Thread: Weird twisters?

  1. #1
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    8,446

    Weird twisters?

    Aren't these supposed to start in the spring?

    And around 50 dead? What happened?
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  2. #2
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Out of scope
    Posts
    4,079
    I heard 27 and I didn't hear the location, but in some places tornados are year-round.
    Sent from my iPadŽ

  3. #3
    Frequently Quite Prolix dwks's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    8,057
    http://www.virginiadot.org/travel/tornadoes.asp
    Tornado Season

    Tornadoes can occur at any time of the year. In the southern states, peak tornado occurrence is in March through May, while peak months in the northern states are during the summer. Tornadoes are most likely to occur between 3 and 9 p.m. but have been known to occur at all hours of the day or night.
    dwk

    Seek and ye shall find. quaere et invenies.

    "Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it." -- Alan Perlis
    "Testing can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence." -- Edsger Dijkstra
    "The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing." -- John Powell


    Other boards: DaniWeb, TPS
    Unofficial Wiki FAQ: cpwiki.sf.net

    My website: http://dwks.theprogrammingsite.com/
    Projects: codeform, xuni, atlantis, nort, etc.

  4. #4
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    9,613
    America has got to be one of the more dangerous places to live at least in terms of natural disasters. I thought the most recent tornado event was morbidly humorous. Last night, I watched a lot of CNN. I remember telling my mom, "Tornadoes on Super Tuesday! God hates America!" I feel awful.

  5. #5
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    8,446
    OMG! You made me laugh with that one.

    I know, I know. But the irony is killing me.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  6. #6
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Inside my computer
    Posts
    24,654
    The irony is that people are stupid enough to build stuff in tornado areas.
    Stop it. Move somewhere else, outside tornado areas, and we wouldn't have nearly as much of this problem. It also stops costing the state a lot of money to rebuild that which is going to be destroyed again.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  7. #7
    Frequently Quite Prolix dwks's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    8,057
    dwk

    Seek and ye shall find. quaere et invenies.

    "Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it." -- Alan Perlis
    "Testing can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence." -- Edsger Dijkstra
    "The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing." -- John Powell


    Other boards: DaniWeb, TPS
    Unofficial Wiki FAQ: cpwiki.sf.net

    My website: http://dwks.theprogrammingsite.com/
    Projects: codeform, xuni, atlantis, nort, etc.

  8. #8
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    8,446
    It's not that simple Elysia. People aren't stupid. Some of the tornado corridors in the USA happen also to be some of the richest agricultural areas in America.

    People move where they can make money. Others stay where they can make money. And others yet stay because they can't go anywhere else.

    People don't generally have death wishes.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  9. #9
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Inside my computer
    Posts
    24,654
    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    People move where they can make money. Others stay where they can make money. And others yet stay because they can't go anywhere else.

    People don't generally have death wishes.
    That's what I'm implying. Sort of anyway.
    Some don't want to move. Some want to make money, etc, etc.
    Point is, we're never going to evacuate from those areas, that's just life.
    But if we could just do something about it, we could save a lot of grief and money.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  10. #10
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    8,446
    No you wouldn't. As I told you, and dwks illustrated you would send USA into a recession.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  11. #11
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Inside my computer
    Posts
    24,654
    Emphasis on if. IF it could be done.
    But that's not how it works, I know. It simply can't be done.
    The world is a boring, unforgiving and ruthless world.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  12. #12
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    9,607
    Aren't these supposed to start in the spring?

    And around 50 dead? What happened?
    None of you are going to like what I have to say about this. My father and I just talked about this very thing and I will say that 50 people dead with 56 twisters is 100&#37; totally unacceptable given the modern warning systems we now have in place.

    In short most people simply take the weather for granted. Having chased these storms for over 20 years throughout Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas I will say that I've never seen a tornado that 'just happened'. They follow a definitive process each time they occur. The reason they 'just happen' is because people do not pay attention until it is too late.

    I was examining the radar last night on Intellicast, NOAA, SPC, and the Weather Channel. At about 7pm EST Intellicast radar was indicating TVS and MESO all the way from just south of central Missouri down into Tennessee and into Kentucky. TVS is short for Tornado Vortex Signature which indicates that the radar system has determined that a tornado is either happening, about to happen, or is aloft - thus a funnel cloud. MESO means that the radar has detected rotation in the thunderstorm and/or the entire storm is rotating which is usually known as a supercell. The doppler radar has modes that are called storm relative velocity and relative velocity. These show the direction of wind within the storm. When you compare the two you can determine rotation by looking for red areas (away from the station) next to green areas(towards the station). This is usually indicative of a supercell or rotating thunderstorm or rotation within the thunderstorm or a MESO. Last night there were over 15 MESO indicators and nearly as many TVS signatures. This is very indicative of a tornado outbreak occurring. Supercells are not to be taken lightly and can and will produce a tornado at any time.

