Summertime!

MarkBC

MarkBC

The Weatherman
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Location
Bend, Oregon
I woke up with most of the windows of my house open overnight -- first time this year. That tells me that the meteorologists have it right -- today is the first day of [meteorological] summer -- summertime!

It looks like summer in The West, too, with the clarity of high pressure and and coast-hugging fog:
GOES17402019152MsOGI1_20190601-1.jpg

You can see the smoke from wildfires in Alberta, drifting down into the USA. :(
 
Here in Pennsyltucky, we were getting severe thunderstorm and tornado watches and warnings daily last week and we're still having near-daily thunderstorms this week. It seems way early in the season for that as I normally associate it with hotter weather than we've been having.

The local TV station's weather crew was breaking in to broadcasts to warn residents in various local areas to take immediate cover as they were seeing rotation on weather radar. I can't tell if that's because weather is more severe than it used to be or the weatherman now has more sophisticated tools to see it.

It's out-of-the-ordinary enough that I bought a weather-radar app (RadarScope) (the $10 version) to have a better view. I liked comparing what I was seeing on the TV station's radar display with what I was seeing on the app. And it works better for me than the Nexrad radar screen on Weather Underground.

I'm still trying to get a sense of when the color echoes indicate rotation. The weather guy starts pointing at something he says is rotation and warns viewers to take immediate cover. But I could also see another very similar set of colors nearby and he's not mentioning that area.

It has also been useful to see how quickly the tornado warnings pop up and go away. And the storm tracks allow me to click on the tracks at tick-marks along them to see time-of-arrival of the cell at that point. And if I click on the beginning of the track, up pops the cell name, it's speed, and the size of the hail (if any) in that cell.

At one point we were in a tornado warning and I could see storm tracks close by on either side of us. I went outside with the iPad and was fascinated to watch the storms pass by while I compared what I was seeing on the RadarScope display to what I was seeing in the sky. I didn't even get wet as they passed. To my south, I could see spinning tendrils of cloud drop down out of the ominous-looking wall-cloud, intensify a bit but then slowly just kind of fade out and disappear. Then my view across the corn fields blanked out as the violent rainstorm swept through. To my north, the clouds were darker and roiling but I didn't see a wall-cloud.

I'd like to have lightning strikes but in RadarScope that only comes with a recurring-payment version and I'm not quite willing to do that at this point.

.
 
Yes, it is summertime. We took an easy few hour up country trip today. I felt good enough and safe to drive, a milestone for me. The Lady did not squirm around too much in the passenger seat as I drove. We drove up a small paved road til we hit snow still covering the road, about 6600 feet in elevation. A few vehicles were parked, snowmen were built. Many were hiking further up the road. We decided on a cross country route to a little known historic high country summer ranch site at around 7000 feet on the edge of a meadow. Travel was over huge snow patches, granite slabs, and sopping wet ground. The old compound looks long forgotten. In a few more years the old buildings will start to collapse. We last skied past this place about 15 years ago. It was good to return. The views from the meadow are outstanding of the snow covered Crystal Range to the east. We were always surrounded by the songs of mountain chickadees. It is summer.
 
Summertime???? Well this week is starting better than last week anyway, just got my cut-offs out-supposed to be 93-wow! Last week, took the new dog (3 year old BC/Aust. Cattle dog named Timber)) up to the Devils Garden on the Modoc NF to see how she would do. Temps in the 70's, good fishing, hiking and beer drinking weather but after a few days,the weather changed-a cold front moved in,with high winds and a freeze warning was issued and a 20% chance of snow-yep snow. That was enough for me-headed home, had enough of the cold, might as well sit in my house. Boy, flood warnings out cause the snow pack is melting, can't win them all I guess, but the heat sure feels good :cool:,

Smoke
 
Just last week it was too cool out to open windows -- even during the day... This week it's too warm to open windows during the day -- only open at night!
 
I'm hearing thunder (so must be lightning) here in Central Oregon right now -- and so far it's dry... :(

GOES19402019163BIldqW_Jun-12-1.jpg
 
We've been having simply glorious weather here- 70s and sun- after a very wet spring. Sure sign of summer here- the camper is on the truck as of today. Better late than never I say. Heading out for the first trip this coming week.
 
