After a slow March it seems like the atmosphere is starting to turn beneficial for severe storms. Today is a Moderate Risk-day for a large area in the Eastern plains with a 15% risk of tornadoes in Northern Arkansas / Southern Missouri. Although this might be really bad chase territory (hilly and lots of trees, as far as I understand) you can expect lots of storm chasers to converge in this area.
I was following the events of yesterday (Slight Risk-day) on my newly purchased RadarScope-app and TVNweather webcameras, which was pretty cool – especially following the web cameras with audio. The time difference between Sweden and the USA took its toll and I couldn’t stay awake even after the storms started popping along the Oklahoma / Kansas border.
I hope the storms will start early today so I can stay awake and do my first real “armchair chasing”. If you want to do some armchair chasing you should probably check out these resources:
- TVNweather live cameras – storm chasers streaming live. If you can’t see what’s going on from a surface level it’s not nearly as fun.
- Twitter / Instagram – Befriend some storm chasers and get live updates on what’s going on as well as great pics. I am @stormchasingusa on Twitter, by the way. I don’t have an Instagram account yet though.
- Get a radar app. If you want to see all the details you should probably get GR LevelX (only for PC) or RadarScope (available for Mac, but only in the US). For storm reports etc you should consider a subscription to AllisonHouse to connect with your radar software. There are tons of iOS (and Android) apps with radar as well. My favorite so far is “Radar Pro”.
Please provide your best “armchair chasing” tips in the comments!
