Getting the Feel of a Key

Before I launch into the topic of this post–a quick tip of the hat to Big Band Nouveau for Thursday night’s outstanding performance at The B.O.B. in downtown Grand Rapids. I think this was our best show yet. The guys were simply scorching those charts, and the crowd was hugely responsive. A standing ovation is a pretty good indication that we’re doing something right. Mike Doyle deserves major props for having the vision to pull together some outstanding musicians in a creative effort of such high caliber. Thanks to Mike, and thanks to all the cats. You guys rock to the third order!

With that said, I turn my attention to tonight’s feature: Bb7. Yes, Bb7–or really, the key of Eb major. I just happened to be hashing it out via its dominant chord during my practice session earlier this evening. I’ve been hammering on that key lately because two of my solo numbers in Big Band Nouveau modulate briefly to Eb major, and I want to do more than just get by in those sections. I want to play the crap out of them. And the way to do that is to saturate myself in the key of Eb.

I’ve written previously about key saturation. The idea is to steep yourself in a key in as many ways as you can think of until you know it inside and out. Until you own it. And you own it when you hear it in your head and feel it in your fingers.

Every key has its own feel on the saxophone. Most of us get the feel of certain keys early on. As an alto player, I’m quite comfortable in the keys of D and G, and, to a slightly lesser extent, E and A. I’m also comfortable in C and F, and of course, a number of minor keys. And I can get by decently in all the remaining keys, both major and minor, some moreso than others.

But my fingers know the feel of just a select few keys in a way that I would describe as intimate.

Why is that? After all, there are only twelve tones that a musician has to deal with.

True. But those twelve tones relate to each other in entirely different ways from one key to the next. F# is not just F#.

  • In the key of D, it is the third of the tonic chord.
  • In the key of G, it is the seventh.
  • In B, it is the fifth.
  • In C, it is the augmented fourth; in Eb, it is the sharp two; and in both of these keys, it is a non-diatonic tone.
  • And let’s not forget the obvious: in F#, it is the root.

And that is just how F# relates to the tonic chord. There are six other chords besides in every major scale, not to mention various harmonic formulae, many of which include altered and borrowed chords. And F# has a unique relationship with all of them.

Your fingers feel each of those functions of F# differently, and some functions may be more familiar to your muscle memory than others. Your fingers may, through constant use, know exactly what to do with F# in the key of G, know how to get onto it and off of it from and in every direction and use it in all sorts of creative ways.

But move the key center a tritone to C# and now how familiar are you with that same F#? It has become a completely different animal, and your fingers may not know its feel. The note that you felt utterly at home with in one key can seem like a complete stranger in another. And while it’s true that certain keys get used far more than others, ultimately you want both your fingers and your mind to instinctively know how to treat every one of the twelve notes in the chromatic scale in all twelve major and all twelve minor keys.

The way to achieve that goal is key saturation. I’ve already offered some good suggestions on how to approach the saturation technique in another post, so there’s no need for me to repeat myself here. My point is simply to mention that every key has a feel that is all its own, and it behooves you and me to master all twenty-four of those “feels.”

Yes, it’s a big task. But it’s also a fun one. Just pick a key and work at it. Mine right now is Eb. I find myself focusing especially on the third and seventh of the major chord and the seventh of the dominant chord–G, D, and Ab, respectively. Once I become conversant with those notes in any key, the other notes–both diatonic and non-diatonic–all seem to fall into place.

Okay, enough for tonight. It’s after one o’clock in the morning, and I’m getting sleepy. The rest is up to you.

July 13, 2013 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Missing Out on Moore

I haven’t posted in this blog for several weeks. Behind my lack of motivation lies a depression over how this storm season has turned out for me, which reflects a broader sense of personal failure as a storm chaser. A melancholy lead-in such as this will probably lose some of you, and I understand. It’s not exactly sunshine and a bowl of Cheerios. But others may identify with this post and perhaps even find it helpful, and in any case, it’s my blog, and I’ll write what I please.

