Was visiting the CNN website this morning and stumbled across an article about the top 10 nightlife cities from across the world. These cities were rated on a scale from 1-10 on the quality of the clubs and pubs, their hours, the music, the price of drinks, and other criteria.
Some might say the list was a little on the predictable side, with well-known and established nightlife hotspots such as London, Bangkok, and Vegas making the list. Others find it a little hard to disagree with this list since these cities have decades-old reputations as being the "party central" of their country.
What do you guys think? Are you as fond of these cities as the author is for partying hard all night? Or are there other cities you think are better choices (i.e. Seoul, New Orleans, Shanghai, etc.) that should've made the list?
The article can be found here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/22/travel/best-nightlife-cities/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
Archive for September 2014
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CNN Article: The World's Best Nightlife Cities
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The Space Invaders Alien in Street Art
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| A "Space Invader" mosaic created by the French artist Invader in Shoreditch, London, UK circa July 2007. (Edward Betts/Wikimedia Commons) |
Outside mainstream media and merchandise, there has been one part of pop culture the Space Invaders alien has invaded in particular and that is the world of urban art. Its minimalistic yet iconic appearance have made it a somewhat common catch in street graffiti or in urban artwork over the past several decades. Since it's also one of the great video game icons, its place in "geekdom" and "geek art" is also cemented.
Here's a look at some of the artists who have brought the alien from the acrade game screen to the streets:
1.) Invader's Mosaics. In cities across the world, mosaics of Space Invaders (and characters from other 1970s-1980s 8-bit arcade/video games) have popped up on the sides of buildings. These mosaics have been created by the mysterious French urban artist Invader.
Like his fellow urban artist Banksy, Invader's true identity is unknown, but he has built up a fan following worldwide. His mosaics of Space Invaders, Pacman ghosts, Mario and Luigi, and other video game characters - as well as reinterpretations of notorious historical figures and famous works of art - have become highly-acclaimed works of art.
Invader's SI alien mosaics have popped up in cities such as London (see above) and Manchester, UK, Paris, Monaco, Rome, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, and many other cities around the world. As a matter of fact, his first ever mosaic was an alien mosaic which turned up in a Parisian alley in 1998 when he "activated" his first "Space Invaders program"!
Since then, he has made over 1,000 other mosaics, with his largest "invasion" being in Hong Kong, where he has created over 70 mosaics since 2000. In July 2011, he organized a show of his works in Paris titled "Invader 1000" which featured hundreds of his works. Many of these were Space Invader-themed. In fact, one wall was completely filled with SI alien tiles!
To many, these mosaics - and most other forms of street art for that matter - are an eyesore. To others, they are cute and liven up an otherwise dull street corner or apartment building. And to hardcore fans of the game, waking up one morning and finding one of these mosaics hanging on the side of their building would be a Godsend!
2.) P183's Moscow Mosaic. One day in April 2012, police in Moscow, Russia were alarmed when a mysterious Space Invader mosaic turned up under a bridge at an industrial park in the city. The sculpture shot lasers at cars passing by, which gave the police even more cause for concern given the past history of terrorist attacks in the city. The area was cordoned off and the bomb squad was called in.
As it turned out, the mosaic was placed there by the anonymous street artist P183, who is Russia's equivalent of Invader or Banksy. The mosaic was placed there as part of his "Traffic Jam Blaster" project. The lasers being emitted from the mosaic were bouncing off cars just like the laser cannons in the game and no harm whatsoever was intended.
3.) 3D Street Art Project. This year, an amazing street project by famed chalk artist Leon Keer was launched in Lausanne, Switzerland. This project was devoted to none other than Space Invaders!
The exhibit featured a girl in a pit playing the game while being hoisted by a crane. The aliens seems to be descending through the air onto the sidewalk below.
It's worth mentioning that this exhibit came several years after Invader came to town and peppered Lausanne with Space Invader mosaics!
4.) Statues and Sculptures. Some residents of a neighborhood in Los Angeles will never forget the morning they woke up and found an army of Space Invaders in their street! Actually this alien army was a series of wooden sculptures created by artist Jason Torchinsky for the IndieCade festival for independent games held in LA in October of 2011.
These giant aliens were 12 feet (3.6 meters) tall and 8 feet (2.43 meters) wide. As you can probably guess by looking at pics of them, the original alien pixels from the game were used as a template.
