El Reno, May 31, 2013
Picking up where the last blog ended, I mentioned that the 1990s began and I was getting into my teen years.
The first time I can recall my fear changing greatly was the April 26, 1991 Andover Outbreak. it was a Friday evening and a friend of mine was over. I had heard on the news earlier that day a tornado outbreak was imminent but west of us. That evening, along with my dad, we watched coverage about it on the Weather Channel - one of the first times I can recall that happening. Before that, long term wall to wall coverage was not heard of very oftten.
From here, i was obsessed. A few years after this event, the Weather Channel released a VHS tape about tornadoes. This video contained information about a small company called The Tornado Project and they had some additional videos available as well as a really really large book. I had to have these tapes and book and very shortly, they were in my possession and watched infinitely as well as posters, and more and more and more.
Also around this time, the National Weather Service built their new Doppler Radar in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, a small town not far from me and I was able to tour their facilities, sometime around 1993. Around this time, I started going to Spotter Talks for the National Weather Service. In 1996, I even got a certificate showing I was officially certified.
In addition, I also had my first real close encounter with severe weather. On May 26, 1996, I was at home with some friends, and we were watching Clueless (don't judge). I knew storms were going on but there was no real word on there being tornadoes. Around 10:00pm, we started hearing weird noises outside. I went downstairs and opened the front door and heard some oddball whistling going on. Turns out the winds were blowing just so that the nearby chain-link fences where whistling. I can only really recall that happening one other time. Anyway, I just kind of chucked at it and just as I was about to close the front door, the sirens started going off. I yelled "get down!" and my family and friends raced to my parents' basement. While there was no tornado, a microburst had occurred on the south side of the city.
Also around this time, word was getting around that Hollywood got word of this new thing called "Storm Chasing" and a moving was coming. I went to see the movie Heat with a friend (interestingly, the same who was with me during the Andover outbreak noted above) after my mother and father went to see it and said "Yeah, you're going to want to see the previews." So we arrived early and this appeared:
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"
Needless to say, May 10th, 1996 couldn't get here fast enough (yes, I remember the release date).
It would not be until May of 2003, that I would have my second close encounter with mother nature.
The week of May 3rd through May 10th was an extremely busy one. The big day for us was May 4th. At this point in my "weather career", I was very familiar when things like this were going to happen so I knew that day was going to be busy, but I was not prepared for what happened. I can recall local meteorologists being called in and they were very much in a panic on top of the coverage on The Weather Channel. Quite frankly, what really surprised me the most was that nothing happened where I was living at the time. Not even any rain. Wasn't long before I had another incident like this on March 12th, 2006. But once again, nothing occurred where I was.
Next close encounter was May 1st, 2008. Evening hours featured several supercell storms near us and then around 1:30am, a solid line of storms with embedded tornadoes came through. My wife stayed up to watch it come through (at the time, she worked nights) but I missed it as I was too tired at that point. Again, we missed any significant issues, although I still wanted our honeymoon to be a storm chase with professional chasers at the time.
I continued to study weather when I could, read books, study videos and began to study weather patterns on the internet more, honing my craft. All white enduring the shittiest winter ever in our area at the time, which included severe thunderstorms on the 23rd of December, an ice storm on the 24th and 10-15 inches of snow on Christmas Day - followed by about 6 inches of snow about every other 4-6 days through the end of February. But I'd argue now that the Winter of 2020-2021 sucked harder due to the super-freeze in February 2021.
Winter Isn't Coming. Ever.
Up to this point, the benchmark for the largest tornado outbreak was April 3rd, 1974. A few days prior to April 26th, 2011, the weather community online was up in arms. A large tornado outbreak was ongoing and signs were pointing to something even more extreme. And, sure enough, it happened. It was truly heartbreaking to see the aftermath of this. It didn't help that that was quickly followed by the Joplin tornado, which was way too close to home.
Yikes.
From here, the Weather Community seemed to be much more a cohesive group, and it was a lot easier to learn more quickly and hone your skills (as well as watch more weather drama as well).
And in 2013, the online community had their biggest challenge yet. Up to this point, my obsession was still deep, and my ultimate goal was to storm chase at some point. But that all would change with two events:
I won't go deep into what happened here (see links for more info) but this made me highly reconsider what it was I was doing with my background meteorology career. Because of the tragedies that came from these, I decided that chasing was not my ultimate goal. Education people and helping warn people was my end goal.
I had not experienced much more events around me. By now, I was a dad and wanted to help educate my own kids not to fear weather.
Future Spotter.
My only real personal success, if you want to call it that, was in 2014. During a nearby storm outbreak, I spotted on radar a very suspicious echo.
I circled the area I thought was in trouble for seeing a tornado and posted it on my Facebook page.
And sure enough, a few minutes later, a tornado touched down in Orrick, Missouri.
I am not calling myself a genius. Just made a lucky observation.
Beyond this, I had not personally experienced much in terms of local weather events other than the normal stuff one might experience every spring (high winds and small hail) but more and more, people who knew me started relying on me for weather info. That was very flattering (and still is to this day).
So a few years following the 2013 events. my wife and I moved to our hometown with our boys. Because it was a small town, I decided to contact the Emergency Management team to see if I can offer any help. I had recently received my ham radio designation and with already 20+ years of spotting/weather/radar training, I felt I could make an impact for our town.
And the timing could not have been any better as my biggest showdown with mother nature was about to arrive.
Commentaires