Something I posted on Facebook

A nice post I have been following over at the Tennessee Weather Forum, and also in other weather forums like Talkweather, and such has brought an interesting question to the surface. How can people be so interested and so pumped up about severe weather which causes billions of dollars of damage, kills (60 a year people with Tornadoes and straight line winds), and over 60 with lightning, not including flash flood death tolls from any flooding threat that may occur during the severe event. It is an interesting question and on this little not thing I will try to give my answer.

First of all it is important to know that within the community of spotters, and chasers, meteorologists and weather lovers, that nobody wants to see total destruction, and or death and injuries. We all love our severe storms, and we love to track them on radar, or chase them in live time, but for people who have any type empathy including the weather people seeing a tornado tear up a town, or a derecho producing 100+MPH winds go though a metropolitan areal makes your heart sink. In matter of fact many chasers will tell you that they like there tornadoes in rural areas with no structures, and people around, and very little chance of any type of damage to occur.

The thrill of severe weather comes not from the destruction of people and places, but from the awe of what can happen when Weather is behaving badly. We as humans are always interested in the unknown, and there is still a lot of an unknown factor in severe weather. We might have 14 minute lead times on tornado warnings, and be able to call a potential High Risk Day out 3 or 4 days in advance, but there is still so much to learn about severe weather. Some severe weather days don't pan out, or you have very early November,6th, 2005 where the activity overachieves. I think it is a God given ability to humans, to be curious about the unknown. This is the same reason several humans are into Space, and Philosophy, and things of that nature. With tornadoes it is the same way, we tend to stare at tornadoes with wonder, and look at videos of past tornado outbreaks, and bring up dates like 3/18/1925, 4/3/1974, 4/2 and 4/7 2006, and 2/5 and 2/6/2008.

It is painful for many people including myself to think back about some of the disasters that occurred on the dates that have been listed above, but it is part of life as we know it. We have to go though the tornadoes, and the severe weather days to learn about it, and help prepare for it so that less life will be lost, less injury occurs, and less property will need to be destroyed. We have to in any tragedy not just weather related. have to pick up the pieces, pray, and hope for a better day.

The sad part of tornadoes isn't going to stop me from tracking storms, or hopefully one day chasing them. Instead it will help me realize that in life everything can change in a blink of an eye. Just like on Super Tuesday Outbreak of 2008 when it was 76 degrees in February, and we were hanging out in the classroom that afternoon wondering about how beautiful it was. Than at the end of the following night learning that it can all change.

The main idea isn't just all about my idea onsevere weather, but it is important that you live life to the fullest, enjoy the people you care about, and have fun in doing whatever it is that you do; because tomorrow is not promised