One of the reasons weather science is not respected for its amazing accomplishments is because many are invisible. We may have had a big success earlier this evening.  A thunderstorm developed near St. Louis' Lambert International Airport (KSTL for weather and aviation purposes) about 5:30 and drifted slowly south. It produced a series of downbursts -- which are highly dangerous to aircraft when landing and departing.  Here's the success story: Nothing happened! In 1973, a downburst caused the crash of an Ozark Airlines flight as it was on final approach to Lambert . There were 38 people killed. There was no system for warning pilots of these dangers.  Two weeks ago, we commemorated the 40th anniversary of the awful crash of Delta Flight 191 at Dallas-Ft. Worth on August 2, 1985 . The crash killed 137 with 20+ more injuries. Some of those injuries were horrific. The NTSB determined that the crew flew into the thunderstorm, knowing it was a thunderstorm (both FAA and Delt...

We had quite the storm in the Wichita area this evening. Below was the view from my easy chair. It has been my experience that a sky like this means trouble.  There is no filtering in this image.  The first line of thunderstorms passed just to our north, leaving a small boundary just to the south of Wichita. That triggered a thunderstorm about 35 miles to our southwest. As the storm tracked northeast across the city, it strengthened and grew.  The thunderstorm starting to intensify near Conway Springs.  The thunderstorm broke into two with the strongest part over the northeast part of the city. We had 1/2" hail (the pink on the radar) and wind gusts to about 65 mph at my home. The image above was the reflectivity data from 9:27pm.  The Wichita Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) showed the speed of winds flowing out of the storm to be increasing rapidly over the northeast part of the city. Below is the TDWR wind data at the time that Jabara's wind instruments,...

Weather radar controversy continues in the Queen City. While I have no objections to Charlotte getting additional radar coverage, the story is misleading. It says there is "no National Weather Service (NWS) radar" which is technically correct. It goes on to say, After  dangerous winds killed 37 people and injured 20 others in a Charlotte plane crash in 1994 , Charlotte Douglas International Airport was awarded a "terminal doppler radar." "TCLT," as it's known, is in northwest Charlotte and monitors the weather surrounding the airport. The radar is operated by the  Federal Aviation Administration  and not the National Weather Service.  While helpful for localized weather, a terminal radar is smaller and produces less imagery than its WSR-88D counterpart. The above is way  off. The radar can show storms more than 120 miles away. See below (Charlotte is at far left). The FAA's Charlotte TDWR (TCLT) routinely produces a new image every 60 seconds, whi...