Yesterday was a little disappointing. For the last week or so, weather forecasters had predicted a major severe weather day for Wednesday. They were expecting large hail, high winds, torrential rains and numerous tornadoes. Tuesday evening, myself and many of the members of my REACT team had a conference call (what we call a weather bridge). We dial a certain number and type in an access code. Once we get patched through, we are all able to participate in the conference call, no matter where we are. We normally discuss the upcoming severe weather and make our plans for storm spotting. We listen to our two weather specialists to get an idea of how bad the severe weather will be and what time to expect it. As of Tuesday evening, we were still going to be receiving lots of severe weather on Wednesday.
That evening, I made sure I had plenty of gas in my truck, my battery was fully charged on my REACT radio, I had my portable police scanner and my hand-held weather radio with me. I had an extra pair of clothes in case mine got wet, my hard hat in case I got caught in hail, my flashlight in case I was still out after dark and my work radio so I could keep our field personnel updated on severe weather. I was more ready this time that I had ever been before. Plus, I was suppose to have one of the newer REACT members ride with me.
Well, we had everything but severe weather yesterday. There were thunderstorms that had developed overnight in western Oklahoma, causing central and western Oklahoma to be cloudy. The forecasters had expected for the rain to end in the morning and had expected the sun to come out and heat things up. With all the instability in the atmosphere and daytime heating, storms were very likely to fire up along the dry line and become severe…..but, the rain never stopped. Since it continued to rain most of the day, there was no sunshine, so there was no daytime heating. Because of that, we experienced thunderstorms with very heavy rain, bright lightning, strong winds (up to 50 mph) and very small hail. We had expected large hail, strong winds (over 70 mph) and tornadoes. Without the daytime heating, the ingredients for a massive severe weather outbreak just weren’t there. It stayed cloudy all day, keeping the temperatures low.
I was excited early in the morning, but even I know that daytime heating is required to fire up severe storms. As I watched the radar, I noticed storms continued to form, not allowing any sunshine. The more I watched it, the more I knew our severe weather threat had diminished. I checked the severe storms outlook on The Weather Channel website and the NWS website and both downgraded the chances of severe weather from a moderate risk to a slight risk. That means heavy thunderstorms only with lightning, strong winds and small hail….no tornadoes were expected. I checked with both of our weather specialists and they both agreed that the severe weather chances had diminished since there was no daytime heating.
As the afternoon went on, we continued to receive thunderstorms with heavy rain, but that was it. By 5:45 pm, the rain was gone and the sun come out. I really wanted to go storm spotting because I was more than prepared, but I also know that storms cause property damage and take lives, so I am glad for the sake of our city, that we did not get any storms. I got off work, went home, lied down for a while, had dinner and then went to our evening youth service.
Today is a beautiful day. There is still a chance for severe weather, but the threat is in eastern Oklahoma today. There may be a few out storm chasing this afternoon, but in my opinion, it would be a waste of time because the severe weather outlook shows a slight risk for severe weather, which means a low probability of tornadoes.
www.okcentralreact.org
http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/OCFD_Citizens_Fire_Academy_Alumni_Association
No comments:
Post a Comment