Tornado Forecasting From Surface Data, by David Hoadley

I just finished reading a document I received at the Storm Chaser Convention in 2008, called “Tornado Forecasting From Surface Data” by David Hoadley. The top of the paper is marked “February 10, 2008”

It was an interesting read, and something near and dear to my heart. I like models and soundings as much as the next chaser, but sometimes, the only source of information available is the NOAA Weather Radio with surface observations. In my olden days of chasing, I did not have a laptop or cell phone, so I relied heavily on surface observations, and marked up quite a few road atlases with frontal boundaries, temperatures, dewpoints, pressures and winds.

The document talked about finding the dominant low, the moist boundary, the pseudo low, winds, interim midpoint (between the streamline winds and wind convergence), thermal ridge, then tracking a few other variables.

It took me a little while to interpret the document. Once I figured out what was happening, I decided it would be better organized as a flow chart. I may work on this over the next few weeks, as I think seeing it presented graphically will really help its clarity. When it is finished, I will send it to David Hoadley to see if I did it right.

Thank you for reading my post.

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