https://therepository.org/hook-echo/Natural disasters read off the instruments that saw them: NEXRAD radar, satellite and the damage survey.enhttps://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep05-joplin-2011-the-tornado-warning-17-minutes-early/https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep05-joplin-2011-the-tornado-warning-17-minutes-early/Sat, 10 Oct 2026 13:00:19 +0000On 22 May 2011 the National Weather Service warned all of Joplin, Missouri, 17 minutes before a tornado touched down -- more than the national average. It still became the deadliest single US tornado since records began in 1950. National Guard footage shows the path; the Springfield radar, rendered from NOAA's raw archive, shows what the forecasters could see, and from how high.https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep04-hurricane-michael-2018-the-data-made-it-a-category-5/https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep04-hurricane-michael-2018-the-data-made-it-a-category-5/Fri, 09 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000Hurricane Michael came ashore at Mexico Beach, Florida, on 10 October 2018, announced as a Category 4. Six months later the National Hurricane Center made it a Category 5 -- by three knots. FEMA footage shows what it left. We go through every instrument the NHC weighed, and read the raw record of the USGS sensor strapped to the Mexico Beach pier, which went under water at 17:20 UTC.https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep03-kilauea-2018-the-volcano-that-fell-in-on-itself/https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep03-kilauea-2018-the-volcano-that-fell-in-on-itself/Wed, 07 Oct 2026 12:45:07 +0000In 2018 the summit of Kilauea, Hawaii, collapsed 62 times in three months while lava poured out of Leilani Estates, 40 km away. USGS footage shows both ends. We downloaded the raw records -- the USGS earthquake catalogue, a seismometer on the caldera rim and a GPS station that sank almost two metres -- and measured how the volcano emptied itself.https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep02-moore-2013-the-day-radar-saw-the-debris/https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep02-moore-2013-the-day-radar-saw-the-debris/Tue, 06 Oct 2026 03:30:14 +0000On 20 May 2013 a mile-wide EF5 tornado crossed Newcastle and Moore, Oklahoma. National Guard footage shows what it left. The Oklahoma City radar, upgraded to dual polarization 225 days earlier, saw something no radar there could see in 1999: the debris itself, lifted almost four miles into the storm. We measured it scan by scan from NOAA's raw archive.https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep01-bridge-creek-moore-1999-how-radar-clocked-301-mph/https://therepository.org/hook-echo/ep01-bridge-creek-moore-1999-how-radar-clocked-301-mph/Mon, 05 Oct 2026 11:25:22 +0000On 3 May 1999 a truck-mounted Doppler radar measured winds of about 301 mph, give or take 20, inside the tornado that crossed Bridge Creek and Moore, Oklahoma. In 2021 the same scan was reprocessed to 321 mph. We rendered the federal radar's own scans of that evening, straight from NOAA's raw archive, to show what each instrument could measure, and what it could not.