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Some new web technology, a new attitude and brand new features, that’s what Ceaseless Wind is all about! The blog is brand new and will be the focus of the page until other exciting features can be added.  Precipitation Departure June 2009 RainfallJune 2009 was a wet month for much of the Ozarks. All areas roughly north of highway 60 received above-normal rainfall with a bullseye near Lake of the Ozarks, an area that racked up over 2 inches more than normal. Extreme southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas was a tad dry during June. Severe StormsTornadoes were reported in the Ozarks on 9th, 10th and 16th. Thunderstorms broke out rapidly late in the afternoon on the 10th. The initial storms produced a brief EF0 tornado in Vernon, County. Storms the night of the 15th and into the 16th produced many wind damage reports in Vernon, St. Clair, Benton (MO) and Hickory counties. A second wave of storm before sunrise produced an EF1 tornado 2 miles NW of Stockton, MO at 5:20 am on the 16th.
Heat WaveWe experienced an early season heat wave. A run of seven straight days of 90 plus high temperatures started on the 29th. The hottest of these days was 96 degrees on the 23rd, missing the record for this day by only two degrees. Heat advisories were issued for most of these days with excessive heat warnings for areas stretching from the Lake of the Ozarks region westward to west-central Missouri. Climate Links: Example of a Color-Enhanced IR Sateliite Image Recently, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) successfully launched a new satellite, GOES-14, into orbit. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites are very important to forecasters. Because they are geostationary (orbiting over the equator at the same speed at which the earth turns), they allow a stable platform for detailed and frequent analysis of cloud cover and other atmospheric phenomenon which emit radiation. Weather satellites do more than just tell you whether it’s cloudy or not. They are able to reveal cloud type, show areas of fog, tag supercooled water droplets in clouds, estimate the height (intensity) of thunderstorms and measure the temperature/humidity in cloud-free areas to name just a few things. The three large types of images produced by weather satellites are visible (reflected light off off clouds), Infrared or IR (emitted radiation from clouds) and water vapor (emitted radition tuned to estimate humidty through a deep layer of the atmosphere). In severe weather, thunderstorm intensity and development can be traced. But it’s hurricane forecasters who benefit the most from weather satellites through the tracking of tropical storms and hurricanes even if they are thousands of miles from shore. You can read the NOAA press release here. June 30th, 2009 | Tags: satellite, weather | Category: In the News | Leave a comment
 Email This Post Ted with the tornado in Wyoming For the first time ever, students were able to sign up for a storm chase class offered through the Geography, Geology and Planning Department at Missouri State University. The result: a resounding success! Just over 20 students and faculty left in three vans on Sunday, May 31st. They returned to Springfield on Sunday, June 7th having visited eight states and having driven over 3200 miles! Students were able to view excellent storm structure on all but two of the days. Highlights included the first tornado-warned storm on day two, awesome structure and broad rotation on day three, and a storm which was spinning anticyclonically with a wall cloud on day five. But the grand prize was on day seven when students finally got to see a tornado in action near LaGrange, WY! I was lucky enough to be co-instructor and storm finder on this adventure. It was an extreme thrill to be a part of this course and to see how pumped the students were about storm chasing and how excited everyone was to actually intercept a tornado! A blog with uploaded pictures and videos can be found here. Some of my videos appear on a separate page on this web site. A formal review of the trip with more pictures and meteorological data including radar images will be up sometime in July. Updates on this blog!
So in order to be as unobtrusuve as possible, I will be placing the dish in such a way and with a wooden fence around most of it so that it will be out of sight.
The first picture is looking WSW from where the dish will be placed while the second reverses the angle. You can see a 2×4 on the wall where the fence will go. The dish will be mounted low right around where the downspout extension is located. It needs about 192 degrees azimuth and 46 degrees elevation at my latitude and longitude.
NOAAPort is a satellite-delivered multi-channel weather data delivery system. Data included in this stream includes all surface and upper air observation, satellite and radar images, computer model data, plus much more. This data is FREE! But the set-up is NOT trival! It requires a large satellite dish (I will be finding out how large will really work in the next few weeks), a receiver or card for your PC, a fast PC and, with the path I have chosen, getting used to a Linux based operating system. There are a few ways to go about this and mine is certainly not the only workable way but it makes sense for me. Some of this equipment is free or really cheap. The dish can be gotton cheap or free if you get lucky and may even have the electronics (LNB) still attached. Be cautioned that this is a C-band dish and it must be BIG; no DirecTV mini’s here! In may case, the first hurdle will be trying to figure out if I can effectively conceal mine from my neighbors (Home Owners Association doesn’t really allow for these, I’m crossing my fingers). The demodulator box or card is going to run a couple of hundred bucks. The PC will be very busy injesting data and having at least 3-4 GB memory and a 300 GB hard drive would be helpful. A new one at around 500 bucks would do it. This project might cost under 500 depending on what you already have or can scronge up or over 1500 if you must buy everything new. I’ll be updating pictures of the dish I acquired soon and then tackle the dish placement issue. Severe weather and tornadoes were forecast to be widespread on Saturday, May 10th, 2008. The highest probabilities were over central Arkansas with southern and southwestern Missouri, northeast Oklahoma and southeast Kansas on the edge. What was unclear on this day was how much moisture and instability would ride northward behind and warm front and ahead of an advancing dryline and cold front. I storm chased this day and the target changed on the fly this day from central Arkansas to southern Kansas.
The initial cluster of cells formed in south-central Kansas and moved eastward. Eventually, the southern-most storm became dominate and tornadic. This storm turned to the right as nearly all supercell storms do and with the particular jet stream wind configuration of theday, that movement ended up being toward the ESE. This motion is a tad unusual for this time of year and geographic location. Picher, OK, was hit hard by the storm. As it continued ESE, a second tornado merged with it and the path widened dramatically to nearly one mile! This tornado crossed the Missouri border and struck Racine, MO. The Tulsa National Weather Service has an excellent description of the genesis and tracking of this and other supercell storms in Oklahoma. Once in Missouri, the tornado continued ESE producing damage all along its path, eventually striking Purdy, MO before weakening. The Springfield National Weather Service has complete storm summary and track maps as well as a meteorological description.
May 11th, 2008 | Tags: storm chasing, tornado | Category: Storm Summaries | Leave a comment
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O.K., 7.5′ dishes are a bit of an eyesore and actually would never be tolerated in my neighborhood. Some of my immediate neighbors could probably be talked into it but some within sight I don’t know.
Well, I got lucky. A fellow in town collects old satellite dishes and installs them for people on fixed income who can’t afford cable or a small dish but who can still get some channels such as Hallmark and others for free. He prefers 10′ dishes and doesn’t use the 7.5′ much therefore he generously gave me this mesh dish plus the feedhorn and LNB!
One thing that was never in doubt was the extreme speed of the jet stream over this area. Also, it was the first time this year that significant moisture (dew points higher than 65 degrees) were able to make it north into the threat area.