Soon to Star on Storm Chasers!

Okay, not really. Although, we love that show! But we did get to increase our knowledge of how to be a good storm spotter at a conference offered by the National Weather Service. Neal and Keri dropped the kids off at Oma's for the day (thanks!) and headed to the local conference. We now know how to:

1. recognize low, mid, and upper level clues to look for in a supercell (storms usually responsible for a high percentage of severe weather events, i.e., tornadoes, large hail, and damaging winds).
2. recognize what side (flank) of the storm you are on and which direction it is moving (very important in case of a tornado).
3. estimate wind speed and hail size
4. be safe while storm spotting
5. report useful information

We won't be loading the kids up in the car and following any storms but we can observe from home or wherever we may be. Valuable knowledge now that we live in north Texas, the base of Tornado Alley (our city did get hit with an EF-1 tornado in April 2008).

And, of course, watching Storm Chasers will prove a touch more exciting, which we didn't think was possible. They are crazy though. They get in tornadoes. At the confrence, they said, "If you are looking up at the tornado, YOU ARE TOO CLOSE." We'll try to remember that.