It was the mid-afternoon hours of April 3, 1974, when the skies began to darken in Greene County. WHIO weatherman Gil Whitney saw the development of a classic hook echo on radar. He swiftly and with urgency tracked the path of this storm live on television. It was this radar technology that allowed him to give advance warning to anyone in the storm’s path. Had it not been for this piece of equipment, many more lives would’ve likely been lost that day.
Radar technology has come a long way since then. In the early 1970s, the radars being used were very basic. In fact, most of them were repurposed equipment from World War II. The imagery display was black and white and very difficult to read. If you were to see an image of the Xenia tornado, it would look similar to what you may expect a submarine radar to look like.
Today’s weather radars display in color and have dual polarization capabilities. This advancement of Doppler radar allows forecasters to see inside the storm. Reflectivity and velocity are the two best features, showing wind speed and direction along with the intensity of the storm. Size and type of particles within the environment can also be detected. This helps with identifying what kind of precipitation may be falling and also detect if there are non-meteorological items being found within that same space.
This can be extremely helpful in determining if a tornado has occurred. Debris from the tornado can now be observed with this new technology. Confirming a tornado is on the ground and being able to track it has undoubtedly saved lives.
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Radars aren’t the only advancement in severe weather forecasting. Just in the last few years NOAA and NASA have launched two new satellites into space — GOES 16 and GOES 17, also known as GOES-East and GOES-West. These newly advanced satellites can give nearly real-time updates on what is happening in the atmosphere across the United States.
One of the best new features with these satellites is something called Geostationary Lighting Mapper (GLM). This new technology can detect the total number of lightning strikes (in-cloud, cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground) over the U.S. and the bordering oceans.
Studies have shown thunderstorms with increased lightning activity may indicate the strengthening of a storm and perhaps the precursor to a severe event. NOAA and forecasters believe, in combination with radar, satellite imagery, surface observations, and lightning detection, there is a greater potential for alerting the public to the development of severe weather and tornado events. This, in turn, would limit false alarm rates and perhaps increase lead time, saving many more lives in the future.
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It’s not just satellite and radar technology, but also the advancement in our day-to-day technology that is keeping us in the know. Cell phones may be one of the best tools used to alert the public to impending severe weather. In the past, we had to rely on television, radio, weather radios, and tornado sirens to get our attention, but that would only work if we were in close proximity to them.
Nowadays, most everyone is on the go and has a mobile device with them at all times. It’s your phone that can now be used as an alerting device. If set up properly, you can get instant notifications when severe weather strikes.
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