Bluestorm5's Blog

Posted by: Bluestorm5, 7:09 PM GMT on May 25, 2013

ENDING A OLD LIFE, STARTING A NEW LIFE:

As most of you know, I'm a senior at a small high school in a small town in central North Carolina. I had met all requirements to graduate from that high school on June 7th, 2013. The last four years of high school had been really enjoyable, but it's time to move on. Graduating on June 7th, 2013 will be very personal for me as I will have completed my first major goal of life that I've been dreaming of for 13 years. You see, when I was in kindergarten, Wake County educators told my parents that I was not going to make it past elementary school and will surely never graduate from high school. Why? They believed that my deafness will limited me all of my life. They believed that I will never be able to learn. Because of this, I was taken out of that school and moved to a private deaf school in St. Louis, Missouri. There, I spent next 5 years learning English in which I didn't even spoke my first sentence until I was 8. That's 10 years ago. However, I've gotten so clever that I ended up leaving that deaf school 3 years before completing 8 years course in order to attend a public middle school. Middle school years was a struggle for me, but I overcame these struggles and graduated from there. Then I moved back to North Carolina and spend the last 4 years here. I've struggled so much the last 13 years, but because I never gave up, I overcame them to get where I am. I am proud of what I had done the last 13 years to get where I am. I am ready to move on from an old chapter and into the new chapter of my life. My advice to you? Don't give up. Don't you ever give up.

Note: This is not my picture as I found it on Google.

MY NEXT STOP... LAND OF THE SKY:

For the next four years of my life, I will be spending them in "Land of the Sky". It's a nickname for Asheville, North Carolina and a deserving one at that. Asheville is a city of 85,000 at the bottom of a valley surrounded by the highest mountains east of Mississippi River in a mountainous region of Western North Carolina. Asheville is located at elevation of 2,134 feet which is pretty high for North Carolina standard, earning it a nickname "Land of the Sky". To meteorologists, Asheville is also know as home to United States National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the world's largest active archive of weather data. The main reason I'm in Asheville for next four years? I'm attending a college there called University of North Carolina Asheville to study and majors in atmospheric sciences. This is also known as meteorology, which is known as study of weather and atmosphere. Even since I was a young child, I had a high passion for meteorology. My interest in weather started when my mom told me the story about her survival of Hurricane Hugo in 1989, in which I grew interested in hurricanes. My grandfather was also a weather fan so we watched The Weather Channel all the time whenever he come to visited me and I hope I am blessed enough for him to see me grow up to be an meteorologist. I also grew up in state of Missouri smack dub in the middle of famous "Tornado Alley" so I saw many violent storms while living there. All of these are the reasons why I want to be a meteorologist, so when it was time to apply for colleges last fall, I knew my choices and my major. I applied to three different colleges and got accepted to two of them (UNC-Asheville and UNC-Charlotte). My reason for my decision to UNC-Asheville is because their meteorology program is more known and their classes were smaller which fitted me perfectly. I'm very excited to be part of Bulldog Nation this upcoming fall and to have adventures all over Western North Carolina learning the world of meteorology!

Note: Again, not my picture. Found on Google.

BULLDOGS STALKING THE STORMS:

The last few weeks, I've been following the adventures of UNC-Asheville's Severe Weather Field Experience, which is a group of students led by Assistant Professor Christopher Godfrey on a trip of life all over Tornado Alley. This trip also caught attention of local media that covered Western NC/Upstate SC, as they're featured in multiple articles (links at end of this section of blog). I thought that this trip was so much fun to follow that I decided to do a part of blog on them. Basically, when the year ended at UNC-Asheville, a group of meteorology students decided to go on a field trip to chase storms in Tornado Alley. They left Asheville, North Carolina on May 12th on a journey toward West and returned on May 23rd. The highlights of trip included:

-Visits to Nashville, Memphis, OKC, Dallas, Atlanta
-Tours of weather faculties around Norman, Oklahoma including SPC, NWS Norman, Department of Meteorology at University of Oklahoma, couple of radar sites, a private company, TV station KOCO and many more
-Multiple moderate risk busts
-Epic nighttime lightning shows
-Intercepting 5 tornadoes including EF1 near Millsap, Texas and EF4 near Rozel, Kansas
-Chased EF4 Granbury tornado before giving up due to darkness
-Eating lunch in Moore two hours before EF5 destroyed it (restaurant was spared by a mile)
-Memories to last lifetime

