What "Learning to Forecast Severe Storms" is all about

You've found the very first post of this blog, so let me outline my purpose in creating this weblog.

Like most storm chasers, I started with in awe of the beauty and excitement of severe storms (as a child). I was introduced to the Stormtrack Forum a couple of years ago and have learned a fair amount by reading and asking questions there. There are some great guys in the Storm Chaser Community that remember what it was like to "scale" the learning curve and share their knowledge with others.

Clearly, the most important skill a successful storm chaser must develop, is the ability to be in the right place at the right time. You can't call it a successful chase if there is a severe storm and you are two counties away from the action. So forecasting (including AHEAD of a chase day, ON the chase day, and ON THE FLY while "in the field") are vitally important. Gleaning information from the Forecast threads on the Stormtrack Forum can be very difficult for the Newbie:

First of all, you can't give the same amount of weight to every poster. There are all sorts of experience levels that post and some of them are more knowledgable than others. Some of them take more information into account when making their forecasts. Let's face it: Some of them are just more successful than others.

Secondly, many of them are using "lingo" that may as well be Greek to the newbie. As in any specialty, learning the terms: the jargon, the acronyms, the abbreviations, is the first place to start. StormWiki is a good place to start getting a handle on the terms.

Thirdly, many storm chasers have backgrounds in meteorology or are meteorology students. Some even work for the SPC. They have a handle on forecasting tools that may seem "out of reach" for the layman. However, take heart in the fact that many "laymen" have access to most of the data, and many of the same tools. In fact, while understanding general meteorology is certainly not a liablity, a storm chaser's main interest is going to be on the meteorology of severe storms (particularly in the Spring and Summer months). This can be like a subspecialty. You don't need to learn EVERYTHING about meteorology, just that part of it that applies to Severe Storm Forecasting (and for most storm chasers, the goal is Tornado-Producing Storms: Supercells).

So this blog is going to be a journal of my ignorance, confusion and (hopefully) growing understanding of Severe Storm Forecasting. I'm hopeful that Storm Chasers, meteorologists (pro and amateur), and meteorology students will add their COMMENTS to my posts and help point me in the right direction. If you are on the same path as me, I hope you will learn along with me and share your knowledge (and questions) in the COMMENTS to these posts.

In addition, I'll be sharing links to sites that are useful both in learning and in forming your actual forecasts, as well as links to other storm chaser's web sites. From time-to-time I'll also be including some YouTube links, for inspirational purposes. I don't expect this to be a "quick trip". Even experienced storm chasers will probably tell you that the path to greater knowledge never ends, but hopefully as time goes by the "picture" of Forecasting Severe Storms will become clearer and clearer.