Keep your eyes on the storm

By Vicky Holland, contributor
The Sunday Sun

May 11, 2008 08:36 pm

— Oklahomans look to meteorologists at the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office to:
• Track the path of storms.
• Issue severe weather warnings.
• Educate residents on what to look for.
• Keep weather records.
But they can’t do it alone. They need your help.
“Radar alone can’t do it all,” said Rick Smith, warning coordination meteorologist.
Storm spotters are essential to supplement the National Weather Service report. Although meteorologists can keep track of what’s happening on the south side of Norman by looking out the window, it’s trickier knowing what’s going on in Midwest City, Harrah, Yukon or Bethany.
That’s why Smith travels the area conducting storm spotter training. He was in Midwest City this week speaking to a group of Emergency Management workers, firefighters and others about what to look for when storms approach.
“The whole point is to get action, to get people to protect themselves,” Smith said. As a storm spotter, you may be the only person who sees the weather event.
“One piece of information can be key to making a critical weather decision.”
When news reports indicate a storm spotter has reported a tornado two miles from your home, it’s more effective than the standard “radar has indicated a tornado two miles from your home.”
Weather events Oklahomans will see include: flooding, the No. 1 killer; lightning, a deadly threat with every storm; straight line winds; large hail; and tornadoes, the most violent storm on earth.
“The biggest danger is not the tornado, but what’s in the tornado. All of that material — wood, bricks, etc. —kills and injures people,” Smith said.
He said Oklahoma’s most common weather occurrence is dubbed SLC, or scary looking clouds. These can lead to false reports. A spotter may be seeing: a wall cloud, an isolated lowering of the cloud base; a funnel cloud which is not on the ground; or a tornado, a rotating column of air connected to clouds and touching the ground.
Now is the time spotters are needed, as Thursday’s storms across Oklahoma, Cleveland, Payne and other counties indicated. The last week of April and the first two weeks of May are peak season for tornadoes in Oklahoma, a state in the center of tornado alley. However, tornadoes can happen any month and are most likely from 3 to 10 p.m.
So far in 2008, 15 or so tornadoes have been reported in Oklahoma. The average is 53 per year. Since 1950, the lowest number of tornadoes reported in a year was 17 in 1988. The most was 145 in 1999, with half of those occurring on May 3, 1999.

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