Top 10 Meteorology Universities...

First off you know I'm going to rank Mississippi State #1... When it comes to applied meteorology and especially forecasting I don't there is an university out there that can touch us... By the way we won our first National Championship in forecasting beating MIT!!! This was a long time coming for us as we finished second every year I was in the contest... Crazy enough, last year was my 7th year... Of course there are LOTS of quality institutions, each specializing in different aspects of meteorology... I'm going to give it my best try!

1) Mississippi State University

2) University of Oklahoma

3) University of Miami

4) Florida State University

5) Penn State University

6) Texas A&M University

7) Texas Tech University

8) University of South Alabama

9) Colorado State University

10) University of Hawaii at Manoa

*UCLA

*MIT

*University of Wisconsin, Madison

*Lyndon State College

*Iowa State University

*San Jose State University

*North Carolina State University

*University of Georgia

*Georgia Institute of Technology

*Millersville University of Pennsylvania

* denotes honorable mention...

Again this was tough and if you think I left someone out please feel free to comment...

Top 10 Storm Chasers!!!

Ok, this one is also going to be very tough... I don't think it's quite as subjective as tornadoes but it really depends on what you are looking for in a storm chaser... I'm basing this on ALL weather... So if you just chase tornadoes then I'm not ranking you at the very top... A storm chaser that goes after all weather all across the world in my eyes should be ranked at the top... Please feel free to comment if think I missed someone...

1) Jim Leonard

2) Warren Faidley

3) Roger Jensen

4) David Hoadley

5) Chuck Doswell

6) Richard Horodner

7) Chris Collura

8) Jim Reed

9) Mike Theiss

10) Jon Davies

*Reed Timmer

*Roger Hill

*Jeff Piotrowski

*Jim Edds

*Tim Samaras

*Denotes Honorable Mention...

If you click on each person it will take you to their websites... Except Jensen and Hoadley which will take to you interesting life accounts about them I found on stormtrack... I could have also included dozens of other chasers in a honorable mention section but again it's very tough! I like hurricanes more than tornadoes so of course naturally I'm bias towards them...

Top 10 US Tornadoes...

Again this is just my personal opinion so feel free to comment, but keeping with my top 10's this week, I'm going to do the top 10 US tornadoes... This is extremely hard and VERY subjective but I'll give it my best... The only way to do this is to base it on pure destruction... Unfortunately that's the only way to ranks these beast of nature...

1) March 18th, 1925 Tri State Tornado

2) April 3rd, 1974 Xenia, OH (Super Outbreak)

3) April 3rd, 1974 Guin, AL (Super Outbreak)

4) May 3rd, 1999 Moore, OK

5) April 5th, 1936 Tupelo, MS

6) May 27th 1896 (East) St. Louis, MO

7) May 27th, 1997 Jarrell, TX

8) May 4th, 2007 Greensburg, KS

9) May 6th, 1840 Natchez, MS

10) April 9th, 1947 Woodward, OK

*April 26th, 1991 Andover, KS

*April 8th, 1998 Pleasant Grove, AL

*April 3rd, 1964 Wichita Falls, TX

*December 5th, 1953 Vicksburg, MS

*April 3rd, 1974 Brandenburg, KY (Super Outbreak)

*May 11th, 1953 Waco, TX

*May 11th, 1970 Lubbock, TX

*April 5th, 1936 Gainesville, GA

*June 8th, 1966 Topeka, KS

*March 3rd, 1966 Jackson, MS (Candlestick Park)

* Denotes honorable mention... Honestly I could double, triple, or even quadruple this honorable mention section... There are just too many recorded F5's in US history... Again if you have a few that you think should have made the list then feel free to comment...

Top 10 US Landfalling Hurricanes...

Of course this is just my personal opinion but I'm gong to rank the top 10 hurricanes in recorded US history... I'm ranking this based on the worst conditions possible seen by one person... So size, speed, duration are not really the important factors to me... I'm going by which hurricane produced the worst possible hurricane conditions in one specific area... If you would like to give your opinions please feel free to comment....

1) 1935 Labor Day Hurricane

2) Hurricane Camille 1969

3a) Hurricane Andrew 1992

3b) Hurricane Katrina 2005

5) 1900 Galveston Hurricane

6) 1886 Indianola Hurricane

7) 1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane

8) Hurricane Carla 1961

9) Hurricane Hugo 1989

10) 1926 Great Miami Hurricane

Honorable mention: 1893 Sea Island Georgia Hurricane, 1919 Florida Keys/Texas, 1915 New Orleans, 1915 Galveston, 1938 Long Island Express, Hurricane Hazel 1954, Hurricane Donna 1960, Hurricane Beulah 1967, Hurricane Charley 2004, Hurricane Rita 2005

Also it's SO tough with Andrew and Katrina... Of course Andrew had the Category 5 winds, but Katrina had a 30 foot storm surge... Could go either way, but I say it's a tie...

One last thing... You really could interchange a lot of the honorable mention hurricanes with ranks 5 through 10... It really is just a personal opinion/guess... You could argue many hurricanes ahead of even 1900 Galveston... I would say 1-4 is pretty good though!!! :-)

Top 10 Blog Post!!!