The May 20 Moore tornado exacerbated what has been a brooding issue for me since 2011. During that intensely active and historic year, I was sidelined from chasing due to family and financial constraints, and my final shot at a decent chase on June 20 in Nebraska failed by an hour due to a series of delays along the way. With last year’s notable exceptions of the March 2 Henryville, Indiana, tornado, and April 24 in Kansas, the trend has continued. And given how this year’s slow start finally exploded in the second half of May with storms that ranged from photogenic to disastrous, coming home empty-handed from my two brief excursions to the Great Plains during another historic year has been hard to take.

This post, then, is a continuation of my processing a deadly storm season that has robbed the storm chasing community of some of its best and brightest, exacted a steep toll on the residents of Oklahoma City, afforded a flood of spectacular videos, and caused me to search my soul as a storm chaser and wonder whether I even qualify as one.

The rest of what follows is a post I wrote earlier today in Stormtrack. It belongs in this blog too, even moreso than in the chaser forum.

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Missing the Moore tornado in particular touched something off in me. I’ve never felt more frustrated about missing an event I would never have wanted to witness.

El Reno didn’t have that same effect on me. I watched the whole scenario unfold on the radar and on KFOR live stream with horror, not with regret that I was missing out on anything, and my sense of it is that OKC got off very lightly. I’m probably better off for not having been there. It was too dangerous a storm.

But missing Moore was a bitter pill to swallow, and I think a lot of the reason has to do with my limited ability to chase. I just can’t afford to do it nearly as often or extensively as I’d like, so having to head back to Michigan empty-handed one day too soon after driving all those miles, knowing that the next day would be big in Oklahoma, was hard on me. I could have afforded the extra day and I badly wanted to stay, but one of the guys had to work the following morning, and there was no getting out of it. He had a responsibility to his employer and his family, and as the driver, I had a responsibility to him. Such responsibilities are honorable and will always come first with me.

But that didn’t make things any easier. Watching the debris ball roll across Moore on GR3 while I was driving east through Missouri created an ugly mix of feelings for me. My first thought was, Oh my God! When you see something like that, you just know something horrible is happening.

My second thought was, I’m missing it. After driving all those miles and busting (got just a fleeting glimpse of a rope tornado, not anything to even talk about), that radar image seemed like a slap in the face. I felt angry, like I’d been robbed, betrayed. Which is crazy, of course, but feelings are feelings, no more and no less, and I’m just being honest here about mine at the time.

My third thought, which is the one I’ve had to wrestle with since, was, Why? Why was I feeling so torn about missing something so terrible, an event that would have have broken my heart and caused me to lose sleep if I had been there? I don’t think there’s a simple answer; I think there are many components which add up. But the bottom line is, there’s an obsessive aspect to chasing for me that can either make or ruin my day and even my week. I don’t see that as healthy, and it didn’t use to be that way. I use to take my limitations in stride, and busts were just busts: not personal failures, just part of paying my dues as a chaser.

But chasing today is a whole different ballgame than it was when I first got started seventeen years ago. The mindset is more competitive, many more people are doing it and spending gobs of cash and time in the process, and overall I just can’t keep pace with it. So I’ve had to–and still have to–do some soul-searching. Who I am as a person goes far deeper than chasing storms. And more important to me than being in the mainstream of chasing is having peace of mind, and that requires accepting my limitations, working within them to simply enjoy something I love to do without letting it own me. I find that much easier to say than it is to do, but for me it is a necessity. If I can afford to chase a setup, I will; if I can’t, I’ll wish those of you who can success–and safety. I hope it will be many, many more years before anything like another Moore or El Reno occurs.

July 2, 2013 by
Filed Under: Historic Tornadoes, Life, Opinion & Editorial, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , ,

June 12 Chase in Northwest Indiana and Michigan

There’s nothing fancy about these pics. They are what they are. But after a tremendously frustrating May–a rant I won’t even bother to get into right now–it is nice to have at least something to show.

The setup was a warm front strung from Iowa eastward across northern Indiana, typical of the south-central Great Lakes region. While the NWS was talking of a derecho, forecast soundings a couple days in advance seemed to point to tornadic potential. And indeed, on the day-of, the SPC issued a high risk across the area, with a 10 percent hatched tornado risk in the area where Kurt Hulst and I chased and a 15 percent hatch farther to the west.

