9 June, 2011: Tornado track

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The brown streak across this image is the track of the recent Massachusetts tornado.

I saw this at new scientist.
The picture is credited thus: (Image: NASA Earth Observatory/Jesse Allen/USGS, using Landsat 5 data provided by Julia Barsi of the Landsat Project Science Office).

I'm sure this wasn't the only brown streak this tornado caused, but it is probably the biggest.

It is one of more than 875 tornadoes to have hit the US since the beginning of the year. They have claimed the lives of more than 363 people

I found these figures more hardhitting than the brown streak across the satellite image.

I find it interesting that people still take the attitude that the odds are so low that they don't do anything - at all - to provide some protection for themselves in their homes.

If I lived in tornado land I'd have a concrete bunker basement with a week's worth of supplies and some nice pipe-births. If storms where present we'd all just bunk out in the shelter.

Same thing if I lived in a flood-plane. I'd build my house on a scissors jack. Flood coming? I'd jack that baby up a story or two and split the scene.

Ahhh, would be nice. I live in a tornado zone but have nowhere to go. If I were really threatened I'd probably run across the road to the sort of ditch...but other than that I just wait it out.

Anyone who wants to volunteer to finance, locate, and build a concrete bunker...PM me!

Love,

Dorothy

Interesting how it goes pretty much in a straight line. Anyone know why?

Same amount of land on each side.

(Sorry, was messing with the old goose joke: You know how when geese fly in a V one side is longer than the other? Know why? More geese.)

I don't know why. I'm sure it looks straighter because the pic is from so high up...but I think tornadoes just follow a pattern like any weather system.

Fascinating pic Zen....
I tried looking for a few others. Curious about the path they take ...
Found a couple links



Here is
another ... The link has a couple more images as well.
Not sure if I got them all posted properly but ...





Lastly this link has a zoom feature. They all seem to go in a very straight line...

Seems like they'd be able to calculate the path and get everyone out of the way. More than just the general warning signal that is sent out.

I wonder what it would look like if they did an overlay of all the tornadoes that have gone through a specific tornado alley.

Everything you ever wanted to know about tornadoes, but were afraid to ask:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#The%20Basics

What direction do tornadoes come from? Does the region of the US play a role in path direction? Tornadoes can appear from any direction. Most move from southwest to northeast, or west to east. Some tornadoes have changed direction amid path, or even backtracked. [A tornado can double back suddenly, for example, when its bottom is hit by outflow winds from a thunderstorm's core.] Some areas of the US tend to have more paths from a specific direction, such as northwest in Minnesota or southeast in coastal south Texas. This is because of an increased frequency of certain tornado-producing weather patterns (say, hurricanes in south Texas, or northwest-flow weather systems in the upper Midwest).

Here's a NY Times article about why they're so much harder to predict ahead of time than other severe weather phenoms:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/us/29tornadoes.html

That's funny, the damage doesn't look as bad from out here.

:lol2:

You sly dog, you.

Oh yes, and just remember, that these tornados, floods, fires (in Texas and Arizona/New Mexico) plus the 90+ temperatures on the east coast have absoulutely, positively beyond a shadow of a doubt has nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. . . . Really.

Thanks blue - I was wondering that. I feel much better now.

Let me help just a leetle:

See, way way up in the sky, and looking towards the planet (we'll call it 'Earth'), a tornado might seem like a fairly straight line. That is to say, even though they bob and weave, from a billion miles away you're just gonna see some squiggles.

A 'nado doesn't start in, say, Cincinnati, veer down to south KY, then veer back up to Cleveland...no storm does THAT, not even a 'less sarcastic obviously exaggerated' version of THAT.

It's not rocket science, why the lines seem 'straight.' It's barely even meteorological science.

blueboy56;739229 wrote:

Oh yes, and just remember, that these tornados, floods, fires (in Texas and Arizona/New Mexico) plus the 90+ temperatures on the east coast have absoulutely, positively beyond a shadow of a doubt has nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. . . . Really.

They have a word for this ... weather.

Climate change is mapped out over hundreds (that is more than 100) and thousands of years. A 20-year bump is nothing. That is weather.

(I am in the group that says, show me a peer reviewed, independent, non-politicized, proof of climate change and I will talk to you. Right now climate change is just another word for politicians to raise taxes, give funding to lobbiests, and pass laws like the "lightbulb Law" that will dump a billion dollars into GE's coffers.)

Robert Heinlein wrote:

Climate is what you expect.

Weather is what you get.

Don't worry Coign, I'm not talking to you. Your list of prerequisites clearly indicate your position and your interest and willingness to learn more facts. I do find it interesting that one of your conditions is that you're only interested in talking about non-politicized information and in the very next sentence you display a high degree of politicization on the very same subject. I wonder what you *do* with non-politicized information?

SPUCK;739121 wrote:

I find it interesting that people still take the attitude that the odds are so low that they don't do anything - at all - to provide some protection for themselves in their homes.

If I lived in tornado land I'd have a concrete bunker basement with a week's worth of supplies and some nice pipe-births. If storms where present we'd all just bunk out in the shelter.