Oh, and since the game's release in 1978, many other artistic game fans have tried making their own alien statues and sculptures. Some of these aliens have been spotted in living rooms, gardens, and in art exhibits all around the world!
5.) The Space Invaders of Varanasi. In the city of Varanasi in India's Uttar Pradesh province, graffiti art - as well as a mosaic or two - of the Space Invaders alien can be found on buildings across the city. Who the mystery artist is behind these drawings noone knows for sure, but s/he is widely speculated to be Invader. He has mentioned visiting Varanasi in the past. However, according to themissadventures.com, as of late 2009 he had made no mention of leaving his "calling cards" there. So could it be a local artist who sprayed these aliens onto the wall? Or a foreign artist or tourist who wanted to be the next Invader or Banksy? Who knows.
6.) Snow Sculptures. While it's not exactly street art, this does qualify as "geek art"! In 2008, a large snow sculpture of a Space Invader turned up at that year's Sapporo Snow Festival in Hokkaido, Japan on the eve of the game's 30th anniversary. This snow sculpture was a powerful testament to how much SI has infiltrated not only pop culture, but mainstream art culture as well.
And finally......
7.) Anonymous artists. As mentioned above, the Space Invader has been depicted in all kinds of art forms over the past several decades by artists around the world. Many of these works of art have only gotten marginal attention. Others, such as the "Obey" mosaic based on Shepard Fairey's famous Andre the Giant Has a Posse painting, have become Internet hits. And others graffiti paintings are nowhere near as famous as the works of street artists such as Invader, but are without a doubt seen by hundreds of passers-by everyday on the sides of buildings, walls, and other public buildings. There's no telling how many countless Space Invaders have been painted over by the building owners or have just faded away to the elements over the decades.....
The Space Invader has become a pop icon and a symbol of urban art over the nearly four decades since the first Space Invaders arcade machine was unveiled to the world. In what other art forms will this invader from another world manifest itself? And will a Space Invader come to a neighborhood near you? We'll just have to wait and see!
If you want to read more about these "alien sightings", here are some more links for you:
-http://makezine.com/2011/10/07/how-to-build-giant-space-invaders-as-public-art/ (Interview with Jason Torchinsky about his Space Invaders statues.)
-http://www.blastr.com/2012/04/russians_mistake_street_a.php (Article about P183's Moscow mosaic.)
-http://www.tentimesone.com/space-invaders-found-in-varanasi/ (A blog entry about the Space Invaders of Varanasi. Includes plenty of pics!)
-https://www.facebook.com/spaceinvadersintheworld (A FB group dedicated to sightings of Space Invaders mosaics around the world.)
(LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The Space Invaders game is a copyright of the Taito Corporation and Square Enix Holdings Co, Ltd. Neither this blog or the blog post are in any way associated with or endorsed by either of these two entities.)
Late Night TV Report, Sept. 22nd, 2014
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Another new feature I'd like to introduce to this blog is the "Late Night TV Report". Every once in a while, I'll write a little about what's new on late-night TV around the world. I'll discuss new shows, interesting bits of info from around the globe, and much more. So without further adieu, here's my first Late Night TV Report:
Well, it's official. At the time of this writing, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are dominating the late night prime-time TV here in the US. According to some articles published last week, both Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon are now the #1 late night variety shows airing on prime-time US television. And furthermore, Fallon is earning more than two of the previous TV hosts, David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel, combined! Will they keep up the momentum during this season? We shall see!
While it's not necessarily late-night TV, one highly popular TV show is being moved to a time slot that could be considered late for a show of its caliber. In the UK, the classic sci-fi TV show Dr. Who was moved to a fairly late Saturday night time slot for the first time in its 51 year history. This move was made by the BBC in order to accomodate the hit show Strictly Come Dancing on Wednesday evenings. Those in the UK who want to see the latest adventures of the Doctor will now have to tune in at 8:30 pm on Saturday evenings. This new time slot could be problematic for young people, who are either out partying on Sat. nights or who will have to hit the bed by the time the show wraps up at 9:15 pm! Once upon a time back in the 1970s-1990s, we Dr. Who fans here in the US had no choice but to watch old reruns of the show on Saturday nights via our local PBS affiliates. Maybe UK fans can now find out why so many diehard American Dr.Who fans spent so many Saturday nights sitting at home???:-D
In India, TV viewers have defintiely been complaining about the 11 pm time slot for the hit Star TV soap opera Yeh Hai Mohabbatein. As a result, the execs are also airing it at 7:30 in place of the former hit soap Saraswatichandra, which has fallen in ratings in recent months. Now prime time TV viewers as well as night owls can enjoy this soap that's becoming a hit show in India!
