MARCH WHIRLWIND EVENTS UK
TN 1530 GMT 1st March Abertillery, Gwent, Wales. The tornado caused over £150,000 worth of damage to a local church and ripped the local Tesco Supermarket roof away as it tracked through the town. This item was brought to our attention by TORRO member Paul Simons. Local enquiries made by TORRO member John Trenchard.
MARCH WHIRLWIND EVENTS EIRE
TN 1630 GMT 9th March. County Westmeath. T2/3 tornado uprooted three trees and travelled up to 1 km.
TN 0300 GMT 10th March. County Westmeath. T3 tornado damages farm house and travels 5 km. Site Investigator John Tyrell.
AN OFFICIAL TORNADO WATCH WAS ISSUED FOR THE UK 7th MARCH . Several thunderstorms were located near the Bristol area later in the day.
AN OFFICIAL TORNADO ADVISORY AND WATCH WAS ISSUED FOR EIRE, N.IRE, SCOTLAND AND W.UK 9-10th MARCH. Later some intense thunderstorms (possible supercells) were showing up on radar for the said period. Eire suffered wide spread blackouts. Reports of two confirmed tornadoes have been established in Eire within this issue period making this watch officially successful.
FORECASTER: meteorologist Paul Knightly.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Not a particularly eventful month with high pressure dominating for much of time. Though in many ways a pleasant spell of mild temperatures and long sunny periods made for a better March than of previous years. Well if we can't have the storms then many would say it was the best alternative. A rather weak succession of low pressure systems made a short visit early in the month but any real weather extremes (excluding 1st) were far and few between. All is not at a loss with spring having the potential for good surface heating and the risk of the odd stray upper trough drifting down from the polar region for late April and May 'could' just set off the first run of decent thunderstorms for 2003.
TORRO would like to thank all those that attended the spring meeting in Oxford on the 22nd March. A big thank you to meteorologist Paul Knightley for his efforts as speaker, having taken the stage three times in an effort to enlighten us all to forecasting and successful storm observation techniques. Many thanks to the directors who gave us all updates on their divisional reporting including Peter van Doorne interesting Ball Lightning accounts. TORRO would also like to thank Scott Sawyer for his effort with re establishing our merchandise. If you are interested in buying sweatshirts, polo shirts, mugs etc (all reasonably priced) please contact Scott scott.sawyer@orange.net for more information. Any money raised will all go toward the TORRO funds which benefits us all in the end.
TORRO member Stuart Robinson has put together an ingenious program for reading the AVN model forecast. Basically it is a user friendly version of what you can get over the web. Stuart has singled out the indices that will help members to make their own observation specifically for identifying the risk for severe weather. http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/plotter/gfs-v2.asp will take you to the program. Stuart has requested that members register initially for usage purposes. Thank you Stuart!
A mention to those of you preparing for your USA storm chase vacations. Hope you all have a safe journey. TORRO would like to see you all return with some good photo's and stories minus any 'Close Shaves'!!
For those of us left back here in the UK still waiting for something that remotely resembles a storm. These quiet times can be facilitated by research on a personal level. It was my birthday last Monday, and after making merry I sent off several party helium balloons. I was quite impressed with my little experiment as I watched my home made Radiosonde change direction several times before speeding off on a low level jet stream just below cloud base. Interesting to see vertical wind shear in action. Well either that or I'm getting desperate!!!
Best Wishes Tony Gilbert (Executive to The Tornado and Storm Research Organisation)