• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

No tornadoes this spring in tornado alley (1 Viewer)

buckskin hawk

Oklahoma Birder
The tornado siren hasn't even gone off once this spring which is highly unusual for us. The storms come from the SW and can blow in some pretty unusual sightings on the following morning. You can find receipts and cancelled checks from banks in Oklahoma City, etc and western birds as well.

We had, yesterday morning, a small storm with straight winds of only 40 to 50 and it blew in a pair of Western Kingbirds to the pasture behind my house. It was my first western bird in my local patch. Never thought I would look forward to a good storm! But no tornadoes please!
 
Finally heard the tornado sirens go off last night. Yes that is right the first time was in JULY! We had a front with straight winds of between 65 to 100 miles per hour move through at about 1:30 this morning. They usually don't sound the sirens for straight winds but I guess they thought it was worth it. The local weatherman indicated that he thought it might be a malfunction or maybe they were just being extra careful.

Since it came in from the west I can't wait to see what "blew" into my neighborhood. It is still raining and windy now and the Carolina wren isn't even singing yet so I'll wait until later.
 
buckskin hawk said:
They usually don't sound the sirens for straight winds but I guess they thought it was worth it. The local weatherman indicated that he thought it might be a malfunction or maybe they were just being extra careful.

Could you please explain what 'straight winds' are?? I've never heard that term before.
 
We refer to the gust of wind that preceeds a line of storms as the straight winds(comes from one direction)- as opposed to the twisting winds (tornado) that sometimes occurs with these front lines inside a wall cloud. This particular straight wind was quite strong for us. They clocked some wind speeds of 90 MPH in Ponca City, Oklahoma but by the time it reached us it was only about 40-thank goodness (my roofing comes off at around 100 MPH). The normal tornado season starts in March and ends in mid June. I can't remember a year without a siren going off and this year it didn't happen until ---JULY 3--really weird!

More on tornados if anyone is interested. http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#The Basics

Yes they do produce some odd sightings as I am sure hurricanes do. Yesterday it was a Juvenile Lark Sparrow in my neighbor's yard of all places. I found about the same to less activity in the pecan grove. I think sometimes after a storm you have to wait until they dry out before they become active again. It makes sense that you won't want to sing and broadcast your location until your feathers were dry and you had all your flight capabilities back again.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 19 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top