Finally, outspoken Irish TV personality Kate Hopkins is making a comeback to the Late Late Show, which airs late Friday night on Irish national broadcaster RTE. Only this time around, she's coming back with a little extra weight deliberately gained for the show.
Ok, so that's it for this edition of the Late Night TV Report! This first edition is not the best, but it's my hope that future Late Night TV Reports will get better and better over time!
Midnight Movie Review: Embassy (1972)
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Well gang, as of today I'm going to start something new on this blog. I want to start reviewing movies that are perfect for watching on a sleepless night, and I want to focus on some of the more obscure movies in particular. There are plenty of articles and blog posts out there that list quintessential midnight classics such as Night of the Living Dead, Rocky Horror Picture Show, etc. While those lists are good to check out for a good movie to watch and I may blog a little about the more well-known movies from time to time, I'll stick with the obscure and (mostly) B-rated movies for my Midnight Movie Reviews.
The first movie I'm going to review is the 1972 movie Embassy starring Richard Roundtree (of Shaft fame), Max von Sydow, Ray Milland, Broderick Crawford, and The Rifleman himself, Chuck Connors. Von Sydow plays Gorenko, a diplomat working in the Soviet Ministry of Defence who possesses some highly-classified knowledge of Soviet defenses along the Chinese border. His son has just been arrested by the KGB and shipped off to the gulag. As a result, Gorenko decides to defect to the US vis a vis the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Connors plays "Col. Kesten", a psycopathic KGB killer who infiltrates the embassy disguised as a US Air Force colonel to take out Gorenko. Roundtree is Dick Shannon, the young peacenik US diplomat working on Gorenko's case who is disillusioned with the state of US foreign policy in South Vietnam and elsewhere in the world. Milland is the steely US ambassador who is highly skeptical of Gorenko's claims and would rather wash his hands of the whole affair. All are working overtime in the midst of anti-US protests in Beirut and protesters have surrounded the embassy.
When word comes back from Washington that Gorenko is the real-deal, the Ambassdor, Shannon, and Dunniger (Crawford) must work together to protect Gorenko from the KGB and do whatever it takes to ship him out of Lebanon and straight to the US. But getting him past the cordon of anti-American protesters and back to the airport safely plus protecting him from the wrath of Kesten is going to be a major challenge.
Ok, I'll admit it. As far as espionage or political thrillers go, Embassy is a little on the talkative side. However, it has a lot of elements that other thrillers in these two genres just don't have. For one, Embassy was filmed in a real-life global hotspot that would become of importance to US foreign policy in another few years up the road. Also, it has a storyline that is a lot more realistic than what you'll find in a James Bond movie or maybe even in an episode of 24. Finally, it has a funky theme song performed by Carl Douglas, the man who gave us the hit song Kung-Fu Fighting several years later! Also in this movie, Richard Roundtree - who had just had a big hit in the US with the first Shaft movie - gets to transfer some of Shaft's finesse and coolness to this one. Von Sydow is highly convincing in the role of Gorenko and plays the role of the scared diplomat very well.
Ultimately, the most memorable performance in this movie has to be Chuck Connors'. He is brilliant as the psycopathic KGB assassin who goes bezerk on the embassy personnel and has his mind on one objective: killing Gorenko!
All in all, if you don't mind the talking and like a spy or political thriller that's more realistic than most, Embassy might be a movie you'll want to watch sometime!
Also known as: Target: Embassy (alternate English title), El caso Gorenko (Spain), Baraka à Beyrouth (France), Shannon - armoton agentti (Finland), Shannon (Italy), Der Killer in der Botschaft (West Germany)
The Neon Lipton Tea Sign of Stockholm
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| The Lipton's Tea sign that adorned Stockholm's Stureplan square for decades. This pic was taken when it was built in 1960. (Ruben Morne/Wikimedia Commons) |
Also as many of you already know, many of these neon signs have stood in their location for decades and have become famous historical landmarks in their own right. One famous neon sign I never heard of until this morning is the famous Lipton (or as it was called in the sign, 'Lipton's') Tea sign that once illuminated the night sky in Stockholm, Sweden.
