streaming from chasers can be a valuable warning and awareness tool. In some very specific circumstances, live streams have become a vital part of the Integrated Warning System. It helps, of course, if the camera is pointed at the storm and its structure–not zoomed in on only the base of a tornado, and not showing irrelevant crap such as the windshield wipers in a rain core.

The fact that there are video streams from those chasers who have the spending money, functional equipment, cell coverage, available bandwidth and technical acumen to set them up, is a positive trend. I have used them at my unnamed workplace to get a good read on storm-scale morphology and structure, which offers valuable environmental clues, and in turn, definitely benefits me as a forecaster. Considering how most of the best tornadic storms in “Chase Alley” tend to happen when I’m on evening shift, this is the only way I get to see them in near real-time anyway! 🙂 I also have used live feeds, both at home and work, to report a few tornadoes via phone or chat to offices whose extremely busy staff wasn’t yet aware of them. In that and other indirect ways, perhaps they have helped to prevent casualties. We just can’t prove yes or no.

That said, live-streaming has its setbacks and troubles, and needs improvement before it can reap full benefit to the storm-warning process. I know of at least one office that hasn’t installed Silverlight due to “security;” so those videos that require that particular brand of software simply won’t be visible. Some offices also start to lose bandwidth when viewing video streams through a shared, regional Internet choke-point; so the practice has been discouraged in a few places. Yes, they should do those upgrades, but until then…what?

Even discounting the problems on the operational forecast side, video streaming can be done MUCH more efficiently and usefully than at present from the provider’s end. Here’s how:


* All video streaming output should be consolidated into ONE platform (not three!), for simplicity’s sake, with
* No special software, subscriptions, passwords or plug-ins needed, and as such,
* Viewable as-is, live, from any of the major browsers (MSIE, Firefox, Chrome, etc.).

Simplicity and ease of use are critically important in watch and warning decision situations, where seconds count. Anyone who has sat on the warning desk or issued severe storm watches knows this. The forecaster shouldn’t be expected to juggle multiple windows or browser tabs, nor compound his/her frustration in an already intense situation by hassling with errors such as, “This video requires Special Plugin X. Please install Special Plugin X in order to view this video,” or, “Please enter login and password below.”

I strongly encourage the producers and hosts of live stream services to join together to solve these problems on their own, in time for the 2011 chase season, and in a way that surely would be far more timely, efficient and user-friendly than any molasses-slow, over-regulated approach that could be attempted by the government.

String Clouds, the Milky Way, Big D and a Crocodile

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Sometimes I complain too much on this BLOG, so I’ll post about some blessings.

From the end of November through part of the first week of December, I again had the honor of traveling to South Florida for a few days on business, and the gratification of staying there an extra day for pleasure. On the way down, my flight threaded a gap between supercells in a convective band, along the Arkansas/Louisiana border (preliminary reports map). That track offered some wild, string-like cloud formations–somewhat reminiscent of pileus, but many clearly not associated with convective processes immediately beneath as with pileus caps.

It wasn’t easy shooting those either, given my seating over the wing, the odd back-angle with respect to the sun, and some rough turbulence. It was rock-and-roll times two: I had headphones into a laptop, listening to a suitably selected soundtrack of the sky while being jostled hither and yon by that very atmosphere. For a meteorologist, a window seat is a must, and some musical accompaniment is a bonus!

The annual multi-day hurricane meeting, at which I usually give a tornado-related presentation and/or agenda items, had outgrown its previous venue at the National Hurricane Center itself, so we ended up in a meeting room on the main part of the beautiful campus of Florida International University. Tornadoes are part of many tropical cyclones, and a primary research and forecasting interest of mine. Having formerly worked at NHC, the connection is natural and strong for me. It’s also a fine way to keep up with happenings in tropical meteorology and with my scientific colleagues in the hurricane community, and for them to stay plugged into the severe storms world. As always, I enjoyed seeing lots of old friends and co-workers down there, and meeting some folks newer to the field.

It’s amazing how much that campus has grown, and how striking it has become aesthetically, since I left Miami as a full-time resident 17 years ago. Strolling the walkways of FIU at lunchtime was a worthwhile and new experience, as was the Jewish reggae concert downstairs from our meeting room one evening, in the student union. Only in Miami…

One night and the extra day (on my own time and dime!) were devoted to the Everglades–South Florida’s marshy counterpart to the Great Plains–and of course good seafood and storm chatter with old friend “Hailstone” Jim Leonard down in the Keys. Here was the scene on one starry night on a remote gravel road, far out in the western Everglades…

Yes, that’s a meteor streak in upper middle, above the road. I photographed several of those in front of and near the Milky Way, while occasional frog splashes and the distant call of a barred owl punctuated the night. No other vehicles came near during my entire 1-1/2 hours out there. It’s amazing how well the eye gets adjusted to starlight in a dark area; with the car parked and lights off, I could wander up and down the road on foot with good sight of everything around. One couldn’t try this in the summer without being attacked by thousands of mosquitoes in a matter of minutes!

