Amazing Weather Science, Part II

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If you were reading this blog just after noon Friday, you saw this posting (at left, below) pertaining to severe thunderstorms with large hail five hours later:
click to enlarge
This is known to meteorologists as "mesoscale modeling" and we have made more progress, faster, than I would have imagined a decade ago. A near perfect forecast of thunderstorms five hours ahead!

You'll recall that a major tornado outbreak occurred in Siouxland the same day (red symbols), with storms all the way to F-4 intensity, quite rare in autumn.

Here is the forecast made at noon Friday and on this blog at 12:12pm. It was for 5 to 6pm.
While the more southern storm is a little too far east, again, this is a remarkable forecast.

Not only are we making incredible progress with the forecast, we are doing so with warning communication technology. AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions' SkyGuard Mobile is just amazing. It uses GPS to get the location and then relates the location to the threat. I have some competitors' apps and SkyGuard beat them all! You can place it next to your bed and it will wake you up at night for a major threat for your specific location (note: not county).
This is my smartphone flashing the warning to me as the storms intensified to my southwest.

High winds in fact occurred.

It is simply amazing the progress weather science is achieving. 

Comments

  1. PeteOctober 7, 2013 at 9:18 AM

    Hello Mike,

    Do you think these programs will be available for sale for personal use (as opposed to commercial use)?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike SmithOctober 7, 2013 at 9:38 AM

    No question. There is one company selling mesoscale model forecasts for $5 a pop. There are others selling (I think for $10) personal GPS storm warning apps. Ours is superior (can't help but brag about it) but it is only available for commercial use at the moment.

    The hour-by-hour forecasts at Accuweather.com use some of this sub-hourly forecast technology.

    There is one caution: We have to get some weather satellite issues resolved: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-space-race-is-on-for-climate-weather-privatization-16243%0A

    Assuming we do not have major weather satellite failures, in a year or two we will probably see this technology available and affordable for the general public.

    ReplyDelete

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