Mad People

Tomorrow is the start of December! It's the first day of Meteorological Winter, which simply means that us weather geeks count by months and Dec, Jan, Feb, and Mar are winter. More importantly though, it is the happiest month of the year! Right? I don't think so...

It sure seems that we have a lot of angry people in the world. I'll admit that even I have been a little grumpy over the past 2 days. I blame it on being sick, but even if I were not sick, I could come up with another excuse.

On my way to work today, a lady in a white Lexus zoomed beside me in the fast lane and was slowed by someone driving slow in the left lane. I was going a little faster and she got into my lane and rode my bumper. Keep in mind, I'm in the slow lane going 5 mph over... so I'm not going to speed up for her. She's hitting the steering wheel, yanks it back and forth between lanes until she can squeeze through. I understood her frustration. I get mad at people who camp out in the fast lane, too. But I never get mad at the people in the slow lane going 5 over! Here's the kicker though... she turned 2 blocks later. What?

Fast-forward to tonight. We are airing the Arkansas Razorback game on KAIT and preempting The Middle and some other shows. People are MAD. Comments on Facebook, Twitter, emails, phonecalls, etc from people who either want to watch The Middle or just don't want Hog Basketball. Some people don't even know what would be on the channel if the Hog game was not on! They are just disgruntled ASU fans that think we are trying to convert them! Settle down everyone, anything you missed can be found tomorrow on www.kait8.com on our episode player. It's a TV show. Calm down. If you don't like Razorback basketball, I understand! I don't either. Take the time to turn off the TV and enjoy your family. It won't hurt our feelings. With that said, there are A LOT of Razorback fans watching the game and enjoying it tonight. More power to them.

As we enter into December, be happy. Stop getting so worked up over things. I have several more examples, but I'll pass for now.

Have a great week everyone!
Ryan

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Severe Threat for Tuesday November 8th?

This is one of those awkward times when some people are making it sound like we are going to have a major tornado outbreak and I'm not even completely sold on severe weather. I think we will hear thunder, see some heavy rain in spots, and may even see a few severe thunderstorm warnings, BUT it does not appear to be an impending severe weather outbreak. Let's look at data. First, this is a program we use called BUFKIT to chew on the data and display it. This is the NAM model:

The above image shows a lot of stuff, because I put two windows in one. More or less, the green bars show when it is going to rain and how much and the box on the right shows some numbers that help us determine the severe weather threat. First, most of the rain will be after sunset and we should see between 0.50"-1.00" depending on isolated downpours. Second, let's look at some severe weather parameters. Click image to enlarge, if you wish. First, NAM shows CAPE (instability) peaking at around 400. That's enough to see some isolated storms, but not that impressive. Areas in OK and WESTERN AR may see this number go above 1000 at times over the next 36 hours and they have a higher severe weather threat. The EHI number is not concerning and the Lifted Index, which I have spoken about before... also, not impressive. It's at -1 according to NAM and should be lower for severe weather.... like -4 or lower. There are several other things to look at, but the overall trend is that this is not a severe weather outbreak. Storms: YES. Thunder: YES. Some Watches and Warnings: Probably So. Outbreak: Doubt it.

GFS model has pretty much come in line with the NAM as well. Most of the rain is after dark with limited instability.

I'll still be in the Storm Center as the storm system moves through and I'll be giving updates as needed. Follow me on Twitter and Facebook as well.

www.twitter.com/ryanvaughan <<<--- Best source
www.facebook.com/ryanvaughanweather

Prepare and stay informed, but don't alter your plans too much.
Ryan

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