From 1960 until sometime in the late 1980s, the Lipton's Tea sign stood in Stockholm's Stureplan square, which is its equivalent of New York City's Times Square. Passers-by who went past Kungsgatan and, later on after a relocation of the sign, Norrslandgatan, could see this brilliant sign beckoning them to have a cup of Lipton Tea. The clock was an actual moving clock that told the time and the slogan "alltid tid för Lipton's té", which translates to "Always Time For Lipton's Tea" in English, said it all!
This sign was designed and constructed by Graham Neon, which was a subsidiary of the Graham Bros. elevator firm.
Sadly enough, most of the neon signs that adorned Stureplan were torn down during the late 1980s when the square underwent renovation. The Lipton's Tea sign was one of them. And thus the giant multi-colored tea kettle that became a city icon was no more.....
Just like its cousins the Bond Clothing Co. sign that once hung over Times Square and the Glico Man that still hangs in Osaka, Japan, the Lipton's Tea neon sign was a Stockholm icon and was literally a sign of its time. Even though it hangs in Stureplan no more, it gave a lot of people some very warm memories and still keeps on pouring cups of tea in the hearts of those lucky people.
References:
-http://www.avblixten.info/e/esnas31sap751uzx.html (Swedish language article about the signs of Stockholm.)
-http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipton%27s_t%C3%A9 (Swedish Wikipedia entry about the Lipton Tea sign.)
Lessons Learned From '90s Sci-Fi Movies
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Graffiti
painting of an alien on a wall in Vittoria, Spain.
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Another quintessential '90s movie I watched not long ago was the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day. While watching ID4, I
couldn't help but think about all the different cliches, characters,
storylines and plot devices that were used not only in this movie,
but pretty much all '90s sci-fi movies in general. In ID4, you have
the GenX-ers out to save the world, the shadowy military and
government officials overseeing massive cover-ups and keeping them
secret even from their Commander-in-Chief, the West
Wing-style White House official torn between duty and family, the
jocular fighter pilot out to make the aliens wish they'd never heard
of planet Earth, and of course, the aliens themselves in all their
shiny FX glory.
And
with these cliches and characters come lessons to be learned for
Life. "What are some of these lessons," you ask? Here are
ten lessons that can be learned from these movies:
1.)
Cyberpunks rule! No matter if they're the sexy badass
futuristic girl like Lori Petty's Tank Girl or the
disease-stricken and hardwired cyberpunks in the 1997 sci-fi
hit Johnny Mnemonic starring Keanu Reeves, you can
always count on a cyberpunk to stick it to some future totalitarian
ruler. Or to hack into supercomputers that are powered by an organic
brain. Or to help stave off some deadly worldwide plague as in JM.
Despite their freaky, gothic outward appearance, most cyberpunks are
extremely intelligent, have a good heart and are the future of the
world. So please, give cyberpunks a chance!
2.)
Always beware of Big Brother. No matter if it's government
officials in our own age hiding top-secret codes in crossword puzzles
as in 1997's Mercury Rising, an authoritarian government running a futuristic post-apocalyptic state in the 1995 movie Judge Dredd, shadowy government agents viciously
guarding secret government programs from Mel Gibson in Conspiracy
Theory, or an alien race secretly hotwiring all of humankind in the Matrix
trilogy, you've always gotta look over your shoulder. You never know who those creepy, paranoid military guys in the movies are or what they're going to
do next...
3.)
Always take your laptop with you. You just never know when
you'll need it to hack into some highly-advanced alien computer
system, as Jeff Goldblum did in ID4, or to protect yourself from big
bad government hitmen as Sandra Bullock did in The Net.
Of course, if you're a character in '90s movies, you have this magic
ability to get online via a dial-up connection when no telephone cord
is anywhere in sight.....
4.)
Always beware of aliens in disguise. That guy in line behind
you at Starbucks or the gal sitting in the doctor's office just might
be an ugly alien disguised as a human. Just ask Will Smith or Tommy
Lee Jones aka Men in Black's Agents J and K. Or
Charlie Sheen in The Arrival.