On May 20th, they left Moore after lunch to chase a cell south of a cell that became an EF5 tornado. The cell they were chasing did not produced tornado, but they had time to catch up with Moore cell. They were arriving to the cell when Moore was declared under tornado emergency, in which they wisely quit chasing the tornado since they do not like chasing tornadoes in cities, especially the dangerous ones. They landed on the news around Western NC for having an connection to Moore tragedy. To conclude this section, I thought the trip was very interesting and I really hope to do that trip once while at UNC-Asheville as I've always wanted to see a tornado. Here are the links:

Article on UNC-Asheville's site: Link
Dr. Godfrey's blog: Link
Massey's blog: Link
WLOS's article #1 (about the trip): Link
WLOS's article #2 (group's reaction to Moore): Link
WSPA's article: Link
Asheville Citizen-Times' article: Link

Note: Picture by Dr Godfrey of UNCA

MY INTERVIEW IN SCHOOL'S YEARBOOK:
One day during the school year, I was working hard in AP Physics class on a lab when yearbook staffs came to me. They wanted an interview with me about my passion for meteorology to be featured on "Outrageous Obsessed" section of yearbook about students' obsession. The last few years of high school, I've become known along students as "Weatherman" because of my passion for meteorology and my Twitter updates on weather in Central North Carolina to my classmates. I felt honored when I did the interview and I was very glad that it made the first paragraph of "Outrageous Obsessed" page. Here's the picture of my interview:

Note: Picture is mine. Grammar errors and typos can be seen, but the whole book is like that. Name also photoshopped out to protect my privacy.

2013 ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON PREDICTIONS:

My prediction for 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season are:

Storms: 14-18
Hurricanes: 6-8
Major Hurricanes: 2-4

My reasoning is that I knew it was going to be above normal season based on multiple reasons, but I didn't want to put the numbers too high.

TRACKS OF ALL 2013 STORMS AS OF MAY 25TH:

Atlantic Ocean:

Pacific Ocean:

Note: Maps are from Wunderground

Whew... that's a long blog to post. Hopefully I do more blogs during the hurricane season! Have a good day!

Categories:tornado 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season 2013 Pacific Hurricane Season Hurricane Asheville Raleigh North Carolina WNC Mountains quotes life graduation high school

Updated: 7:31 PM GMT on May 25, 2013

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Watching Tropical Storm Leslie

Posted by: Bluestorm5, 7:01 PM GMT on September 03, 2012

Today, I've released my forecasts for TS Leslie. I don't feel like explaining today so here are my thoughts. Any questions?THREAT CODE:Yellow/Black: Tropical Cyclone is unlikelyOrange/Black: Tropical cyclone is possibleRed/Black: Tropical cyclone is very likelyPink/Black: Tropical cyclone will make an impact

Updated: 7:04 PM GMT on September 03, 2012

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Uncertain Future for 94L

Posted by: Bluestorm5, 11:48 PM GMT on August 20, 2012

Let's me start with this... this blog entry is to not be used for life or death decisions, please. I am not responsible for inaccurate forecasts as I am not professional meteorologist. The only forecast that are safe to use for your decisions is from National Hurricane Center. Anyway, Atlantic Ocean is getting active as we are reaching toward the peak of season. We got three invests going on in Atlantic Basin, with 94L and 96L marching on toward Leeward Islands wh...

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Watching 94L

Posted by: Bluestorm5, 3:42 PM GMT on August 19, 2012

I was going to post a entry on 94L yesterday, but I had to get off the computer earlier than expected. I had created a forecast for 94L yesterday with new graphic. Just remember that the forecast is NOT OFFICIAL and the only forecast you should listens to is National Hurricane Center. I expects 94L to take a sweet time developing into a tropical storm so I do not expect 94L to be named for another 36-48 hours from now. Another reason for this is that 94L is curr...

Updated: 10:22 PM GMT on August 20, 2012

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My 2012 Atlantic Ocean Hurricane Season Prediction.

Posted by: Bluestorm5, 9:43 PM GMT on July 24, 2012

I am writing a entry posting my prediction. It's little late but I want to post the prediction before the peak season start.My prediction:15 Tropical Storms8 Hurricanes4 Major HurricanesI'll give you more updates as the season ages.

Updated: 6:06 PM GMT on July 30, 2012

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