To have a little fun over the next week I'm going to post a series of top 10's... Anything from tornadoes, hurricanes, storm chases, and probably some other cool/fun stuff... Today I'm doing the Top 10 Blog Post!!!

1)Galveston Island and Hurricane Ike...

2)Staying Put!!!

3)Galveston could be in TROUBLE!!!

4)LDCT...

5)Hurricane Charley...

6)Hurricane Andrew...

7)Final Thoughts on Gustav...

8)Weather Brains...

9)Great Post!!!

10)Teleconnection Time!!!

Something To Consider!!!

While this hurricane season has gotten off to a slow start I remind everyone of an old saying, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog". Basically I'm saying that even though the hurricane numbers are down this year all it takes is one bad storm to make it a historical year... In 2004 the first storm of the season (Alex) didn't formed until Aug 1st and that year turned out pretty darn bad... Now look that was a much different setup and I DON'T see anything even close to that this year (maybe 8-10 storms tops)... However it just goes to show that sometimes the season explodes at a moments notice...

Also a quick note about El Nino and this years hurricane season... Keep in mind that it's simple to say, "well El Nino is going to kill the hurricane season"... That may be the case in certain years/setups, however in this particular year/set-up El Nino is NOT driving the hurricane season, El Nino is being driven by other factors in the Pacific and Atlantic which in turn is driving this years hurricane season... The warm water in the Pacific is much more displaced towards the central Pacific due to strong easterly winds keeping the eastern Pacific only slightly above normal... The long range forecast keeps showing this trend so again like everything in weather, this years El Nino is not typical but actually very unique... It will be interesting to see how this not only plays into the hurricane season but the upcoming winter as well... The long range models show a cold winter for the east coast and the deep south!!! Also matching analog years are showing a similar setup...

Before I go lets look at the 3 landfalling Catergory-5 hurricanes in US recorded history:

1935 Hurricane Season:

There was only 6 named storms this year but yet one was a landfallling Category-5 hurricane! The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane is still to this day the strongest hurricane to ever strike the US mainland (892mb at landfall). Ironically the only two hits that year were in South Florida...

1969 Hurricane Season:

This was actually a weak El Nino setup similar to 2004 but again it's not similar to the current El Nino setup impacting us right now... There were 17 named storms this year but only 2 landfalling hurricanes... Unfortunately one was Hurricane Camille.... We all know how that turned out! :-(

1992 Hurricane Season:

Like 1935 there were only 6 named storms... But unfortunately like 1935 one of those storms was a US landfalling Category-5 hurricane known as ANDREW!!! Also keep in mind that Andrew didn't even form until August 17th... Pretty late in the season for a first named storm...

Bottom line, try not to get caught up in the numbers... Even if you have 50 named storms in a year, it is really a bad year for the US if none of those storms strike the coast? I say NO!!! All it takes is one bad hurricane so keep that in mind this year... I'm not wishing this on anyone but I have to say I have a bad feeling one is going to slip through this year... Hopefully not, but again it only takes one bad hurricane to make a season HISTORIC!!!

Hurricanes on the mind...

Here is an amazing chase recount of Hurricane Andrew by Richard Horodner! For those of you that have never heard of him, he's one of the more famous hurricane chasers ever... I think Jim Leonard has him beat on total hurricanes/typhoon's, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Horodner has Jim beat on US landfalling hurricanes... Either way, this guy is HARDCORE!!!

Mr. Horodner's Andrew Account!!!

The whole thread is amazing stuff... Read down to Mike Theiss where he talks about the winds blowing down to the ground and dispersing out during hurricane Charley.... One person says he thinks it will be upgraded one day to a weak Cat-5, but like Mike I think it was very close but not quite there... Another couple hours over the water and I think it would have been a Cat-5... It was probably only 5-10 mph short in my personal opinion... The winds really were 145-150mph sustained for awhile... In my life I have NEVER seen anything like it!!! Also I can't believe were coming up on the 5 year anniversary! WOW, time sure fly's!!! For a great account of Charley, click on the link below and scroll down to Evan Brookbinder's account/insight!

Evan Brookbinder's Charley Account!!!

ALSO MY PERSONAL CHASE ACCOUNT OF CHARLEY!!!

Here is links to Richard Horodner's and Jim Leonard website's... They are two of the greatest when it comes to hurricane chasing! My goal is 100 hurricane intercepts before I die (Only 89 away) or a direct hit from a Category-5.... That's the only way I stop before 100...

Mr. Horodner

Mr. Leonard

I'll leave you with a link that my buddy Chris Bell sent me a few days ago... A very good read on lightning and hurricane intensity... I have seen lightning quite a bit in major hurricanes like Katrina and especially Rita... I'll never forget as long as I live seeing lightning strikes less than 1/2 mile away from us in Orange, Texas in the pitch black to see the entire sky light up and being able to hear thunder over 125mph + winds... This went on for about 30 minutes or so as the northern eyewall came ashore... One of the coolest and also craziest things I have ever seen in my life!

Lightning and Hurricane Intensity...