It was only many years after its creation that I found Twitter to be useful.

I read an article about this same subject a couple of weeks ago, but want to expand on it.

I have DirecTV, but my local channels aren't up on the bird yet. Don't know if they ever will be. And ever since the STUPID STUPID STUPID analog-to-digital conversion, getting local channels over-the-air has been an exercise in futility, thanks to the rusted out pole antenna that came with the house. On the night of the Duke-Butler game, I had to run a pair of rabbit ears from my TV to the front stoop and hope it didn't rain. "Frustrating" doesn't begin to describe it. Hope to have something else in place by the time Colts season rolls around.

I mention that to tell you this. We had some pretty hairy severe weather about 90 minutes ago. Since I can't get local TV channels and I shut the computer down once it became apparent that the system that was about to pass over threatened to drop the wrath of God on us in the form of golf-ball-sized hail and tornadoes, I had to rely on the Bajeebus Alarm and my Blackberry to keep me updated.

Only thing is, the National Weather Service doesn't exactly provide up-to-the-minute information on impending severe weather. Sure, they'll give you some lead time - at 4:50, for instance, they'll warn that "severe storms will be near (your town) by 5:15 PM" ("EVERYBODY PANIC" is implicit) - but weather, unfortunately, is not linear. A storm might move in a straight west-to-east line across three states, then start jogging to the northeast or southeast, sparing you of doom, or at least dumping only heavy rain.

So, once you're warned by the weather bureau, you're left to wait and wonder. During a weather event, they may issue an update 15 minutes after the original warning - "the tornado will be near (your town) by 5:10 PM" - but that's it. They deal in the macro, not the micro.

And so it was today that I discovered how useful Twitter can be during severe weather. By searching on #inwx, I was led to #tristatewx, and followed the tweets of Evansville-area meterologists and their teams of storm chasers as they tracked the storm minute-by-minute. Including exhortations to people in certain communities to "TAKE COVER NOW."

And so the tornado warning that was issued for the county immediately to my west, and then to mine (remember, macro, not micro) was augmented by the additional knowledge that the funnel cloud was about 10 miles to my south, instead of bearing down on the palatial BT Estates, as the National Weather Service had originally led me to believe.

This isn't going to cause me to sell my Bajeebus Alarm at my next yard sale, but the big picture provided by the weather radio was augmented by the small strokes provided by various Twitter feeds. Quite useful on a day like today.