5.)
Be compassionate toward cyborgs. Let's face it: some cyborgs
are good, while others are not so good. Some cyborgs, like Luc
Deveraux/GR44 (Jean-Claude Van Damme) in 1992's Universal
Soldier or RoboCop, are really good guys who are loveable at
heart and may even still have some humanity underneath all the
cybernetic technology. Others, like Andrew Scott/GR13 (Dolph
Lundgren) in US, are complete psychopaths who you'll want to steer
clear of at all costs. And sometimes, even whole species of cyborgs
such as the Borg in the various Star Trek TV series and movies deserve a
certain amount of pity and compassion every once in a while. Even if they did turn Jean-Luc Picard into a Borg!
No
matter how many times they try to turn the human race into their own
kind or cause widespread destruction, always remember this: It's not
really their fault. They were just born that way or they were
programmed that way by some evil government scientists in experiments
gone awry.
6.)
If you want to be a bad guy in a movie, take shooting
courses. It seems like in all sci-fi and action movies, the
bad guys can never shoot straight. That goes for not just movies made
in the '90s, but also virtually any movies made before and since
then.
7.)
Learn some martial arts and basic diving skills. That way,
even if you're just a college kid working in the science lab or a
secret agent who has had her/his memory erased (i.e. Douglas Quaid
in Total Recall), you can still have the magic ability to
whup all the bad guys when they come storming in with pure black-belt moves and swim away from the subsequent shootout, dodging all the bullets zinging past you as you somehow
manage to keep your eyes open underwater.
8.)
Generation X and Generation Y, baby! No matter if it's a bunch of
young geeky computer hackers bringing down some Cold War-era
government conspiracy or saving the world from aliens as in ID4, the
future of the world was upon the shoulders of GenX/Y - and our
advanced cyber-skills, inclination toward the grunge/goth subculture
of the time, and open-mindedness in general.
9.)
The greatest movie hacker of the '90s was Angelina Jolie in
1996's Hackers. Enough said.
And
finally, the 10th life lesson to be learned from '90s sci-fi movies
is this:
10.)
If you're facing a worldwide crisis of cataclysmic proportions, Keanu
Reeves is the man to save the day. No matter if it's a
government conspiracy that's been uncovered on the Internet, aliens
plotting to take over Earth, (movie) terrorists causing chaos, or an
uber-cool GenXer is needed to have their mind wired into some kind of
advanced computer, Keanu Reeves is your man. He played all of these
roles throughout the '90s (and well into the '00s) and defined the
GenXer cyber-geek movie character in the process. To this day,
whenever a young dude saving the world becomes a topic of
conversation, it's hard not to think of him as Neo in The
Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, or Klaatu in the remake of The
Day the Earth Stood Still.
If
you can think of any other life lessons to be learned from these '90s
classics or if you just want to share your favorites, feel free to
drop a line below! Oh, and please remember that this list was written
in the spirit of good, tongue-in-cheek fun. I'm just as much of a fan
of these movies as everyone else is and watch them very regularly!
Alien
graffiti image copyright: Zarateman.
Used via Wikimedia Commons.
A Short, Informal History of Tornado Warnings in the USA
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A
scene from the March 25th, 1948 tornado which devastated Tinker AFB in
Oklahoma, USA. The first tornado warning ever issued warned of
this particular tornado. (USAF/Wikimedia Commons)
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First off, I'd like to apologize for not posting on this blog over the past few months. Believe me when I say that I've wanted to post new and interesting stuff since February, but Life gets in the way sometimes. Now that I have more free time, I'll be sure to start posting here again! Anyway, now that that's out of the way, time to get started on today's post......
While watching the 1996 blockbuster movie Twister recently, I couldn't help but notice what is supposed to be a tornado warning from 1969 (which, according to IMDB, might in fact actually be a 1970s-era warning from Tulsa TV station KWTV) airing on the TV in the background while the young Jo Harding (Helen Hunt's character in the film) and her family were taking shelter from the monster F5 tornado headed straight for their house. This led me to wonder: What were the early TV and radio tornado warnings like here in the USA? How accurate were they? And how far have tornado warnings come over the past few decades?
