Since I've lived in Oklahoma City my entire life, I'm basically a Certified Honorary Meteorologist. Sure, I've never taken a meteorology class and only recently learned that the "s" in science is silent, but I've watched enough severe weather cut-ins and bootlegs of "Those Terrible Twisters" to know a hook echo from rainbow.
Anyway, the National Weather Service is looking for people like me to stop by the Norman library tonight and share my knowledge about tornadoes. Specifically, they want to know where twisters tend to go, stories I have about them, and how they behave. Feel safe? From the National Weather Service:
Wanted: Local Knowledge about Tornados.
Do you live in Norman and have experience with tornadoes, including thoughts on where they tend to go, and where they don’t? Have you heard stories about tornado paths or behavior in and near Norman?
If so, we’d love to have you at our town hall meeting! Come to the Lowry Room at Norman Public Library on Thursday, September 6 from 7:00 – 8:30pm. Enjoy some refreshments, and come ready to share all of your tornado knowledge!
The town hall is hosted by the University of Oklahoma Department of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, in partnership with the National Weather Service and Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies.
Is anyone else worried by this? The Norman Library already has enough strange single men with ponytails lounging around and reading books about ham radios and medieval armor. Do they really need local storm chasers and weather "experts" there, too? This will be like watching the social-challenged people at PetSmart interact, only worse. Hopefully the British storm chaser from News 9 will be there to liven things up.
Also, I'm not sure what the NWS is looking for here. Isn't unpredictability the one thing that makes a tornado so dangerous and deadly? Sure, we can forecast where tornadoes will likely form, the speed and direction they will move, and be aware that they hate Toby Keith and Air Depot Blvd., but where they touch down and the path they take is usually random. It depends on things like wind, in-flux air flow and Gary England's conscious. Right?
I guess if you're at this thing tonight please send us pictures. We would attend, but we have trivia to host. Plus, we have lives. People with lives don't go to the library on a Thursday night. Except for Marisa. The name of her ska band in high school was Thursday Night Library.
p.s. - Does anyone remember that damn book "Night of Twisters." I found it while googling "twister" and "library." After the "Whipping Boy" and "Where the Sidewalk Ends," it was one of Elementary School Patrick's favorite books.