Same thing if I lived in a flood-plane. I'd build my house on a scissors jack. Flood coming? I'd jack that baby up a story or two and split the scene.

HAHAHA...sure you would. LOL. I know I've always found it tons of fun to stay in practically the same room for a whole day, or even a week sometimes just because there are storms.

Pretend you're on a Mars mission..?

Naw, I'm just talking about sleeping at night.

morethanpretty;739321 wrote:

HAHAHA...sure you would. LOL. I know I've always found it tons of fun to stay in practically the same room for a whole day, or even a week sometimes just because . . .

For this introvert, that is called a vacation! :D

CaliforniaMama;739399 wrote:

For this introvert, that is called a vacation! :D

:notworthy

I hear ya!

BigV;739266 wrote:

Don't worry Coign, I'm not talking to you. Your list of prerequisites clearly indicate your position and your interest and willingness to learn more facts. I do find it interesting that one of your conditions is that you're only interested in talking about non-politicized information and in the very next sentence you display a high degree of politicization on the very same subject. I wonder what you *do* with non-politicized information?

That is the problem with discussions of climate change right now. It immediately dives into politics right now. Carbon Tax, laws that outlaw incandescent bulbs, subsidiaries for ethanol, and more. There is a reason for governments to fund these papers that slant results to show it is happening so they can push more control, more taxes, and more money into the pockets of the congress/lobbiests backing it.

The problem is the computer models cannot prove or disprove climate change is man-made. And it is not even that they need to prove if it is happening or not, it it proving that carbon dioxide, the stuff that makes plants grow, is the cause of it.

Until we know it is happening, and more importantly know what it is causing it, anything we do to slow/halt/reverse it is just an unnecessary tax/control against an economy that does not have the money to spend.

http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/29/co2-levels/

Also Google "Climategate" and "Steve McIntyre" to get a start on a lot of views that say, "we don't have any proof. We are just now learning more about Climate and how we affect it."

there is this thread ... on that subject.

Yeah, where's that dead horse icon?

zactly!

infinite monkey;739124 wrote:

Anyone who wants to volunteer to finance, locate, and build a concrete bunker...PM me!

Love,

Dorothy

Pass. Tell the Wizard we said 'Hi'.

If you only had a heart.

Heart hell, if I only had a brain...

Let me get this straight: Roughly 6.5 billion people on the planet, consuming about 6.5 billion pounds of food and about 9.75 billion gallons of water per day, along with producing about 6 billion pounds of poo each day, along with burning the gasoline, diesel, wood, and coal to move and produce the food and electricity. . . Nah, we humans don't effect the planet a bit, never did.

infinite monkey;739400 wrote:

:notworthy

I hear ya!

I'm an introvert, I would not call it a vacation. Especially since you are also not supposed have things plugged into the wall during such a storm...like oh, say a TV, or computer, or lamp to read your book by....

Coign;739445 wrote:

....Until we know it is happening, and more importantly know what it is causing it,....

That proof doesn't come from climatologists, that comes from historians... if there's any left. ;)

blueboy56 wrote:

Roughly 6.5 billion people on the planet... producing about 6 billion pounds of poo each day,

Wait, back up. Go get a 16-ounce jar of peanut butter or whatever out of your pantry, and weigh it in your hand. You think you produce almost a full pound of feces a day?

If you change blueboy's "poo" to "pee and poo," then well over a pound a day is a good estimate.
And with the very correct numbers (and their certain increase) he mentions, then we are totally fucked no matter the climate does or why.

Coign;739445 wrote:

That is the problem with discussions of climate change right now. It immediately dives into politics right now. Carbon Tax, laws that outlaw incandescent bulbs, subsidiaries for ethanol, and more. There is a reason for governments to fund these papers that slant results to show it is happening so they can push more control, more taxes, and more money into the pockets of the congress/lobbiests backing it.

The problem is the computer models cannot prove or disprove climate change is man-made. And it is not even that they need to prove if it is happening or not, it it proving that carbon dioxide, the stuff that makes plants grow, is the cause of it.

Until we know it is happening, and more importantly know what it is causing it, anything we do to slow/halt/reverse it is just an unnecessary tax/control against an economy that does not have the money to spend.

http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/29/co2-levels/

Also Google "Climategate" and "Steve McIntyre" to get a start on a lot of views that say, "we don't have any proof. We are just now learning more about Climate and how we affect it."

Shall we move the conversation over here?

BigV;739968 wrote:

Shall we move the conversation over here?

You mean ...

classicman;739450 wrote:

there is this thread ... on that subject.

;)

No, that's not what I meant. I did use your link to get to the end of the thread, where conversation may be continued, so, thanks.

look smartypants... I figured he would appreciate 3 years worth of background before posting - :right:
[SIZE="1"]<yeh right>[/SIZE]

Sorry to bring up the climate change in this thread. It just gets my blood pressure up that people threaten me with a carbon tax that each time I see it mentioned I cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

I posted my reply in the suggested thread.