While watching the 1996 blockbuster movie Twister recently, I couldn't help but notice what is supposed to be a tornado warning from 1969 (which, according to IMDB, might in fact actually be a 1970s-era warning from Tulsa TV station KWTV) airing on the TV in the background while the young Jo Harding (Helen Hunt's character in the film) and her family were taking shelter from the monster F5 tornado headed straight for their house. This led me to wonder: What were the early TV and radio tornado warnings like here in the USA? How accurate were they? And how far have tornado warnings come over the past few decades?
The
first official tornado warning issued in the USA was issued by USAF
meteorologists Capt. Robert C. Miller and Maj. Ernest Fawbush on
March 25th, 1948, as a massive tornado barreled down on Tinker AFB in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This warning, which was actually a "tornado
forecast" rather than the standard warnings we know today, was
issued five days after the second-most destructive tornado in
Oklahoma state history hit the base and destroyed a large number of
aircraft. During the few day's interlude between the two tornadoes,
USAF investigators determined that weather forecasting at the time
was inadequate for predicting tornadoes and most importantly, for
saving lives. A new warning system had to be devised and implemented
to protect lives of personnel and equipment at the base and most
importantly of all, to help protect the general public.
Also
during this interlude, Miller and Fawbush analyzed the skies,
gathering data from the surface and upper-air to predict whether
conditions might be similar to those on March 20th. By March 24th,
they had identified a number of factors that could predict possible
tornadic activity.
On
the morning of March 25th, their observations paid off. All weather
conditions were favorable for a possible tornado. Alerts were issued
across the base and on the radio about "thunderstorm activity"
that day and, thanks to what was at the time state of the art radar
monitoring, a squall line of thunderstorms was sighted and base
personnel and equipment were moved to bomb shelters. That evening, a
tornado touched down on the base and caused a considerable amount of
damage. Fortunately there were no deaths reported.
Miller
and Fawbush would continue to monitor and predict tornadic activity
over the next several years and their guidelines for storm
predictions became known as the Lifted Index. The Lifted Index would set the standards for tornado prediction for the next several decades to come. However, the Lifted
Index - and the alerts they devised - remained a secret limited to
personnel at Tinker AFB. A warning system for the public had yet to
be devised, mainly because the Weather Bureau (forerunner to NOAA's
National Weather Service) didn't want to cause a panic by issuing
tornado alerts or ordering Civil Defense to sound the air raid sirens. Needless to say, at that time the technology for storm predictions was still in
its infancy.
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| A radar image showing a tornado-producing supercell on May 6th, 1965. This type of radar image was a typical image from the early days of tornado observation and weather forecasting. |
However, issuing an accurate alert would be challenging. The technology we use today just wasn't in existence or was mature enough to accurately predict severe weather in the early 1950s. At that time, weather data was gathered mainly by releasing weather balloons into the atmosphere that contained radio sensors which reported back to the Weather Bureau information about temperature, atmospheric conditions, humidity, and other basic data. Storm systems were tracked manually using a tracking map with penciled triangles which identified a potentially severe system.
The very first televised warning was issued by WKY-TV's (now Oklahoma City's NBC affiliate KFOR) chief meteorologist Harry Volkman, who believed that broadcast warnings desperately needed to be issued over TV and radio to warn the public of severe weather. This warning was an unauthorized rebroadcast of a warning issued by Tinker AFB about a tornado that was headed straight for OKC. After broadcasting the warning (with the blessings of station management), WKY received letters of thanks from people all over the area for giving them a heads-up of the impending tornado and saving their lives. WKY remained at the forefront of storm forecasting in OK throughout the 1950s with their own radar forecasts, which a great deal of TV stations in OK - or anywhere else in the US for that matter - just didn't have at the time.
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| An antenna for the WSR-57, the NWS's first weather surveillance radar. |
Throughout the rest of the 1950s and 1960s, the weather radars we know and rely on for predicting tornadic activity began to emerge. Throughout the 1950s, the Weather Bureau began deploying radar systems for detecting severe storms. These radar systems - combined with aircraft observations - could instantly report back any storm systems with the potential for tornadic activity. However, unlike the radars of today which gather detailed information about a weather system, they were World War II-era military radars which only detected a wispy cloud and other basic shapes that indicated a tornado was on the way. They were incapable of reporting detailed information about a storm system like the radars of today.
