SKYWARN Photos.

This page showcases the weather photos that I have taken while performing my work as a SKYWARN storm spotter.For more info go to www.SKYWARN.org.

These are some photos of a Supercell thunderstorm that came through the Louisville area in May 2006.

Here is the approaching Supercell.Note the "Anvil" cloud and overshooting top above it.

This next photo shows the inflow cloud band also called the "Flanking Line" and above it you can see the underside of the round, disk shaped Anvil cloud.

In this next photo you can see a possible Funnel cloud.

These next photos profile other spotters and their equipment.

 

This 1993 Toyota 4X4 chase truck belongs to Matt Dennis of the Kansas Tornado Chasers SKYWARN group.

Matt's truck is equipped with all sorts of gear including a roof mounted JRC RADAR system.

Marshall Gilstrap also of the Kansas Tornado Chasers owns this well built Chevy Blazer chase vehicle

A night view of Marshall's truck.

This is Bradley Patrick's Chevy chase truck. It's equiped with all the tools that a spotter could want including a mobile weather station, warning lights and multi band communications equipment.

Here is a rear view of Bradley's truck while watching a well formed funnel cloud.

A member of Flagler county (FL) REACT operates the local SKYWARN radio net. Many REACT team members are also certified SKYWARN spotters.

This is what the ham setup at most NWS offices looks like.When severe weather is forecasted to move into the area the local NWS office can request that a predesignated member of a local amateur radio disaster organization come to the NWS office and manage the SKYWARN net.

This is not a SKYWARN spotter vehicle but it is pretty cool.It is the Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV). It is made from a Ford F series pick-up truck chassis and has been armored with heavy guage metal plating and thick bullet resistant plexiglass. It's purpose is to penetrate the wall of a small to medium size tornado and gather weather data as well as film the tornado using an I-MAX camera. To date the TIV and it's crew of 4 has entered a small F-3 scale tornado and survived.That chase was filmed by a crew from the National Geographic Channel and aired as a program called "Tornado Intercept". DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

 

These are some of the Doppler On Wheels (DOW) trucks (also not SKYWARN but still cool) designed by meteorologist Josh Wurman.These units are the first of their kind and for the first time allow RADAR scans of storms to be taken at a close distance.

                           

The TOtable Tornado Observatory (nicknamed "TOTO" after the dog in the movie The Wizard of Oz) is a large, instrumented metal barrel which scientists attempted to put in the path of a tornado during the 1980's. Invented in 1979 by Dr. Al Bedard and Carl Ramzy of NOAA's Environmental Technology Laboratory, it was hoped that TOTO could be placed in the path of a tornado, recording priceless data about the tornado's structure.

TOTO was deployed several times during the 1980s, but scientists were never able to get TOTO directly in the path of a tornado. On April 30, 1985, TOTO was left near the edge of a developing tornado. However, it was merely blown over, even though the tornado had relatively weak winds—assumptions that TOTO could stand up to high winds turned out to be false. TOTO was retired in 1987, and is currently on display at NOAA facilities in Silver Spring, Maryland.