6122013 Meso NW INThe photos show what we came up with in northwest Indiana south of Koontz Lake. The first blurry shot is of a small mesocyclone on a storm which, on the radar, gave only small hints that it could harbor one. Sometimes, given the right environment, what base reflectivity renders as amorphous blobs can provide surprises where you find a little sorta-kinda-almost hooky-looking little notch, and that was the case here.

For a minute, it actually looked like it might give us a tornado, but the lack of surface winds was a good clue that wasn’t gonna happen. Structurally, though, this little storm offered an interesting opportunity to try and read clues in the clouds as to what it was doing or planned to do. I’m not sure I ever did figure that out, but it was fun to watch.

6122013 Meso S of Koontz Lake INAfter watching it for several minutes, we dropped it to intercept the larger, more robust cell advancing behind it. This storm had displayed prolonged rotation on radar, and as we repositioned near a broad stretch of field that gave us a good view, we could see a stubby tail cloud feeding into a large, flange-shaped meso. The storm was clearly HP, with a linear look to it that suggests a shelf cloud, but there was no mistaking the broad rotary motion, and you can make out some inflow bands in the picture. At one point, a well-defined funnel formed just north of the juncture with the tail cloud (or whatever you want to call it) and the  rain core, drifting behind the core and into obscurity.

We played tag with this storm for a while, but it was toward sunset and getting darker and darker, and eventually we decided to call it quits and head back. The storms where we were just lacked the low-level helicity to go tornadic. There was ample surface-based CAPE–somewhere in the order of 3,000 J/kg, methinks– but whatever inflow was feeding them appeared to be streaming in above ground level.

So we headed back into Michigan, and as we drove north on US-31 near Saint Joseph, things got interesting fast. Green and orange power flashes suggested that a high wind was moving through nearby. A glance at the radar and, sure enough, there it was: a bow echo. It didn’t look terribly dramatic on radar, but looks can be deceiving.

Heading east on I-94, we attempted to catch up with the belly of the bow as it rocketed toward Paw Paw and Kalamazoo. The next fifty or sixty miles was a millrace of frequently shifting high winds and torrential rain punctuated by power flashes. At one point, we narrowly missed running into a highway sign that blew across the road in front of us. At another, we passed an inferno where a falling tree had evidently gotten entangled in a power line.

North of us on the radar, we could see a supercell moving over the town of Wayland. But it was a little ways beyond reach, particularly given the kind of backwoods territory that lay to its east.

The high winds and driving rain ended, ironically, as we entered Kent County. My little hometown of Caledonia got just a relative dusting of rain and maybe a zephyr of outflow. It was hard to believe how much drama was playing out just a few miles to the south.

Big thanks to Kurt for taking me out with him when I didn’t have the gas or the money to chase on my own. I needed to get out and chase, and the sneering irony of having a robust setup dropped in my backyard and not being able to do anything about it was really eating me yesterday. I got to go out after all, and it felt wonderful.

 

June 13, 2013 by
Filed Under: Michigan, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , ,

Why I Chase Storms: A Storm Chaser’s Manifesto

I posted the following message on Facebook, but it really belongs here. It is one of what I think will be a number of very personal, reflective posts on storm chasing as I process the impact of a difficult, disappointing, terrible, and tragic season.

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This storm season has left me feeling very torn. As I sift through its impact on me, I am grateful for my friends who are NOT chasers. People whose perspective on life is different from mine. My men’s group, for instance, is a small circle of wonderful, godly brothers in Christ who have seen plenty of life. It felt cathartic to share with them last night about my passion for chasing storms, my sense of failure as a chaser, and the recent, tragic losses of Tim and Paul Samaras and Carl Young.

In talking with the guys about chasing, I spoke frankly about a common misconception about storm chasers: that we are out there saving lives by what we do. That may sometimes be the case, but it is not the motivating force for me or any of the chasers I know. That image, fostered by the media, simply isn’t what drives chasers. I chase, and most other chasers chase, primarily because we are enamored with the storms. There is nothing intrinsically heroic in what we do. Depending on where we’re chasing, our presence in the field can be valuable as part–and only a part–of warning the public. A few chasers–a very few, including the late Tim Samaras–collect data for scientific research, some of which could conceivably help to improve an already excellent warning system. Occasionally, some chasers find themselves in a position to make a life-saving difference as first responders. And Storm Assist is providing a fabulous means for chasers to contribute their videos to a charitable cause whose proceeds go directly to aiding the victims of tornadoes and severe weather.