We are hitting the 90's for the first time this week in Susanville-that's to hot for yard work :rolleyes: so I'm heading up to the Devils Garden (Res C or F or Jane's ) on the Modoc Plateau mid week or so. Okay, I know the Valley and Vegas are hotter, so I'm a wimp-like it hot-but not to hot! I had thought about heading to the coast, but don't think I would make it across the valley; besides not up for a real long trip with the Sierra shindig coming up in July! Temps up on the Modoc are supposed to be in the low 80's, then drop into the low 70's, so it's worth another run up there after just getting back; res's were full and the fishing is good! Should not be many people up there now, might later also head over to Lakeview, Adel area, maybe Fields and points East. Anyone wanting to run away from the heat drop a line here or PM me!

Smoke
 
I mentioned earlier in this thread I had spent the $10 for RadarScope for my iPad to learn more about summer storms. And in closing I said I'd also like to see lightning strikes.

After looking at several dedicated lightning-strike apps in the app store, I decided to instead upgrade my RadarScope to the Pro version. That's another $10 and it's a yearly subscription so it'll be another $10 each year if I want to continue seeing the Tier One add ons.

I figured the upgrade would mean I'd have to mess around with creating an account, figuring out what password to use and how to keep it safe, etc. But no, all I had to do was click on the tools gear in the app and tap on Pro to have it show my options for purchase. I tapped Pro Tier One and was prompted by Apple for the purchase. A Touch-ID later it was on my iPad.... similar to the initial app purchase.

The Pro Tier One version adds not only lightning strikes, but also gives me the option for a Dual-Pane display. There wasn't anything going on in my area but I could see something was up in the Cincinnati area so selected the nearest radar for that area...

(Click to enlarge)
(Note: I clicked on one of the storm tracks in the lower pane so you can see what the pop-up shows.)

RadarScopeCinn2.jpg

The top pane is Reflectivity, the bottom Velocity... uhh-- wait a minute-- I better let Pecos Hank take over from here.....


.
 
RadarScope view of a summertime storm southeast of Denver Friday evening....

The app has a little red oval with a number in its upper right corner. When I click on it, up pops a list of current tornado watches (in red), severe thunderstorm watches (in yellow) and flood watches (in green). Clicking on any of the watches changes the view to the applicable radar. The new view shows the outline of the watch area on the (zoomable and pan-able) map.

On Friday, I saw there were tornado and severe thunderstorm watches southeast of Denver in Elbert county. The display showed me some features I like....

(Click to Enlarge)

ElbertCoCO190621.jpg

At the start of the track we see a circle with little arrows... indicating the spinning air of a mesocyclone has been picked up on radar. And when I clicked on it in the Velocity pane we see a Meso Strength score (this a moderate score) and hail size.

As I kept checking I sometimes saw a tornado icon (instead of the mesocyclone icon), indicating a tightening of the spinning in what's called a Tornado Vortex Signature.

(Click to Enlarge)

COelbertCoTVS190621.jpg

I don't believe there were sightings of a tornado in the area but I did find this storm-chaser video of hail there in Elbert County on Friday...

https://youtu.be/htWT9JiOAZU?t=84

PS-
The explanations of the icons (the 'attributes') are on this Weather Ops blog page and include hail (double circle), mesocyclone (circle with arrows), Tornado Vortex Signature (tornado symbol). The Meso Strength scale is also explained (<2300=weak, 2300-3600=moderate, >3600=strong)

PPS- I noticed the announcement for the latest version of RadarScope says they've added support for another category-- snow-squall warnings (<1/4 mile visibility, freezing ground temps, duration < 1 hour, dangerous or life-threatening conditions). Also- more Canadian radars.
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This is the third p.m. in a row here with Flash BOOM!... Splash.

GOES00502019183ky1b9d.jpg

Thunderstorms are not particularly rare in central Oregon...but we're not like all those states east of the Rockies. Three days in a row is a bit unusual.
Having showers with the FLASH (it's pouring right now) is a good thing from a fire standpoint.
 
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