The 1960s was the decade when the media's severe weather alert system as we now know it began to take shape. According to sources who worked in broadcasting during the period, TV and radio stations continued to issue simple "tornado alerts" during the early 1960s, but after the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak in 1965, TV stations began issuing tornado watches in addition to warnings which alert when conditions are favorable for tornadic activity. During the '60s, the evolving radar technology and aerial observations made it possible to give more accurate, up-to-the-minute severe weather alerts. However, the radar images of the 1960s and 1970s were still being mainly gathered by radars located at remote observation stations rather than at the TV and radio stations themselves. The majority of broadcasters had to rely on images and information passed on by these radar stations to relay storm warnings to the public. Satellite images from the TIROS VIII satellite orbiting the earth helped forecasters gain a better idea of how bad a storm system really looked.
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| The NSSL's first research Doppler radar circa 1973. |
The ways weather information was relayed to the public - and most importantly of all, tornado research - kept evolving through the 1970s. It was during this decade that TV stations across the US began displaying icon/text alerts about storm watches and warnings during normal TV programming. Also in the '70s, NOAA started introducing to the public (or at least 44% of the American public) their weather radios which broadcast daily weather forecasts and storm warnings from the newly-rechristened National Weather Service on special weather radio receivers. Beginning in 1973, the Fujita scale developed by Tetsuya Fujita and Allan Pearson could measure the size and strength of a tornado. Most significant of all was the advent of Doppler radar technology in weather forecasting. After the NSSL received its first Doppler radar from the US Air Force in 1969, NOAA gradually began establishing its network of Doppler radars across the US. This gave meteorologists all kinds of new insights on the birth and death of tornadoes as well as the storm systems which spawn them. Of course it also revolutionized weather forecasting for TV and radio meteorologists. This revolution and evolution of radar technology continues to the present day.
The deadliest outbreak of tornadoes in the US is without a doubt the Super Outbreak of April 3-4,1974 , which spawned 148 tornadoes over an 18 hour period across 13 states. These tornadoes killed 319 people and wounded over 5,000. During this outbreak, TV and radio stations such as WHAS in Louisville, KY and Dayton, OH's WHIO interrupted the day's normal programming to provide live coverage of these tornadoes and their aftermath, as well as tornado watches and warnings as they were issued by the NWS. Reporters went live in tornado-stricken areas of Kentucky and Ohio showing live reports of the storms' aftermath. The Super Outbreak demonstrated the power of mass media to provide real-time information and warnings about a weather disaster to the public.
In 1980, a new TV channel emerged on American cable TV that has revolutionized weather forecasting up to the present day: The Weather Channel. Through this TV channel, local weather forecasts could be displayed 24 hours a day and severe weather warnings could be broadcast instantaneously through a national feed. The channel has come a long way over the past 34 years, but it - and the other weather channels that have popped up since then - are still relied upon by millions of American TV viewers for the latest weather information, especially when the weather is just right for tornadic activity. During the 1980s and 1990s, TWC also became a vital source of weather info for another group of people discussed below: Storm chasers.
In 1980, a new TV channel emerged on American cable TV that has revolutionized weather forecasting up to the present day: The Weather Channel. Through this TV channel, local weather forecasts could be displayed 24 hours a day and severe weather warnings could be broadcast instantaneously through a national feed. The channel has come a long way over the past 34 years, but it - and the other weather channels that have popped up since then - are still relied upon by millions of American TV viewers for the latest weather information, especially when the weather is just right for tornadic activity. During the 1980s and 1990s, TWC also became a vital source of weather info for another group of people discussed below: Storm chasers.
One relatively new medium of the '80s that exploded in popularity across the US was satellite TV. SatTV allowed people to receive TV service from space without the shortcomings of over the air (OTA) antenna TV reception or cable TV. It quickly became a Godsend for many people living in extreme rural areas of the US who could not get cable TV service due to geographical limitations and were out of range of traditional OTA broadcasts. Thanks to satellite TV, receiving tornado warnings from nearby TV stations or The Weather Channel started becoming a lot easier for some of these people.
During the 1990s, weather forecasting started reaching new horizons thanks to a number of different factors. One of these big factors was the advent of the Internet. With the Internet, tornado warnings could be delivered in an instant through websites and e-mail, reaching people who may not have their TVs or radios on. Also with the emergence of the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) into the Emergency Alert System (EAS) in 1997/98, tornado warnings could now be delivered over electronic devices such as pagers and fax machines.
