BobinMIZZU
New member
One of my sons is an amateur meteorologist. He recently fixed me up with pro type software to analyze radar feeds from the National Weather Service. I've been fooling with it off and on to learn how to use it. Starting to get the hang of it tonight.
Aside from analyzing real-time radar, one of the neat things you can do is download historical radar data. These images are from the May 22 supercell over Joplin.
This first picture is 3d reflectivity. At the time of this image the tornado was at EF5 intensity. This is pretty much what the cell would have looked like from due south at 5:48 p.m. The cell was topping out at about 11 miles high (60,000ft). Note: In each of these pictures there is a gap between the ground and the cloud image. The radar site is in Springfield, about 70 miles away. Due to the curvature of the earth the radar can't "see" anything below 4,000 ft. at that distance.
[attachment 201989 joplinrefl1lores.jpg]
The rest of the images are from the same radar sweep but utilize the doppler effect to show the rotation within the cell. The red/yellow areas show rotation. There are 3 distinct vortices in these pictures.
[attachment 201990 joplinrot1lores.jpg]
This is from a slightly different angle that shows the main tornado shaft a little better.
[attachment 201991 joplinrot2lores.jpg]
In this last picture I altered the color set to eliminate a lot of the green from the rotation. This one really shows the tornado. Best I can tell the funnel extended well above 50,000 ft. high. At this time slice the tornado had just crossed Rangeline at 20th and was still about a mile wide at the ground.
[attachment 201998 joplinrot3lores.jpg]
The Joplin tornado was terribly destructive for several reasons. First, the winds were 200mph +. Because of the multiple vortices the winds kept changing direction. Imagine 200mph winds blowing from one direction and then from the opposite direction a second or two later. Another reason was that this tornado moved very slowly. An average tornado moves at around 50mph. This one moved at about 10mph giving it much more time to wreak havoc.
Hope this hasn't bored you to death. BOBinMIZZU
Aside from analyzing real-time radar, one of the neat things you can do is download historical radar data. These images are from the May 22 supercell over Joplin.
This first picture is 3d reflectivity. At the time of this image the tornado was at EF5 intensity. This is pretty much what the cell would have looked like from due south at 5:48 p.m. The cell was topping out at about 11 miles high (60,000ft). Note: In each of these pictures there is a gap between the ground and the cloud image. The radar site is in Springfield, about 70 miles away. Due to the curvature of the earth the radar can't "see" anything below 4,000 ft. at that distance.
[attachment 201989 joplinrefl1lores.jpg]
The rest of the images are from the same radar sweep but utilize the doppler effect to show the rotation within the cell. The red/yellow areas show rotation. There are 3 distinct vortices in these pictures.
[attachment 201990 joplinrot1lores.jpg]
This is from a slightly different angle that shows the main tornado shaft a little better.
[attachment 201991 joplinrot2lores.jpg]
In this last picture I altered the color set to eliminate a lot of the green from the rotation. This one really shows the tornado. Best I can tell the funnel extended well above 50,000 ft. high. At this time slice the tornado had just crossed Rangeline at 20th and was still about a mile wide at the ground.
[attachment 201998 joplinrot3lores.jpg]
The Joplin tornado was terribly destructive for several reasons. First, the winds were 200mph +. Because of the multiple vortices the winds kept changing direction. Imagine 200mph winds blowing from one direction and then from the opposite direction a second or two later. Another reason was that this tornado moved very slowly. An average tornado moves at around 50mph. This one moved at about 10mph giving it much more time to wreak havoc.
Hope this hasn't bored you to death. BOBinMIZZU