All of these things are true and good. But they’re different from the myths that have arisen around storm chasing. One of those myths is that chasers are sickos who enjoy watching homes and communities get trashed; the other is that we’re more noble than we really are. Between these two extremes lies the reality of why storm chasers actually chase. And the truth is, no single reason fully describes every chaser. Chasers are individuals, and today as never before, that individual component interacts with the influence of technology and the media to create a complex and varied mix of motives.

Yet I believe all chasers possess one common denominator: a love for, a passion for, the storms. Personally, storm chasing engages me on many levels–intellectual, emotional, spiritual, aesthetic, creative, and adventurous–in a way that nothing else does. When I can chase the way I want to, I feel alive; when I cannot, which is far too often, I feel intensely frustrated, moreso than I think is healthy. Lately, my limitations have left me feeling depressed. That is something I have to work through, talk to God about, and discuss with those close to me who know me well.

But one thing is certain: I chase, as best I am able, because it is what I love to do, period. There is nothing else like storm chasing. I love the sky, the storms, their drama and beauty, their intensity, their mind-boggling motion, the awe they inspire, the landscapes they traverse, and the lessons they have to teach. I am a pupil of the atmosphere.

Because I live in a part of the country where both tornadoes and experienced chasers are far fewer than in the Great Plains, I can perhaps play a more significant role locally in helping to warn the public than in Tornado Alley, where droves of chasers line the roads. Chasing for WOOD TV8 here in West Michigan creates that possibility for me.

But I would chase regardless. It’s what I do, just as playing the saxophone is what I do and just as golfing, or car racing, or writing, or painting, or fishing, or crocheting, or hiking, or hunting, or what have you, is what you do. We’re all wired to do something, and we desire to do it excellently. There’s nothing innately noble about it, and there doesn’t need to be. Your pursuit may, in the right circumstances, put you in a position to contribute to the well-being of others. But it needs no justification in order to be worthwhile.

That is how I view storm chasing, and I think many of my fellow chasers would agree.

So please do not thank me for what it is I do, for the only thing I am doing is following my heart. In the same breath, please do not condemn me for it, for you may benefit from it someday–again, as just one facet of an excellent warning system in which I play only a part.

June 5, 2013 by
Filed Under: Life, Nature, Opinion & Editorial, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , ,

The Deaths of Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young

When last I wrote about this year’s storm season, it was non-existent: a cold, cold April and early May with teaser setups shot to pieces by crashing cold fronts.

Funny how fast things can change–or really, not so funny. No, not so funny at all.

On May 20, non-existent turned into horrible when an EF-5 tornado ripped across the heart of Moore, Oklahoma, killing 24 people. Then, as if that weren’t bad enough, on May 31 a monstrous supercell with multiple rotations took a second swipe at the area, taking another 11 lives (at last count). I followed its progress on radar, and I don’t recall ever seeing anything like it before: just one big, amoeba-like mass of churning vortices pulverizing an already storm-shattered city. KFOR chopter cameras showed a rain-wrapped tornado approaching a highway filled with several miles of gleaming headlights, all at a standstill–hundreds of panicky motorists trapped as a mass evacuation turned into a parking lot. It was unbelievable. And it was horrifying.

I have written nothing about storm chasing for over a month. At first, it was because there was nothing to write about. Then came the Moore tornado, and after that I’ve had just the opposite problem. I have felt overwhelmed with conflicting emotions, and there is so much to say that I haven’t known where to begin.

Until now. Tonight, I can no longer keep silent. I must write.

When news of the deaths of veteran storm chaser and tornado research luminary Tim Samaras, his son Paul, and his chase partner Carl Young began to filter in last night on Facebook, I took it with the usual grain of salt. These things have a way of proving false, and I take a dim view of sensationalist reports until the facts have been confirmed.

In this case, sadly, they have been. Three bright stars in the storm chasing firmament have fallen from the sky. They were not the idiot yahoos everyone expected would one day become storm chasing’s first direct tornado casualties. They were skilled chasers, as expert and knowledgeable as they come and known for their caution and respect for the storms. Whatever circumstances surrounded their deaths in the violent El Reno tornado, it is doubtful that they involved deliberately foolish risk-taking. That wasn’t their style.