    All of these radar images are freely available to the public at all times via the NOAA site. They even have a complete explanation of radar, the images, and how to interpret them as well as other facts you probably don't care about. I got in relatively fast which means the servers were not that busy. Normally when this would happen in a storm prone area the servers would be clogged. I think people thought...hey it's winter we cannot have a tornado and just ignored all the tell-tale signs.

    I also know that the NWS now has the practice of issuing tornado warnings based on doppler radar. This means that if TVS was indicated the emergency sirens should have been on in those areas. A tornado warning now means that either a tornado has been sighted on the ground, or a funnel spotted in the air OR has been indicated by Doppler Radar. The NWS also operates hundreds of NOAA radio stations that closely monitor the weather and give up to date information concerning the current weather conditions. Radio stations are plugged into this system and get their warnings from it. NOAA also issues weather radios that will turn on in alert mode with a hideous noise that would wake even the dead should a warning be issued in your area. In short there is tons of technology available that is designed to save lives but it only works if you utilize it. Not heeding the weather outside is like ignoring your gas gauge in your car. Sure you can do what you want but eventually you will run out of gas.

    I know for a fact that there were watches and alerts from the SPC days before this system even approached. The SPC convective outlook indicated expected tornadic activity across the entire area. This is the same information that spotters will use to get 'briefed' on the current situation. This is also the same information that is used and propagated to forecasters. Most TV stations DO NOT have a meterologist. Most of them get their weather 'off the wire' from the SPC and the NOAA. The Weather Channel was very clear about the imminent dangers of the system days before it even hit the area. So the problem here is not the information or the flow of information but that people obviously are not listening to it. We have had much bigger outbreaks of tornadoes in years past and had less casualties. F2 to F3 tornadoes are really not that large but F4's and the ultimate F5's like the one that hit Moore, OK and Oklahoma City, OK in May 1999 are very large. However visual size of the tornado is not an indicator of it's relative strength.

    I seriously doubt that these people had no warning and that the tornadoes 'just happened'. I don't even live near the area and I knew there were tornadoes occurring just by looking at the doppler radar. Doppler is available on the internet, on your phone, on your tv, and some places have specific TV channels that just broadcast doppler images. People must be aware of the weather and they must heed the warnings. Sure there is a fine line between over-reacting and not-reacting but I would almost prefer over-reacting. I love the weather but I also respect the weather. The moment you stop respecting the weather and the power and fury it has it can and will kill you.

    I'm sorry these people died and I'm sure some of them just had no escape...but not all 50. If you live near or in tornado alley buy a battery operated NOAA weather radio and have a family plan that can be followed in the event that a tornado does in fact threaten your locale. Truly is a tragedy but one that could have been minimized. And no it's not abnormal for tornadoes to happen now. I've seen tornadoes in January, Feb., Dec. etc. Any time you have warm moist unstable air masses with correct upper level winds and enough wind shear (wind changing in speed and/or direction with height) you can have severe storms and tornadoes. This is nothing out of the ordinary and certainly not a large outbreak by any means. Some years back we had an outbreak of over 300 tornadoes.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 02-06-2008 at 07:21 PM.

  13. #13
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    8,446
    Yes. What shocked most was the death toll. Totally unusual in current times. You explanation does shed some light...

    But... help me here... what's the usual sirens window? And how does the system operate in remote areas like farms? Surely residents in these places have some equipment as you described. But do they get immediate warnings like folks living in urban areas?
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  14. #14
    and the Hat of Guessing tabstop's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    14,336
    I'm not sure there's very many places on earth, let alone in the USA, that hasn't had some sort of natural disaster happen. I mean, why haven't we abandoned Florida yet after all those hurricanes?

    And for that matter, even in tornado-prone places, what gets destroyed and what doesn't is very hit-and-miss. My parents' house has been standing for 80+ years in the middle of Kansas; there were a lot of storms this past summer but all we lost was a bit of roof (and, okay, quite a few trees). Occasionally you get something like the tornado that took out Greensburg; it sounds bad to have a tornado wiping out a town, but Greensburg wasn't that large (Wikipedia says 1450 people, which is larger than I remember from high school) and EF5 tornadoes don't happen all that often (that was the only one anywhere all year).

