I’m excited to announce (finally) a project that myself and a few other programmers have been working on for awhile now – a flash based map that automatically refreshes without having to reload the entire web page and updates your position, as well as a radar image overlaid on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth street atlas!

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005 the world watched in shock and amazement as local, state and federal officials were heavily criticized for not responding in a timely manner to the initial response, or the aid that would follow in the months and years to come.

I’m not going to name the offender but one of my friends just emailed me with an update to his blog and after a few seconds of at least trying to read it – I had to close the page.

So, why don’t I read you’re blog?

Since it’s founding on January 15th, 2001 Wikipedia.com has grown to become the world’s largest encyclopedia. And of course the world’s largest encyclopedia has a lot of content related to meteorology and severe weather, but I had an idea – a Wikipedia clone that is focused exclusively on meteorology and severe weather. It’s an idea that some people might find objectionable, but I think not.

Georgia’s insurance and fire safety commissioner on Monday increased the damage estimate from last …

I have a problem with the wording “Never try to outrun a tornado. Motorist should abandon their vehicles and seek a sturdy shelter or lay in a ditch or other low-lying area.” I understand the underlying reason for this statement is that most people are not familiar with severe storms and they may not know what they are driving into – thus, it is best just to tell them to get out of their cars and jump into a ditch or low-lying area.

FaceBook is a popular social media website, and websites can’t chase storms – but FaceBook might just own hundreds of storm chasers photographs. If you judge chasers by the amount of photos they have collected – FaceBook would have to be at the top of the list.

Baron Services has released an update to the Mobile Threat Net system. The new version includes these updates/fixes:

Before you go and update your XM Weather subscription, you might want to keep on eye on the techie news today concerning Sirius/XM and their possibly bankruptcy filing.

If satellite radio died in the woods would anyone be around to hear it? The answer is going to have to wait!

Exclusive: New photos of the Edmond Tornado from February 10, 2009, these were taken by Kate Meyer in Oklahoma City. Special thanks to Kate and Sarah Kogler (StormTours.com Meteorologist) for these incredible photographs.

Preliminary survey results are in for the February 10, 2009 tornado outbreak in Oklahoma. The damage survey on the Lone Grove tornado indicated the tornado reached EF4 strength with maximum wind speeds in the 165-200 mph range. The tornado’s widest path was measured at ½ mile wide at times.

Damage survey results are also in their final stages for the Edmond tornado. The preliminary data indicates that there were 3 tornadoes. The first tornado had the shortest life of the three and struck NW of Bethany, it travelled ¾ of a mile and was about 30 yards wide and did EF1 damage.

Oklahoma’s first tornado of 2009 happened at approximately 3:05 p.m. today and traveled along the North side of the Oklahoma City metro, it was reported to have lasted 10 minutes and did “significant damage” near Edmond.

Reports just coming in that there have been three tornado related fatalities in Lone Grove, Oklahoma, probably happening at about the time of the radar image below.