Chasercon Begins Friday Evening

By -
The world's largest meeting of storm chasers, storm tourism, and meteorologists will convene in Wichita Friday evening at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. You can still register by going here. Weather aficionados are welcome and encouraged.

We will be selling copies of Warnings at Chasercon. If you already have a copy and would like to get it autographed, just bring it and look me up at the meeting. I will be chairing the law enforcement panel at 2:15 Saturday and the keynote speaker at the dinner Saturday evening.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“We Encourage All Citizens to Take Steps to Prepare Themselves for Any Type of Emergency or Disaster"

By -
Image
The title of this essay is from a press release that indirectly "blames the victim." The author is Sedgwick County Emergency Management regarding a fatal tornado that occurred just north of Wichita at 1:14 this morning. The tornado was rated EF-2 ("strong") intensity. I believe the wording is unfortunate as discussed below.  Photo: KAKE.com. Note that with a basement, as little as seconds to dash down the stairs might have been sufficient to avoid injury.  In what has increasingly and unfortunately become the norm in tornado situations, no NWS tornado warning was issued even though: Rotation was depicted on radar Radar shows lofted debris People from outside the NWS are observing tornadoes and bringing them to NWS's and the public's attention.  I want to be clear: the tornado formed practically on top of the home and there was probably no way to have warned in time to help the man killed. But there is absolutely no reason a tornado warning could not have bee...
Read more

"We Didn't Know This Flood Was Coming"

By -
Image
[Note, no more updates to this story as of 1pm Tuesday;  there is an updated story here .] ...so said the chief executive of Kerr County, Texas, Rob Kelly. He went on to say, "We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what's happened here, none whatsoever."  I'm sorry to report that he is probably correct. The flood was underforecast and the "emergency" warnings were later than they could have been. In fairness, as of the time of this update, 1:30pm Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey has determined this was the highest crest on the Guadalupe River at Hunt, Texas, since the river gauge was installed.  As of 1p Tuesday , 105  have been confirmed to have been killed and "dozens" are missing. Those numbers imply a total death toll near 130. This past autumn, Hurricane Helene killed 249. In 2011, a single tornado killed 161 in Joplin. We must stop these mega-disasters! This is another tragic example of why America desperately n...
Read more