I ran across an post the other day in the Washington Post called ‘Our Tornado Voyeurism Problem‘ and it truly was eye-opening.
With all the tornadoes we’ve had lately across the country, it’s becoming more and more of a trend to see people wanting to catch these swirling monsters on video camera or cell phone. We had an example of that right in our own backyard during the Westmoreland County tornado a couple of months ago. The video, which even made it to Jimmy Kimmel Live, shows a kid videotaping the oncoming tornado as he talks to his mom on his phone. Here’s the video:
This is reckless and could be deadly. In the video you can actually see the funnel coming down. At that point, shouldn’t you be heading to the basement or a safe place?
Andy Freedman from the Washington Post writes about what he calls the ‘YouTube Effect.’ He continues by talking about a documentary on the National Geographic Channel about the recent rash of tornadoes.
The documentary featured many of the viral videos, strung together with narration by actor Campbell Scott. Although this surely was not the producers’ intent, one thing became glaringly obvious by watching video after video of people recklessly ignoring tornado warnings and rushing to view tornadoes up close, while screaming phrases like “This is awesome!” and “I’ll never see anything like this again!” – this country has a growing tornado voyeurism problem, and it’s one which may lead many to learn the wrong lessons from the recent deadly scourge of twisters.
Call it the “YouTube Effect.” While they are sure to frighten some into taking more tornado precautions next time, these videos will very likely breed more amateur chasers who will run to the car when they hear tornado sirens, rather than heading for the basement.
Andy also found a great blog post by Chuck Doswell, who works for the NSSL (National Severe Storms Laboratory). Chuck talks about the role that social media has played in storm chasing and how people somehow think they’re immune. (Read More)
Shed blown down in Union Township (via Bill Wadell)
It’s time for a little math…
80 minutes of live coverage
+3 tornado warnings
+2 confirmed tornadoes
+1 waterspout
_________________________
= 1 crazy night at work!
That was the setup for May 27, 2011. I got in to work at around 2 PM that day and started working on my forecast. The day looked like it had the potential to bring some severe weather and we were already under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch.
Around 3:30 or so, we popped our first Severe Thunderstorm Warning for a portion of Bedford and Somerset Counties. With that, I broke in during some promo time we had allotted for the station. I broke in three times. Once was a minute and the other two were 30 seconds each.
It’s incredible just how many tornadoes we have had across the United States in the past month. I was doing some digging for final numbers, but they are not out yet. I did find some preliminary numbers through April 29th, so that’s pretty close.
Here’s what the Storm Prediction Center says on their storm [...]
Thundersnow is real… what about a snownado? (PS. This picture is just for fun.)
It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while there’s a phenomenon where you have snow but you hear thunder and see lightning. This is called thundersnow. The question is… since there’s thundersnow, can there be a snownado?
Check out this video of a fire tornado. Then, head over to the website to read more about it. This is crazy! Check out the video after the jump. (Read More)
It’s hard to beleive that we’ve posted 1,000 stories on the weather blog. We started with a page on the main WJACTV.com website. That didn’t have enough adaptability, so we moved to Blogger and later to WordPress. We’ve been on WordPress for a while now.
This is officially our 1,000th post according to the stats system that we use. I have a feeling that we hit 1,000 a while ago, but this is a great opportunity to look back and see some of the cooler topics we’ve talked about over the last 3 years.
Below the jump is a list of 13 categories with some of the cooler topics. You can click on the category to go to a list of the posts about that topic. Click in for the list. (Read More)
The National Weather Service has ruled that the damage in Mingoville, Centre County was caused by a powerful downburst. WJAC-TV reporter Bill Wadell went along with NWS officials as they surveyed the damage from Sunday morning’s storms. While the damage was significant, it wasn’t caused by a tornado, as some had claimed.
Take a look at the video by clicking the link below.
You see pictures of tornadoes all the time. It’s not too often that you see a tornado forming, however. That’s what you’ll see if you click into the link below or the picture. The video comes from Sedalia, Missouri as the chopper stays with the rotation from start to finish. This video is really impressive and I urge you to take a look.
It is almost severe weather season here in the Alleghenies and with that… the risk of tornadoes.
When doing school visits, I always get asked where the best place to be during a tornado would be. I give them the usual answer of ‘the basement.’ Another good answer would be [...]
It’s hard to believe that we’re already talking tornadoes… but we are. Yesterday, there was severe weather in Oklahoma that caused a tornado that took out several houses.
Scary Looking Clouds, or SLCs for short, are clouds that look scary but have a bark that’s worse than the bite. The National Weather Service in Milwaukee started something called the ‘Scary Looking Cloud Club’ and they’re encouraging people to send in their pictures of scary clouds.
I’ll be the first to admit that I like wind farms. They help provide energy in a time when we need it and I actually think they look cool. I get mad when people complain about them, but that’s just me. (This does not necessarily represent the views of WJAC-TV.)
I promised some pictures and a detailed re-enactment of what went down yesterday when I went with Dave Ondrejik of the National Weather Service. Here it is…
Tim Tender went along with the NWS to northern Pennsylvania to survey damage from Sunday’s thunderstorms. Here’s a few photos from Jay Township, Elk County, where a tornado moved through:
Here’s a report from the NWS in State College:
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STATE [...]
Saturday, July 11th was a busy day for PARTS of the viewing area. Other parts didn’t see much of anything. The heaviest hit areas included the Northern Alleghenies and counties like Elk and Forest. They were actually under a Tornado Warning for a while Saturday evening.
We have a risk of severe storms and even tornadoes tonight across parts of the area. Take a look:
Western parts of Indiana, Westmoreland and Fayette counties are most at risk. The cooler air (50s and low 60s) across most of west-central PA should keep a lid on the activity, but [...]
First off… Did you hear about the tornadoes in Denver? Last I heard, the NWS out there confirmed 5 tornadoes from Sunday. We have video of one of those tornadoes forming. Click the link below to go to the WJAC-TV video page to watch it.
Seems the Vortex team have perhaps left their mission a bit late in the season, although a possible opportunity may present soon. That said I feel ambivalent about it as new twisters can cause folks damage even though the team wants them! I hope they get at least one opportunity however.
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