Every year, the Friday after Thanksgiving features a parade in what is supposed to be an ice cold Sioux Falls, South Dakota. But when there is no snow on the ground, and the temperature is 20 degrees (-6C), the Jingle Bell run and Parade of Lights participants are barely bothered by a slight chill in the air.
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View from a hotel room with the lights of the city in front of me. Nice, but would have been better if it was a view from a restaurant with the body of a lobster in front of me.
It wasn’t that long ago, at least to me. My dad would load up the station wagon and take the family to the airport. We never went there for a trip, because air travel was something reserved for people who had a lot of money. Instead, we would take an exit off I-494 and drive up into a special parking lot overlooking the west side of what used to be Wold-Chamberlain Field (now Minneapolis-St. Paul International) to watch the planes take off and land. We oohed and aahed like the 4th of July as the huge turboprops and occasional passenger jets defied the laws of gravity.
We were not alone. Other carloads of parents and kids parked nearby did the same thing. Once or twice, we actually walked into the airport terminal, where you could visit the observation deck perched above the second story of the terminal. It was a great hangout for tourists and expectant fliers alike.
If memory serves, the observation deck was on the roof of the terminal buiding at the top of the photo
Those days, not many kids my age–or even their parents–ever flew anywhere. The tickets were too expensive. When people did fly, they dressed up for the occasion. Most men on planes wore coats and ties. That practice waned about 25 years ago, about the same time as a British friend of mine told me he wore a suit to the airport in hopes the gate agent would notice and bump him to first class. Supposedly that worked.
Nowadays, nobody dresses up. The parking overlook disappeared. The observation deck is no more. The romance has gone, and people don’t marvel at flight any more. It is now as commonplace as a bus ride used to be.
In an afternoon blog on May 10, Wayne Verno of The Weather Channel discussed the problems with chasing storms on days when the Storm Prediction Center advertises a “high risk” of severe thunderstorms. First on his list was chaser convergence:
Storm chasers flock to the area, meaning the dangers from the storm are not your only concern.
A higher volume of traffic on the roads, persons pulled off the side of the road, and in some cases, amateurs not paying attention to the road all become a major concern.
Verno’s concerns are shared by many in the weather community. There just seem to be too many people out chasing. Here is a timelapse of chaser movement between 5 pm and 8 pm CDT on May 10 as tornadoes moved through a high risk area in eastern Oklahoma.
The yellow and red polygons are the severe thunderstorm and tornado warning polygons. The chasers are the other moving parts, congregating around the areas where the storms are expected to be. While there are dozens of chasers visible in the display, it it only shows chasers equipped with GPS devices. It does not include the armada of vehicles with the Vortex2 tornado project, which deployed near Oklahoma City. Nor does it include amateur, untrained eyes out on the roads looking for tornadoes.
I am not in any position to tell people what they should and should not do if they want to see storms. It is that part of nature’s majesty that attracted lots (if not most) of the top meteorologists into the field. But with so much traffic clogging the roadways near tornadoes, there is just no way everyone will have a clear escape route if a tornado heads toward a crowded group of amateur and professional onlookers. It’s not a question of “if” there will be storm chasers hurt, but when it will happen.
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If you watch TV or listen to the radio this week, you might find it odd that hardly is talking about the S**** B***. Yes, you will hear references to the “big game,” or the “NFL championship” (except on CBS, which is broadcasting the S**** B***). But you will hear no mention of sales on new TV on which you can watch the S**** B***, or advertising for anyone who is hosting a S**** B*** party.
The reason, of course, is that the NFL has decided to pursue with nose tackle-like force anyone who utters or writes the words “S**** B***®” without paying a licensing fee.
In the past, rabid NFL lawyers (or more specifically, four law firms it has unleashed) have gone after anyone – even churches who announced plans for an afternoon of fellowship while watching the S**** B*** game. In 2007, the NFL went so far as trying to usurp the words “big game” in a trademark claim – but fortunately that heavy-handed legal maneuver failed. (One other warning, from the over-lawyered league: if you are watching the S**** B*** on a screen that is larger than 55”, you may be in violation of the copyright claimed by the NFL.)
One irony is that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is married to a television news broadcaster. I wonder – when they’re conversing over dinner, whether he refers to it as the big game, the NFL championship, or the S**** B***?
The 14 thousand member American Meteorological Society held its 2010 meeting in Atlanta. The AMS is a professional society dedicated to the atmospheric sciences and related fields.
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