My day off meant more Everglades action. There’s nothing like grabbing a mango-coconut shake at Robert is Here and heading into Everglades National Park for a splendid day of driving, hiking and photography.

The great blue heron seems to be bowing demurely, but instead was grooming. A different, rather regal and statuesque pose by the same bird is this week’s offering on the Image of the Week photo-BLOG.

This ibis was taking a vigorous bath, with no shortage of bath water for hundreds of square miles all around. After many years of heading into the glades for fishing (as a resident) and/or photography (mainly since moving away…I didn’t appreciate wildlife and landscape photography as much then), it was a magnificent experience to get my first good, clean view (and photos) of an American crocodile, at a muddy and brackish pond near Flamingo.

I inadvertently spooked this toothy critter into the water from a safe distance (although it clearly didn’t perceive our separation as such), while trying to inch closer to some wading birds. Of course, the birds evacuated the area with due haste.

That left the croc and me. It turned around, approached slowly, stopped, surfaced and alternated between facing me and floating there at a diagonal, as if posing. Being two roughly similarly sized beasts, it being longer, I being taller, we had a very obvious, amicable, unspoken truce: you stay out there ’til I’m done, I approach no closer while using this zoom lens, and we’ll get along just fine.

I’ve been fishing near and/or photographing alligators in those parts for years, and understand how (not) to approach them. This crocodile’s more hesitant behavior confirmed what I had read about the Everglades crocs being relatively shy and avoiding of people compared to their gator cousins. Still, it’s not a good idea to screw around with any crocodilian and get too close. While nobody is known to have been injured or killed by a crocodile in Florida, the very same species in southern Mexico and central America has attacked people fairly often.

After a few decent shots of the croc, I backed out and watched him slowly cruise back up to the bank to finish sunning. Of course, if the croc had wanted to reclaim the bank sooner, I would have been glad to permit that, for my own well-being. 🙂

I’ve added these and other select photos from my 2010 sojourn through the land of the Seminole Wind in our Everglades photo gallery online. Check it out, including past images that you may not have seen.

A sunset flight past the spectacular skyline of Dallas, my hometown, capped off a fine trip; but I was glad to get back home to my kids and my beautiful bride.

My old ‘hood is in the trees in the upper right part of the photo, between downtown and the lake (White Rock Lake). Who says you never can go home again?

June-November Satellite Loop

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Geek up! NOAA has uploaded a great video to YouTube that shows an unenhanced, composite-IR composite satellite loop of the June-November season–not just the tropical Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf as advertised, but also the eastern 2/3 of the conterminous U.S.

Click right here on this text to watch it in a separate, pop-up window (maximize to full-screen mode and step back a little for best results).

Of course, the 2010 Atlantic tropical season was tied for the third most active on record, despite the fact that the U.S. mainland was spared hurricane impact. Coastal residents, emergency managers, and especially insurance companies, can thank the flow patterns associated with a combination of persistent, early-mid season upper troughing near the east coast, and strong later-season ridging over the Gulf and northern Caribbean, for helping to keep America’s beachfront structures and residents relatively safe. We won’t be so lucky every year! In some years, such as 1992, there’s only one storm of note, and that’s all it takes.

Some of the easternmost action in the Eastern Pacific also can be seen; though that basins’ tropical cyclone season was the most lame on record (7 named storms) in the satellite era.

Outside of the meteorologically prurient eye candy briefly offered by the spinups of the mature hurricanes themselves, this loop is jam-packed with weather action. For one, it covers the entire Great Plains! Those of us who spent a large chunk of June wandering the Plains in search of supercells will find out daily convective eruptions here, in the fascinating context not only of what happened on a larger scale, but in the days before and after. What happened with your favorite chase-storms and the systems that spawned them in the hours and days afterward? Follow the processes originating from any given supercell, and you may find new storms the next day somewhere in the eastern part of the nation, or even cloud tags over the Atlantic days later.

One of the other fascinating things about videos like this is that one can track the steady procession of tropical waves (the trough part, at least) from E-W across the low latitudes, even after they spawn tropical cyclones that may or may not remain in phase with the originating wave. When I worked at the National Hurricane Center an increasingly long time ago, we did this primitively, by pasting daily, time-matching strips of satellite printouts into a board, in effect yielding a Hovmöller diagram.