In case there was any doubt, tornadoes are not to be toyed with, even if our cars are.

For me, this video drives home two points:

First, every tornado warning should be taken seriously.  Yes, the state of the science is such that we inevitably err on the side of warning too many folks, rather than missing someone.  However, when and where the tornadoes do strike, the consequences can be dire.  Just ask anyone in western Guilford county or near Clemmons in Forsyth county for their thoughts on that.

Second, cars are simply not safe places to be in a tornado.  While their aerodynamic features could, in theory, help to keep a car firmly planted on the ground, this only holds for the weakest of tornadoes and even then only if the car is pointed in the right direction to

As you no doubt already have heard, Myanmar, also known as Burma, was struck by a devastating cyclone over the weekend.  The death tolls from this storm -- what we would have called a hurricane here -- are utterly staggering. Mike Moss posted here about it earlier this week.

There's a new interactive feature on WRAL.com that lets you look at the path of Cyclone Nargis.  It includes a map of the path of the storm's path, and pictures of the aftermath.  The feature also has some in-depth information about the country of Myanmar.

We still have several weeks until the beginning of the Atlantic Hurricane season, which starts June 1st and runs through the end of November. However, news reports in the past few days remind us that conditions supportive of forming tropical storms and hurricanes (increased sea surface temperatures and reduced vertical wind shear) are starting to set in on the northern side of the equator. It's fairly typical to see hurricane season begin a little earlier in the eastern Pacific than in the Atlantic, where peak activity is usually concentrated in the August to October time frame, and it is likewise pretty common for the western Pacific to get an even earlier start on the tropical season. We've seen that this year, as some significant activity has already gotten underway. The western Pacific area recorded a Tropical Storm in mid January (though you could debate the semantics of whether that was a late storm from last year, an early storm for this year, or just a sporadic out of season

As a meteorologist I am always looking up at the sky;  it just seems to come naturally.

It is amazing what you can see from time to time if you just take a moment and look up and gaze at the sky. Now if you happen to look up at night and during the early mornings hours you may see some cool man made sights!

As a child in Miami, I recall seeing passing satellites while looking at the sky at night. Have you ever seen one? They are very bright and move quickly across the sky. When I saw my first, I imagined it was a UFO, but of course my older brother quickly squelched that fantasy and told me it was just a satellite. Oh well, my brush with E.T. was never to happen.

Last year during one early evening in Apex, I believe it was around 8pm, I saw an even brighter light in the sky moving quickly from the southwest to the northeast. it was at too high of an altitude to be a plane and too large to be a satellite. I deduced that it was actually the International Space Station

Want to see what's happening in your neck of the woods, anytime?

Now you can!

We've just rolled out a beta of our newest weather feature here on WRAL.com: iControl Interactive Doppler.  iControl will allow you to take control of the radar display.  It's built upon Microsoft's Virtual Earth mapping, so you can zoom in -- all the way to your back yard!  Satellite data can show you where the clouds are, and radar data from HD Doppler Network can pinpoint storms in your neighborhood.  You also have the ability to animate the satellite or radar data -- or both -- showing you how the weather's moving around.

Of course, you're not limited to just our area.

Got relatives outside of the Triangle?  You can focus in on any place in the country and zoom into their back yard!

There's also a "spotlight" feature.  This will allow us to focus in on places