Tornado 2007?

I trust we're all getting ready for the up coming 2007 Tornado Season? Right?

chiphead

This is a man after my own heart. Check out his storm chaser vehicle and its interior!

As a mater of fact, we're having our annual SKYWARN class on the 26th of this month! Class is taught by the National Weather Service.

What type of gear do the more serious "chasers" put into their chase vehicles? Some real neat-looking stuff but I haven't the faintest idea of what it all is.

After seeing the movie "Twister" I'm pretty sure all the kids like me at the time wanted to buy a big Dodge truck and go chase storms for the betterment of mankind hahaha...

Skywarn spotters are usually HAM radio operators and use HAM repeater systems to talk on (2m or 440) Most serious spotters usually have a GPS APRS equiped system in their cars...shows my location and the location of OTHER APRS equipted spotters.

Skywarn spotters work with the National Weather Service (NWS) and don't actually "chase" storms...we usually get into the teeth of the storm and report what we see in the storm back to the NWS.

Actual storm chasers try to stay OUT of the storms so they can get pictures of the storms.

Yeah, I'm excited for this season. Hope we get some good storms. I'm hoping to get some new equipment by then, all I have now is a hand held HT with 50/144/220/440mhz. I used to have a dodge neon with a two meter mobile, 144/440mhz ht, scanner, cb, motorola two way and TV with mobile antenna for viewing Radar. Since all my stuff was stolen several years ago, I'm hoping to get a new 2 meter mobile and an Inspeed Vortex Anemometer. I haven't been storm spotting for a few years now but I'm excited to get back into it. I used to belong to the Mid Iowa Skywarn Association but since I moved to Eastern Iowa, I now belong to the Linn County ARES. I wish we had some skywarn repeaters around this area. No repeaters are linked so we can only call into the local repeater. The Mid Iowa Skywarn Association has the central 51 counties in Iowa linked together so you can go pretty much anywhere in central iowa and talk back to the National Weather Service in Des Moines via 2 meter radio. Pretty cool.

scott.cr, your linkies no workie..

I dunno about being ready, though, you guys.. this is the first time in my entire life that I've lived in a home without a basement..

Actually, this thread has launched a new mini-hobby for me... drooling over other people's storm chasing vehicles and gear that I find online hahaha.

I also JUST moved into a new house and it doesn't have a basement... but I live in California where we have comparatively gentle weather. So, no storm chasing for me unless I want to spend a lot of time in TX/OK areas. (Not that I don't "want" to, it's the 9-to-5 that doesn't want me to.)