I have never met Tim, Paul, or Carl, but many chasers have, and everyone knows of Tim’s work. Simply put, he was one of the most respected names in the field of storm chasing, and from everything I have heard, one of the nicest. I have never heard anything but good words for all three of these guys. And now they are gone, torn from our midst far too soon.

There is some consolation in knowing that these men died doing what they loved. Some. But it does not mitigate the grief felt by their families and friends. Even those such as I who did not know them feel a great sadness. My heart is heavy, and my prayers are with the loved ones of Tim and Paul Samaras and Carl Young.

May you rest in peace, gentlemen. You have given the world much. Thank you.

June 3, 2013 by
Filed Under: Historic Tornadoes, Life, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , ,

Video Tutorial #3: Circular Breathing

Circular breathing has something of a sensationalist aura about it, but its mystique exceeds its mystery. There’s no secret to acquiring the skill other than to learn how it’s done and then work at it till you own it. And it’s worth the effort, because circular breathing is a useful tool to have. When you find yourself playing an extended passage and need to come up for air, circular breathing will let you replenish your lungs without having to break up the flow of music.

This video tutorial piggybacks on a post I wrote a couple years ago on how to circular breathe. I highly recommend that in addition to watching this video, you read that post as well. Either may provide that flash of insight that you might not get with the other.

By the way, contrary to what all my fidgeting may lead you to believe, I do not suffer from Tourette’s syndrome. I shot the video at a nearby park in the evening, and mosquitoes as big as fruit bats kept trying to establish fracking operations on my skin. Between swatting constantly at the little blighters and puffing my cheeks out like a blowfish and then thrusting my face into the camera, I will probably not secure my reputation as a suave, cool kinda dude. But that’s okay as long as this video achieves my goal of helping you to learn circular breathing. If you find the tutorial helpful, drop me a note and let me know. It helps to know that my efforts are making a difference, and supportive comments are like bars of gold in my emotional Fort Knox.

May 18, 2013 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Tutorials, Video Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Crummy Storm Season and an Upcoming Video Tutorial on Circular Breathing

Well over a month has elapsed since my last post. I look at the date of that post, April 1, and think, Right. April Fool, everybody. It sure fooled me.

My exuberant expectations for this storm season, particularly compared to last year’s, have fallen so far short that they’d need to climb a step ladder just to be upside-down. Last year by this time, I’d at least gotten in two productive chases, one of them spectacular and the other decent. This year, nada. I didn’t think it was possible to have a worse chase season than 2012, but 2013 is demonstrating just how a wrong a man can be.

Now, I know what everyone says: you can’t judge the latter part of a season by its early part. I believe that. The past has proved how dramatically things can change. Chase seasons that started out crappy suddenly shaped up and started cranking out some great setups. I hope that proves true with this one. As it stands, my traditional target date of May 22, nigh sacred to me for the great chases it has provided, has been consistently flatlining on the GFS. That long-range model has me gazing wistfully at its the far, far end, willing for a shadow of hope to show up at 384 hours and remain hopeful–a nice, robust trough that survives successive runs and moves through the timeline into the Plains, where–you’ll say I’m dreaming–it actually overlays moisture and instability.

There’s actually such a shadow lurking in this morning’s GFSM. I don’t trust it, no sir-ree, not at all. Yet I hope it will show better integrity than its predecessors. Regardless, I’m crossing my fingers for late May and June.

As for this blog, its inactivity is due a depressing lack of anything stormy to write about. Oh, yeah, there was the history-making April flood that put a number of Michigan communities underwater and came within inches of overflowing the floodwalls in downtown Grand Rapids. I heard of a golf course on the southwest side of town that was under four feet of water. That’s not something you see every day around here.

So I made a point of going out and snapping some photos in my own neck of the woods along the Thornapple and Coldwater rivers. The 84th Street dam on the Thornapple was like a giant firehose, the jewel-like Coldwater Park was underwater, and a couple miles further east, vast acres of wooded floodplain had opened up to exploration by canoe. It was something to see, but I didn’t much feel like writing about it.

