By convention, the world's weather communities use a twenty four hour clock, similar to "military" time based on the 0 longitude meridian, also known as the Greenwich meridian.

"In the weather community, we kind of joke about it", Bob Marciano, a CNN weather forecaster, said in January 2010.

The weather community were invited to discuss their experiences of severe weather as and when events developed and share their iwitness footage throughout 2011.

During his last week as chief weather anchor, the National Weather Service gave Dungan an award for his service to the weather community.

Further early exposure to storm chasing encouraging some in the weather community resulted from several articles beginning in the late 1970s in Weatherwise magazine.

"The weather community is 20, 30 years ahead of us," said Dr. James G. Bellingham, director of engineering at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif. "And it's a harder problem in the ocean."