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As I read the report, the first thing that hit me was using The Weather Channel as an accurate reference foundation to base all the other services against. I don't know about his geographic region but where I live, along the front range of the rockies, TWC is frequently wrong often reporting rain when the skies are clear and clear skies when it's snowing and 25 ft visibility.

Weather guessers here are rarely, if ever accurate as the mountains and Palmer Ridge play havoc with the weather. This caused me to ask, If his reference is flawed, then would the entire report be flawed?

The Weather Underground has numerous (4) weather stations in my zip code and they are usually right on top of each other regarding wind, temperature, barometrics, humidity and such. While the Weather Underground may not have the future down pat, their current readings are usually the most accurate I've found since these are weather stations where I live that are on line and reporting in near-real-time.

I would have liked to see the same report using other services as the reference to achieve some sort of correlation to his report. Maybe NWS, NOAA, Unisys or at least one more.

Another thing I do is bring up the NOAA maps in loop mode so I can see the direction of cloud travel, density and other things that may give an indication for short-term weather changes.

We get tons of lightning around here in the summer so this kind of accuracy is important around here. One source for lightning probability: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/tdl/radar/SW_probltg.gif. There are other lightning sources that can show current and recent past (1 hour) lightning strikes by type and frequency and on a map (see Strike Star network. Some individuals even have Boltek lightning monitors running with StormVue software on the net.

Interesting report. Questions still exist.

If you would like to try your own lightning detector, Boltek have a reasonably priced unit. You can use the Boltek software, or there is also a community of third-party add-ons, software, and web sites for the Boltek unit.

sPh

Why do people live in places like this when they get hit _every year_ by tornados? I mean, holy crap - what kind of stress must it be to know that, next year, come May, you or someone near you has almost a 100% chance of having their new house flattened ... again... next may. Hell, maybe in two months?

First, the odds of actually being hit, much less killed, by a tornado are significantly lower than the chances of dying in a car crash during your expected lifetime.

Second, bad things can happen anywhere on the Earth. Tornados are cool to watch so they get a lot of publicity, but how many people are killed by snowslides every year in Switzerland?

Finally, severe weather can be fun. Standing outside scanning the sky, watching the TV news, checking the radar on the Internet, maybe buying a lightning detector if you are really into it, then running down to the basement at the last minute and huddling around the weather radio... It may not be quite the same as participating in a mass parachute jump from 10,000m, but it has its moments!

sPh

I did a home weather search on Google about a year ago and there are quite a few products and distibutors. One that comes to mind right away is Oregon Scientific; they sell direct and also at some electronics and discount stores. Don't forget Boltek for a lightning detector!

sPh

Remember, than electromagnetic radiation travels with the speed of light! The time it takes for the electromagnetic signal from a lightning strike 10 km away to travel to the receiver is only 33 micro seconds. if you use the sonic signal, however, you would be able to do the triangulation fairly easily with relatively cheap watches. Your only concern would be that you and your friends should be certain that you measure the arrival time for the same lightning strike.

Interesting point. So how does the National Lightning Detection Network do it? GPS-based timing signals? And if one were to try to recreate this, with distances of, say, 250 km between low-cost detectors, would the clocking available on standards PC's be sufficient, or would special-purpose hardware be needed?

sPh

Try Boltek as a starting point; there are other, similar systems out there as well.

sPh