Springfield Joins the List

I feel comfortable in saying that no matter what happens for the rest of the summer, nothing will come as a surprise.  The northeast was in the target zone for strong storms today but oddly enough instead of seeing numerous storms across the region, Massachusetts became the main battle zone.  All the tornado reports that came from the northeast came from the state including the main culprit in the tornado that hit Springfield.  Yet another major city.  And like many of the others that went through a populated area, the news cameras were rolling.  One happened to catch the video below as the tornado crossed over the Connecticut River.  Honestly, I've never seen this before and it is incredible.  





I have heard reports of one fatality involving a tree falling on a driver.  Things could have been much worse.  Unlike areas prone to storms, us folks in this general area are not familiar with tornadoes.  There are no tornado sirens.  I don't think many people are tuned in to the local weather station or listening on the radio.  The only other way to find out is by seeing the storm.  It was hard to tell the strength of this tornado.  At times it didn't look too organized but some of the damage would suggest otherwise.  I'd think a low EF3 is certainly possible, but I am clearly not an expert.

Of course I was following the radar during the day when it appeared that storms were getting ready to fire.  I stopped checking when the sun broke back out and the storms stopped forming.  I got home in time to see the coverage of the Springfield tornado and raced for my new radar program.  I at least was able to watch the storms as they intensified throughout Massachusetts.  And I even captured a screen shot as a little sneak preview.

This is what a tornado looks like on radar.  If you have watched any of the coverage from TWC with Greg Forbes, you have probably seen this or something very similar.  It's a great program.  This particular storm was east of Springfield when it produced a strong tornado in Sturbridge.  The hook in the storm is where the tornado is located.  I had zoomed in on the map when I took this image pic.  But if you notice the purple upside-down triangle, that is the program indicating there is a tornado.  The green triangle indicates a pocket of hail and if you move the cursor over the triangle it will give you an estimate of how damaging the hail is and the size.  The white line extending from the triangle is the current path of the storm.  And the purple lines are parts of boxes that if I had zoomed out would show what areas were under tornado warnings.

The radar features 23 different maps that if I knew a little more, would probably be even more useful.  And you can select from over 200 different radar stations.  The radar automatically updates every four to five minutes depending on the conditions.  If I was in the south or the plains, I would own this program in a minute.  Our thunderstorm probability within the next week or two looks pretty low so I will probably have to continue to play and learn about this radar by looking at other areas of the country. 

And by the way, today is the official start of hurricane season.  I don't even want to see what this season has to bring. 

I've talked about it for what seems like months, but with calmer and cooler weather heading in, it seems like the perfect time to finally get in my end-of-winter post this weekend.  About time.