    You get used to it. You expect to always have the yellow "watch" on, but when it turns red, then you start looking. (Of course my parents always said that "it doesn't matter until you can see it", but then they don't really travel and there's not much you can do for the livestock anyway if it decides to come down on your pasture.)

  15. #15
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    9,607
    parents always said that "it doesn't matter until you can see it",
    That will get you killed. In a wet supercell or one with a lot of precipitation the rain often wraps around the tornado. One benefit of this is that this is the only way normal radar can pick up the famous hook echo. Many many tornadoes are hidden in rain bands and in the chaser world this is known as the core. When you 'punch the core' you take a path right through the rain core to the tornado. It's extremely dangerous and not even the NWS recommends that spotters attempt to chase tornadoes in wet cells. They have an official name but I don't rememeber it off hand.

    Dry supercells normally hit like Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, etc. The tornado is usually very visible against the blue sky behind it and this is where most of the pictures you see are from.
    There is tons of information about this on the internet and several very good chaser sites that know way more than I do about the topic. I'm just a avid storm chaser and up until recently Illinois and the entire area had been very inactive. The storms would just fizzle like they had no energy whatsoever. But weather changes from year to year and now we are getting back to 1980 style winters with 1970 - 1980 style tornado outbreaks. There were some outbreaks in the 90's, most notably 1999, but overall in my area it was boring.

    Now I'm on the east coast so no more tornadoes for me. Now all I have to worry about is hurricanes.

    But... help me here... what's the usual sirens window? And how does the system operate in remote areas like farms? Surely residents in these places have some equipment as you described. But do they get immediate warnings like folks living in urban areas?
    The window is very large now with doppler radar. The moment doppler picks this information up the sirens would be sounded. This does result, sadly, in a lot of over-reaction in activating the sirens but ultimately the concept is sound. So wherever there is a doppler radar site the siren window should theoretically be the same as in a large urban area. Farmers especially should know far better than the weatherman when a tornado is going to hit. Animals act agitated, restless, etc. And they have been on the farm long enough to know when a big storm system is coming. It's far easier to chase a storm and follow a storm's progression in rural areas than it is in urban.

    As an example I was in a small town in Illinois watching a movie one night at the theatre. Suddenly they shut the movie off right before the ending and said we should take cover. Before going to the theatre, we knew the storms were approaching from the west but they shouldn't have been in our area until well after the movie ended. Well I started calling my father, friends, and then looked at the radar images on my phone. Come to find out the sirens had been sounded and the tornado had just crossed the county line about 25 miles from where I was. That's a pretty big window. Almost too big because then people don't trust the sirens. I had to drive 15 miles north of the theatre and wait for about 20 min before the thing even approached. The cops finally came and told us or 'requested' us to stop and not proceed. Then the typical fire engine came and started circling the highway indicating it's probably not wise to proceed further.

    I'd say the siren and warning window is sufficient enough to ensure survival in most cases. There are instances where storms produce that were not expected to. These are extremely fast and deadly but they are also very rare. This case was a definite storm system and front that was expected and was not surprising that it produced tornadoes. Perhaps the number was surprising, but the event was not. And on a side note the average ground speed for a tornado is 35 mph. Not breaking any speed records for sure. Usually if you are prepared there is time to plan and react in a sensible fashion. Going to bed with severe storms and/or tornado warnings in your area is just plain ignorant. Wait for them to pass and then go to bed. Normally these types of storms are fast moving and once the main line of storms passes your area you are in the clear. The air front is actually far behind the main storm front which is why you wake up the next morning to very different weather.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 02-06-2008 at 07:48 PM.

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. weird things with my linked list of queue
    By -EquinoX- in forum C Programming
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 11-22-2008, 11:23 PM
  2. weird
    By kiz in forum C Programming
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 09-24-2007, 01:16 AM
  3. Weird Characters With GetDlgItemText
    By execute in forum Windows Programming
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 05-04-2006, 04:53 PM
  4. weird error
    By gandalf_bar in forum Linux Programming
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 07-17-2005, 07:32 AM
  5. Getting weird characters in Strings
    By steve8820 in forum C Programming
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 09-18-2001, 02:49 AM