Truckers: How To Prepare for a Tornado?

no not a ditch went into a small truck stop in Ithasca

 

I have been thinking about getting one of them fancy new smart phones, the ones that let you pull up the radar on there so you can see the green, yellow and red blobs for yourself, and seeing where they are, when they are where they're at.

The NOAA radio is ok, the only problem is that it doesn't update fast enough for my liking, and then when there is a storm alert, it will say something like "The storm is located 6.5 miles west of a town that no one has ever heard about, and will take you 15 minutes to find on your map". Now if it could say like "located 20 miles west of Tulsa" then I'll know where it's at. But it starts mentioning the name of all these towns that it's by, I don't know where any of them are, and would take forever to find on the atlas if I'm driving.

So yeah I might get one of them fancy phones so I can see for myself where the blobs are. I had a close call Friday night near Tulsa, was only 5 minutes ahead of the wall cloud. If I had been any further behind than where I was, I would have gotten the full blunt force of the wind and hail. I hopped on 44, told the gal "EAST", grabbed my toll ticket and booked it, started hailing for about 2-3 seconds, and then I had gotten out of it, and wind and rain eventually died down. I had just missed the biggest part of it. The only way I knew it was there was that as I was driving north on US75 towards 44, I could see the storm to my left, could see the wall cloud from the lightning, it was so bad it was lighting up the sky. I could see it getting closer and closer, and knew I'd intercept it by the toll if I had stopped. The NOAA radio wasn't quick enough to alert me where exactly it was.

 

Radar is OK and so is NOAA radio (in many instances). A trucker needs one or the other at the very least. With regards to interstate travel, NOAA radio will typically refer to MM's where a severe event may affect, otherwise I agree it can be difficult to know exactly where they are referring to and you have to listen fast and remember as you later refer to a map. Most free radar smartphone apps won't hilite tornadoes and areas of rotation.

Radarscope (iphone/android) and PYKL3 (android only) are probably the better smartphone apps. These overlay Severe thunderstorm and tornado warning cones over the radar image. 99% of the chasers use GRLevel3 but is Windows OS only (not for Windows Phone)

 

Do smart phone apps notify you automatically?

 

That's why we use Raindar on the androids.

 

Raindar puts up the watch/warnings as well as storm paths. During a storm, it sits in the docking station on my windshield and just runs. since it also tracks my location by GPS, it keeps me in the middle and shows what is around me. It's about 15 minutes behind real time.

 

The 10-15 minute delay is critical in some situations. I had paid a $100 month for an XM WX system only to find it was mostly 15-20 minutes behind real-time. This is unacceptable for travelers and especially chasers IMO and if you're aware you can sometimes make the necessary mental adjustments but storm mesos can change direction rapidly as happened on the 31st, but even the best radar apps are delayed 3-4 minutes, but 3-4 is significantly better than 15 when minutes count on a significant storm event and can mean the difference between living and dying.

 

very true and I agree....

I trust my eyes a whole lot more than any radar when it gets to that point though.

Since I will likely have a 34 hour reset in Cocoa Beach this weekend, I'll likely start working on this too.

I am out on my last training and this is as good a chance to update as any. Hopefully I can get the 2M and TS480 into the truck before summer is over.

http://www.truckerweatherwatch.com/index.php?p=about

 

Some of the apps will I have 2 that do by gps.

 

If its my time to go its my time to go I do not fear natural disasters or try to setup alerts on false alarms. You could avoid a tornado and have a heart attack the next day.