The 1990s is also the decade when advanced S-band Doppler radars, or Nexrad radars, became the norm for weather broadcasters. Most TV stations started using Nexrad during this time to accurately pinpoint the location of a storm system capable of producing tornadoes and where a tornado might strike, giving viewers advanced warning so they could run for a shelter well in advance. Unlike the older generations of radars, Nexrad radars are also capable of measuring windspeed, precipitation, and atmospheric activity.
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| A member of NSSL's Vortex project filming a possibly tornadic storm in Graham, TX in 1994. |
The Internet revolution of the '90s continued through the 2000s and with it the mediums through which weather forecasters issued weather alerts. When social media such as Facebook and Twitter started to explode in popularity, broadcast stations and TV networks were quick to seize the opportunity to reach more viewers and quickly alert anyone who signed up to their Facebook group or Twitter account of any impending storm activity. Likewise, anyone signed up to these groups could post pictures of tornado damage or of the tornadoes themselves.
The power of social media sites was fully demonstrated on May 22nd, 2011 when a super-tornado devastated Joplin, Missouri. Within a matter of hours after the tornado struck, pages such as Joplin Tornado Info and Joplin, MO Tornado Recovery were created that relayed weather info, special statmements from state and disaster officials, and helped pass on information about missing relatives to family members. In the weeks and months after the disaster, these sites and others helped organize efforts to rebuild Joplin and reunited missing pets with their families. At the time of this writing, those Facebook pages are still in existence and are still helping to organize efforts to rebuild what still remains to be rebuilt in the city. Also, they are returning the favors to other communities (esp. in the Joplin/Kansas City area) that have been hit by tornadoes or other weather disasters by passing on severe storm warnings and helping them rebuild after a tornado strikes.
One group of people who have saved countless lives and helped meteorologists track storms are the volunteer storm spotters of networks such as Skywarn in the US and Canwarn in Canada. These folks have contributed their time and hard work over the past few decades to provide valuable information about weather conditions and anomalies in their particular locations that just might be missed by radar and satellites, such as funnel clouds, lightning strikes, and rotating wall clouds that can produce tornadoes. Much of this information has helped meteorologists issue warning predictions for a particular town or community.
The way meteorologists alert the public has definitely come a long way from the days of the 1950s "tornado alerts" and we now have more ways than ever to stay safe from these deadly vortexes. But what will be the next big breakthrough in weather forecasting and mass communication that will keeps us better informed of tornado watches and warnings? We'll just have to wait and see.
*Please note that I'm not a meteorology expert. I'm just a blogger with a strong interest in this subject! If you note any mistakes in this blog entry or have any personal memories about this period you'd like to share, please share them with us in the Comment section below. Any reminiscences about weather forecasting or broadcasting in general back in the day would be greatly appreciated!
External
Links:
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_warning (Wikipedia
entry on tornado warnings.)
-http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/magazine/tornado_forecasting/#intro (NOAA's
200-year anniversary site on the history of tornado forecasting.)
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFOR-TV (KFOR-TV
Wikipedia entry.)
-http://www.retrometrookc.org/wky-tv-collection (History
of WKY in the 1950s and 60s.)-http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/about/history/ (The history of the National Severe Storms Laboratory [NSSL] from NOAA.)
-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkWmNamVS2Q (A rare clip of WHIO's coverage of the massive tornado which struck Xenia, OH on April 3rd, 1974. Features the late, renowned WHIO meteorologist Gil Whitney. This seems to be one of the few clips available of live tornado warnings or radar coverage from that day. The studio part of this clip is apparently a remake made for a documentary about the Super Outbreak of '74 some four years later.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31tornado.html?pagewanted=all (A very interesting article from the New York Times about the history of severe weather prediction from the 1950s up to the Joplin super-tornado of 2011....and how much progress has yet to be made in the area of predicting severe weather.)
http://www.ustornadoes.com/2013/04/03/looking-back-at-the-april-3-4-1974-super-outbreak/ (An interesting discussion about the Super Outbreak of 1974 on the United States Tornadoes website. Includes comments from people who worked in the broadcast and weather forecasting industry at the time.)
(All images are public domain images used courtesy of NOAA and the NOAA Photo Library via Wikimedia Commons unless otherwise specified.)
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