Atmospheric Speed Bumps

Slow Down, Atmosphere! Slow Down!

The reason March has been relatively dry is because the upper flow (winds in the atmosphere at about 18,000 ft and higher) is almost too dynamic and fast. The spring storms we usually see this time of the year are being shoved east of I-35 and into Dixie. The jet stream is a kind of storm superhighway. If you look at the jet stream on a map of the United States on any given day you would see maybe one or two troughs sagging toward the equator and maybe one or two ridges bulging toward the north pole. The troughs bring cooler and sometimes stormy weather, the ridges bring warm quiet weather. The jet stream trough over the Pacific coast or American west is an indicator that a stormy day or two may be right around the corner. The jet stream helps generate well defined areas of low pressure in the high plains of Colorado and New Mexico. You can compare these surface lows to a drain in your bathtub. In fact it would make even more sense if the drain was in the center of your bathtub to make this comparison. Lets say that on there's cooler water on the north end of your bathtub and warmer water on the south side of your bathtub. You open the drain and all the water begins to flow toward it. Science has shown that the most efficient way for gases and fluids to travel vertically is to spin in a vortex, thus the swirl of water around the drain (which, by the way, has nothing to do with what side of the equator you're on).
This is what a surface low (the red "L" on a weather map )does. It draws in warm air from the south and cold air from the north and dry air from the southwest and humid air from the Gulf of Mexico. As the air masses converge toward the center of low pressure they're deflected to the right and, on a very large scale, begin to spin around the low pressure much like the water around the bathtub drain. The leading edge of the warm humid air is drawn on a surface map as a warm front. The leading edge of the cooler air from the north is drawn as a cold front. And the dividing line between the moist gulf air and the dry desert air is drawn as the dryline. The dryline and the warm front will be the most likely places for stormy weather to develop, especially in the late afternoon. Oh, and instead of the air falling to the earth when it reaches the "drain" or the surface low, its actually drawn upward into the higher levels of the atmosphere. Now these surface features trigger storms only if they draw up enough moisture from the gulf to work with. For the the last 3-4 weeks these springtime scenarios have been sweeping through so quickly, they haven't stuck around long enough to draw in the moisture. The result, we see a lot of cold fronts and drylines sweep through with nary a cloud in sight. Once the atmosphere settles down, those stormy events this land has become known for will make us feel right at home.

JC

reboot

Well, after a month-long, late-winter hibernation, "Wichita Falls Weather" is back! Goody, goody! I guess. So what's been going on? Geez, where do I start?! Lots of changes, visible changes are right around the corner for loyal viewers of channel 6. I can't go into any details, but by mid April, things will be drastically different. Speaking of April, we're getting our "game faces" on for the coming severe storm season. By this time last year, severe storms were rolling in on a regular basis. In fact, one of the biggest severe events of the year was March 4th, when a "High Risk" was issued for the eastern half of the viewing area. Not only has March 2005 not been stormy, we can't buy a drop of rain. Historically speaking we average 2 1/2" for the month and it looks like we'll finish the month with about a 1/2". Yuck! Hopefully April will be fruitful and we'll get the rain train back on track.

Weathercasters have a love/hate relationship with the spring storm season. The love is for the type of weather that triggered our interest in the science when we were children, the hate is for the long work days and having to spend hour after hour in a studio (with no windows) when the storms we love to watch are all around us. In other words, if you like to observe, chase or photograph thunderstorms, TV weathercasting is not a line of work where that opporunity often comes around. It pays off though, knowing that you could save a life by warning someone of an approaching storm.

If I could slip in to editorial mode briefly (as I look for a phone booth)...ahem....if there's one disease spreading across the body of TV weather, it's sensationalism, the drama factor, the use of scary words and alertist tension. Many locals (TV Veiwers) I've discussed this with call it "Chicken Little". The human race has been surviving thunderstorms for millions of years. A large majority of thunderstorm are survivable in a modestly constructed frame home. So why all the drama, when the type of weather we, as Texomans, anticipate every spring actually shows up? Well the primary reason is that TV stations now have the technology to give you up-to-the-second weather information. The stations that have the budget(in large cities) send out armadas of trucks, equipment and personnel and place them in the path of the storms (that we warn viewers about) and deliver live images and "man on the scene" reports. Does it get peoples attention? You bet. Does it help keep people safe from the storms? I honestly don't know.

Sure, the info we relay to you during stormy days is important, but what's more important is what you do with that info. Telling you to take shelter in an interior room without windows on the lowest level of your home is one thing, getting you to do it during a tornado warning is another. That's why we really like to place an emphasis on safety education. It will probably be many years before we see severe weather coverage in this television market similar to what is being done in Oklahoma City. Up there, if there is a tornado being reported, chances are you will see it on your TV screen. Down here, we can give you the tornado spotter reports as we track the storm on radar, but we may never be able to show you the actual tornado, unless one wanders close to our towercam. That's no big deal. Showing you the storm is one thing. Alerting you to where its going and what it may do is most important. Do we have to do it in a vein of drama and sensation? No. And until I'm asked to do so I will not. When severe storms are darkening your door, I may break into programing, but when I do I'm going to tell you what you need to know and get out of the way so you can do with that info what you need/want to do. No scary words. No "Chicken Little". After all, if you're at home watching TV, you are already in a shelter from severe thunderstorms. It's the folks outside whom are at risk.

Enough venting for now...I'll save some for later.