Fortunately, when the weather refuses to cooperate, music keeps me occupied. Last Thursday, Big Band Nouveau debuted at The B.O.B. in downtown Grand Rapids. We played our butts off and enjoyed an enthusiastic reception. I see great prospects for this band.

More immediately, I’ve been working on a video tutorial on circular breathing. In fact, I shot some video yesterday and uploaded it last night to YouTube, with every intention of posting it on Stormhorn.com today. But in reviewing it this morning, I realized that it wasn’t up to snuff. So I deleted it from YouTube. I need to do another video session before I can post.

In other words, everything you’ve just read is really a substitute for the post I had planned, featuring the video tutorial. That post is in the works, so consider this a heads-up, particularly if you’re interested in learning circular breathing.

That’s all for now. A full day of editing a client’s manuscript awaits me, and I’ve got to get to it. Sayonara.

 

May 9, 2013 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Michigan, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , ,

Are the Great Plains About to Open for Business?

ECMF-GFS H5 fcst 0408013Last year’s abnormally balmy March opened for storm chasers with a lion-like roar on the 2nd with a deadly outbreak of tornadoes along the Ohio River southward. But from then on, with the exception of April 13 and 14, the season dwindled into a pathetic, lamb-like bleat.

This March has been the polar opposite, and I do mean polar. Many chasers have been champing at the bit due to a wintry pattern that has simply refused to let go. But that may finally be about to change, and April may be the month when this year’s chase season starts to howl. For the last several days, I’ve been eyeballing a large trough on the GFS that wants to invade the Great Plains around April 8, shuttling in Gulf moisture and also suggesting the possibility of warm-front action farther east on the 9th.

GFS H5 fcst 00z 040913The ECMWF broadly agrees. The first map (click to enlarge), initialized today at 00Z, compares the 168 hour forecasts for GFS and Euro heights for Sunday evening, April 7 (00Z April 8). The second map, from TwisterData, depicts the GFS 24 hours later at 7 p.m. CST.

Maybe not a poster child for negative tilting (though the 6Z run changes that), but it could signal the breaking of the Champagne bottle against the hull of chase season 2013. The details will fill themselves in as the forecast hour narrows down. Right now, this is a hopeful sign for storm chasers. Winter may still have a gasp or two left, but we’ve made it through, and change is on the way.

Prior to that, the models point to a shortwave moving through the upper Midwest next weekend. Will it have sufficient moisture and instability to work with near the warm front? Good question; we’ll find out, assuming subsequent model runs don’t wash it out. So far it has shown up consistently. For those of us who live northeast of Tornado Alley, it’s worth keeping an eye on.

 

April 1, 2013 by
Filed Under: Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather, Weather Maps Tagged With: , , , ,

Subscribe by Email: Now Working

If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to subscribe to my blog updates via email, the problem is now fixed. It seemed odd to me that there had been no new email subscriptions since February–not that I normally get truckloads of them, but there are always a few each month, and the number keeps growing. So I decided to try subscribing myself and discovered that a snag in the process had indeed arisen.

Snag removed. If you were unable to sign up before, please try again. And if you still have trouble, please drop me a note and let me know.

Thanks,

Bob

March 28, 2013 by
Filed Under: Uncategorized

F5 Data: A Swiss Army Knife for Storm Chasers Adds Some Superb New Tools

I first began using F5 Data in 2007, and despite its early developmental quirks and my own vast lack of experience at forecasting, I fell in love with it. Storm chaser and program designer Andrew Revering had a solid and unique concept, one that gave me an ample tool for both learning forecasting and chasing storms. In particular, its configurable overlay of RUC maps on top of my GR3 radar images (via Allisonhouse’s data feed) appealed to me. At a glance, I could get a good idea of the kind of environment storms were moving through and into. And I had more than 160 parameters to choose from. I hadn’t an inkling what most of them were for, but they were available to me if ever I learned.

In 2008, Andy made significant upgrades to his product with the addition of color shading and contouring, GFS at 3-hour intervals out to 180 hours, a calculator for instantly converting various units of measurement to other units of measurement ( such as meters per second to knots and miles per hour), and other improvements.  The result not only looked attractive and professional, but it offered more solid bang for the buck–and at a little over $14.00 a month, the bucks were easily affordable.

