Weather Spotting:
Basic Information, Tips & Safety Concerns

The art and craft of weather spotting.

Weather spotting in our context is the gathering of information about significant weather related events and providing that information to the National Weather Service at Gray, Maine in a timely fashion. It is not “storm chasing” in which a team actually closely follows or monitors an approaching thunderstorm or tornado. Both spotting and chasing can be dangerous activities and should not be done without training. Spotter traing is provided by National Weather Service personnel or their designee. Spotters normally stay close to a “home” area and report on events such as high rainfall rates, thunderstorm activity, snowfall during major snow events, high wind events, floods, wild fire or icing events. It is a year round activity. Weather spotters who are licensed ham radio operators may take spotter reports from other hams while operating WX1GYX the amateur radio station at Gray providing valuable assistance to the meteorologists as they prepare storm forecasts.

Weather Spotting:
Advanced Information, Tips & Safety Concerns

Now what the devil is that... or figuring out the Gray forecast discussion.

Pineapple Connection (from the forecast discussion of 5/12/2010 1:57PM EST) "In the meantime...it is picking up limited moisture form the Pacific with a limited Pinapple(sic) Connection...with limited moisture also from the Gulf of Mexico." According to Wikipedia "Pineapple Express (also known as Pineapple Connection) is a non-technical, shorthand term popular in the news media for a meteorological phenomenon which is characterized by a strong and persistent flow of atmospheric moisture and associated heavy rainfall from the waters adjacent to the Hawaiian Islands and extending to any location along the Pacific coast of North America." So I think that Gray meant pineapple, not pinapple. More information at Wikipedia here.

Fujiwara flow or the dance of the cyclones
(from the forecast discussion of 2/5/2010 3:12PM EST) “a weak 500mb closed wave retrogrades se into ern ME as it gets caught briefly in Fujiwara flow on nrn periphery of stronger closed low to our south”.
When two cyclones (low pressure areas, not tornadoes) approach each other, their centers will begin orbiting about a point between the two systems. They will be attracted to each other, and eventually spiral into the center point and merge. When they are of dissimilar size, the larger will tend to dominate, and the smaller will orbit around it. After Wikipedia here.

A little more information on the Rex Block that Jerry mentioned 2/27.
(from the forecast discussion of 2/27/2010 6:27PM EST "although the persistant REX BLOCK that has been in place over the northeastern us and Maritimes will gradually break down" Rex blocks consist of a high situated to the north of a low. Very often both the high and the low are closed, meaning that the isobars (or constant geopotential height lines) defining the high/low close to form a circle. Rex blocks are not so-named because they are considered the "king of blocks" (see Rex), although the depiction of air flow around rex blocks on upper-air charts often resembles the mouth of a tyrannosaurus rex. Rather they were named after the meteorologist who first identified them (Daniel Ferrell Rex). After Wikipedia here.