Oy! This one is really bad.  Oklahoma Senate Democrat Mark Mann has introduced a bill into the Senate calling for licenses for storm chasers but only those associated with the University of Oklahoma (I sense they are, at least in part, behind this) and TV (not radio or other news media) can be licensed! Worse, the bill allows untrained storm chasers to use the same automotive warning lights used by police and fire! This is just begging for abuse with auto accidents being the consequences.  When we had the National Storm Chasing Convention in Wichita a few years ago, I invited a member of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to sit with Kansas law enforcement and emergency management to sit with a panel of storm chasers. The OK Highway Patrol officer, Pat Mays, was adamant that they love storm chasers (as long as we drive according to the law) and begged us to call-in real-time reports.  Keeping in mind that a constitution limits governments' powers  (as opposed to the peoples...

This past Friday, we had a great example of how a meteorologist can tell the difference between side-lobes (a false echo that mimics a tornado's circulation on radar) and one indicating a tornado is forming or in progress. I'm going to walk you through it so young meteorologists, in a similar case, won't make the mistake of mistaking side lobes for a tornado.  This case was in north central Texas on February 2nd. I'm using the Abilene/Sweetwater WSR-88D and the software is RadarScope. When I draw on one panel of the screen, it shows up on the other in the same place, so the measurements are about as exact as any in meteorology.  The Thunderstorm Cluster, 4:24pm Above is a cluster of thunderstorms with the two storms with arrows starting to transition to supercells. We already have the northern storm (just south of Aspermont)  moving north northeast. In a situation like this, the storm will likely be "a hailer" -- meaning it is likely to produce hail, possibly ...