Map Overlays: An Immensely Useful Feature

500 mb Heights

CONUS view showing 500 mb height contours. Note: Images shown here do not correspond to the text example.

At the same time, my own forecasting skills were slowly improving, and as they did, I came to greatly value another key feature of F5 Data: its ability to layer any of its maps on top of each other. This is a hugely useful feature and one I haven’t seen in any other commonly available forecasting resource that doesn’t require more technical skills than I possess. F5 Data is easy and intuitive to use, and as my knowledge grew, so did my appreciation for its map overlays.

F5 Sample Overlays

CONUS view with shaded surface dewpoints and surface wind barbs added to 500 mb heights contours. Labels for dewpoints have been turned off.

F5 Overlays Zoomed

Same overlays as above zoomed in to selected area.

Say, for instance, I’m looking at the NAM 48-hour forecast for 21Z. I select the 500 mb heights map, choosing the contour setting, and see a trough digging into New Mexico, with diffluence fanning across the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles up into Kansas. How is the boundary layer responding? Switching from contours to shading, I select sea level pressure, and now, superimposed on the H5 heights, I can see a 998 mb low centered in southwest Kansas. Another click adds surface wind barbs, which show a good southeasterly flow toward the low, with an easterly shift across northern Kansas suggesting the location of the warm front. Hmmm, what’s happening with moisture? Deleting the SLP map–I don’t have to, but too many maps creates clutter–I select surface dewpoints. Ah! There’s a nice, broad lobe of 65 degree Tds stretching as far north as Hutchinson, with a dryline dropping south from near Dodge City into Oklahoma and Texas. Another click gives me an overlay of 850 mb dewpoints, revealing that moisture is ample and deep. Still another click shows a 70 knot 500 mb jet core nosing in toward the panhandles.

You get the idea. I can continue to add and subtract maps of all kinds–surface and mixed-layer CAPE, 3 km and 1 km storm-relative helicity, bulk shear, 850 mb wind speed and directional barbs, EHI, STP, moisture convergence, and whatever else I need to satisfy my curiosity about how the system could play out two days hence. I can see at a glance favorable juxtapositions of shear, moisture, lift, and instability per NAM. And I can make similar comparisons with GFS, and on day one, with RAP (which replaced RUC in May 2012).

And Now the Upgrade: Presenting Version 2.6

Everything I’ve written so far has been to set a context for what follows, which is my review of the latest major upgrade to F5 Data. It comess at a time when the number of forecasting products available online has greatly expanded and old standbys have updated in ways that make them marvelously functional. Notably, a number of years ago TwisterData gained rapid and massive acceptance among storm chasers, and it continues to enjoy prominence as a quick, one-stop resource. Like F5 Data, it features GFS, NAM, and RAP, and it also offers point-and-click model soundings, a very handy feature. In 2010, the HRRR brought hourly high-resolution maps to the fray, with its forecast radar images demonstrating considerable accuracy. And the SPC’s Mesoanalysis Graphics, always a stellar chase-day resource, has recently made some dynamite improvements. Today the Internet is a veritable candy store of free forecasting resources.

GR3 with F5 mesoanalysis overlay. This one shows surface and 850 mb Tds and 850 wind barbs. (The blue wind barbs are an Allisonhouse product.)

GR3 with F5 mesoanalysis overlay. This one shows surface and 850 mb dewpoints and 850 mb wind barbs. (The blue METARs are an Allisonhouse product.)

At the same time, F5 Data didn’t seem to be doing much, and while I still resorted to it constantly, I wondered whether Andy had lost his passion and commitment to his product. Most troubling to me, the proprietary mesoanalysis maps which had replaced the RUC maps as GR3 overlays often failed to update in a timely manner, rendering them pointless. Given their potential usefulness in the field–how valuable would it be, for instance, to see at a glance that the storm you’re following is moving into greater instability and bulk shear?–I found this disappointing.

But I no longer have any such concerns. This latest upgrade has rendered F5 Data a powerhouse. All the while, Andy was beavering away in the background, fixing bugs and incorporating various client requests into his own set of huge improvements to his creation. Beginning with the February 1, 2013, release of v. 2.5 and moving in seven-league strides toward the latest version, 2.6.1, these changes have been a long time coming, they reflect a lot of work on Andy’s part, and they have been well worth the wait.

Here’s What Is New

The following will give you a quick idea of the more significant changes:

  • NAVGEM has been added to the F5 suite of forecast models.
  • Users can now draw boundaries, highs, and lows.
  • Users can select increments other than the default by which arrow keys advance forecast hours for the different models
  • The map now offers an experimental curved-Earth projection.
  • Wind barbs at different levels can be overlaid to provide visuals of speed and directional shear.
  • Processing is faster (up to 45 minutes faster with GFS)
  • Text for geographic maps can now be customized.

And yes, the mesoanalysis maps are now on the money. Andy moved them to a faster server, and they now update regularly and consistently, to the point where I plan to display some of them on my site the way I used to do with the F5 Data RUC maps.

All of the above are in addition to the already existing array of features. A few of these include the following:

  • Over 160 parameters, including ones you just don’t find elsewhere, such as the Stensrud Tornado Risk and isentropic surfaces, and also a good number of proprietary products such as the APRWX Tornado Index, APRWX Severe Index, and APRWX Cap.
  • Current conditions plus five forecast models: GFS (out to 384 hours), NAM, RAP, hourly mesoanalysis, and the newly added NAVGEM.
  • Mesoanalysis integration with radar products via Allisonhouse (already described).
  • A point-and-click CONUS grid of forecast soundings.
  • Zoom capabilities that let you zero in on areas of interest. Activate the display of cities and roads and target selection gets that much easier.
  • National satellite (visible, water vapor, and infrared) and base reflectivity radar composites.
  • Fully customizable map overlays (as discussed above).
  • 14 categories of maps organized for particular purposes, including Severe, Tornado, Hurricane, Cold Core, Winter, Lift, Shear, and Moisture. These are fully customizable, and you can create your own categories if you wish.
  • Watch and warning boxes.

To describe all of the features that F5 Data offers would take too much space and isn’t necessary. You can find out more at the F5 Data website, which includes a whole library of video tutorials on what F5 Data is and how to use it.

Better yet, you can download the software (it’s free) and try it out for yourself with 17 free maps.

If there is any downside to the upgraded F5 Data, it is minor and purely personal. I miss the passing of the historical data feature some months prior to the main upgrade. That feature allowed me to request data for past forecast dates and hours so I could study chase setups from years gone by. I wish I still had that option. However, I understand that it needed to go in order for Andy to move ahead with his changes. The feature was peripheral to the purpose of F5 Data, evidently it didn’t get used much, and it’s a small price to pay for the big improvements to this forecasting resource.

One thing Andy might consider for a future update would be to break down SBCAPE and MLCAPE contours into smaller increments. CAPE is displayed by intervals of 100 from 0–500 J/kg, which is great; but from 500 up to 3,000, it jumps by units of 500 J/kg, and from 3,000 on up it moves 1,000 J/kg at a time. Realistically, these are just overviews of instability, and they’re in keeping with how most other forecast resources display CAPE. If you want to get more granular, you can always check out forecast soundings. Still, it’s an opportunity for F5 Data to provide a somewhat more incremental breakdown similar to that of TwisterData.

With these last two comments dispensed of, I highly recommend to you the new and improved F5 Data. It’s easy to use and flexible as all getout, and it puts a squadron of tools at your disposal, all in one eye-pleasing, zoomable interface. Of course, no one forecasting resource covers all the bases, and that is certainly true of F5 Data. But this is nonetheless a fabulous product that offers some unique advantages. These latest changes, including the addition of NAVGEM, the ability to draw boundaries, and mesoanalysis graphics that update regularly to provide the most current information, have taken an already fine resource and made it dramatically more useful.

Bravo, Andrew Revering! You do great work.

This review, by the way, is unsolicited and unpaid-for. I’ve been a fan of F5 Data and of Andy from the start, and I’m pleased to share my thoughts about the latest iteration of a product I’ve used extensively and benefited from for a good number of years.

 

 

March 24, 2013 by
Filed Under: Reviews, Software & Technology, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , ,
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