StormHunter.ca

Whew

2012-02-07T20:02:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Well, that's that. We finished the western part of the road trip and now are getting geared up for the north run.

We managed to get all the way to Vancouver without seeing any falling snow! It's been a crazy winter this year all across Canada.

We hit Winnipeg expecting a serious amount of snow and maybe some really cold temps, but it was not to be. I mean, serious cold, but almost no snow. We decided that we'd stop at Portage and Main just because it's such an iconic Canadian intersection. I'd never been this far west in Canada, so I was all up for it.

Really interesting intersection. Cold as hell though. We ran over to the one side of the intersection and I did a couple of quick stand ups. And then the security guy came over and told us we had to move onto the potted plants because that was city property and we were standing in private. Annoying as hell, but what could we do? He seemed nice enough, but was a bit abrupt.

We then proceeded to go underground to get to the other side of the street. Ok, now that was neat - a whole little shopping concourse was down there. Not too many people on a Sunday, but it reminded me of Toronto's Path system. We popped back up on the side near one of the big banks, jumped into the city owned gardens, banged off a quick stand up and headed back inside. Both of us were freezing by this point and we decided we'd had enough and it was back to the car.

On to Timmie's for a little lunch and then back on the road to get to Regina. Seriously, we have a huge country. What seemed like a quick run on the map was so many, many hours away. Exhaustion was kicking in as we hit the outskirts of Regina near 10 pm. Of course, the car was about to run out of gas and we had to hunt around for a station open. Our GPS kept heading us to stations that we closed or under construction.

"Uh, George, I think Wanda is trying to kill us. Or at the very least, strand us in the middle of Regina"

We finally made our minds up to actually look out the window and visually look for a gas station. Worked quite well. Weird.

After filling up, we proceeded to let Wanda (our GPS) guide us the rest of the way to Greg's. Amazingly, she did a good job and didn't even try to direct us into oncoming traffic. I'm thinking of renaming her GlaDOS nevertheless.

Made to to Greg's, got int he door, turned purple with envy when we saw the indoor hot tub and pool. And gorgeous house. And wonderful family.

*sigh*

I think I may have made mine think I've abandonded them.

Ok, more tomorrow (lectures and dog sledding...)

Rogers Pass tomorrow

2012-01-31T22:46:00.000-08:00

It's been a spectacular couple of days.

We did a presentation at the Regina Science Centre on Tuesday the 30th of January. Huge amounts of fun was had by all, especially me, George and Greg who got to present to the school kids and then for a free event later that night.

Huge thank you must go to Greg and Wanita who opened their home to us for a couple of days and nights. Such a big thank you! And for he food! So much food....

Today George and I headed across the country from Regina all the way to Golden, BC. Gurg. Over 1000 km in one day. Whos says TV making isn't glamorous? Or tiring?

Normally, I'm a lot more verbose and interesting, but I've got a big set of interviews and filming tomorrow and I'm completely exhausted. I'm going to crash and then do a big update tomorrow night after all the tromping around the mountains. Wheeeeee!

Regina Blown Away

2012-01-30T04:39:00.000-08:00

Ok, that title might seem sensationalistic, but I'm going to be doing a series of presentations with George Kourounis and Greg Johnson here at the Regina Science Centre. We'll be talking about tort law reform. So much excitement to be had.

Ok, feeble joke, but I'm seriously exhausted after the last couple of days and it's early!

Greg is going to be talking about tornadoes, George about volcanoes, and me about hurricanes. Should be quite fun and we've got a long day ahead of us. Can't wait!

I'll blog about how it went either tomorrow morning or later today.

Oh, and I got to go dogsledding (briefly) in Regina yesterday!

The Epicness Begins

2012-01-27T18:59:00.000-08:00

I know I've been very lax in getting this blog written in, but I'm going to try and keep up a bit as a bit of a behind the scenes for StormHunters

Right now I'm sitting in Dryden Ontario after ANOTHER day of driving through Ontario. I never realized how big this province is! Two days of driving and we still haven't hit the border. Whew....

Gotta back up a bit here. The idea behind the new StormHunters episodes is to find the worst winter weather in Canada. And if that means I have to go to the Arctic to get it, so be it!

To do this, I've already been to the East Coast to intercept a good nor'easter. Didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to, but we got some great footage at Peggy's Cove and then up in the Cape Breton Highlands. That episode will air on the 26th of February.

Now, I'm on an epic journey to find winter in the year that has no winter. Crazy warm temperatures in the east and central areas, hardly any snow at all, it's kinda weird. But, being the type that I am, I'm determined to find some nasty Canadian winter.

That's the idea behind this journey. I'm partnered up with George Kourounis; you may know him from his show Angry Planet. He and I have been all over the continent chasing down storms and this is another one of our crazy journeys.

I'll blog more tomorrow as we head for the city of Regina. Going to be a long day.

May 25, Morning

2011-05-21T12:23:00.002-07:00

Gotten a little behind in doing my blogging here. It's been a wild bunch of days and it's been all I can do to get my Facebook StormHunters stuff updated before I fall into bed.

Looking forward to a couple of down days where I can get work and sleep done.

More later today after we tour the damage paths in Oklahoma City here and in Piedmont where a chaser friend's house was missed by about a hundred feet.

May 20, Morning

2011-05-20T05:57:00.000-07:00

We just woke up to major storms here in Witchita. Huge crack of thunder and all of us rocketed straight up out of bed. Kinda makes up for yesterday's big bust.

Yesterday we expected the storms to go up and really start spinning. However, that's not what happened. Everything seemed to go up at once and one big messy cell popped up just south of the Oklahoma border. Itrocketed north sweeping through all the other storms that were going up. This turned the whole thing into one big mess. Instead of having nicely isolated cells, we had more of an MCS going on.

So, we aimed for a couple of storms that were isolated and out in front of the line. Normally, those are the best ones and they looked pretty good. Not for long.

Literally just as we got to them, they evaporated and disappeared. That was tough to take and we'd placed ourselves pretty far out of position to get back to anything else. Whooops. Still, this is the reality of chasing. You chose your storm and it doesn't always work out.

We decided at that point that making to any other storm was out of the question so we headed for Witchita and dinner.

This is the way chasing goes sometimes. You've got tons of potential, but the storms just don't do what you want them to. And this is what makes chasing so interesting. You never know what's going to happen.

Morning, May 19, 2011

2011-05-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

Heading to Pratt Kansas right now. We did a long forecast this morning and things are looking good in the central Kansas area.

THe moisture is building in nicely and we've already got 2000 CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy - a measure of the energy that the storms can use) just south of our target area. Even better, that energy is headed north.

The winds at all levels are looking good. We've got good turning as you go upwards in the atmosphere and that means that as storms go up they are forced to spin. The result? Tornadoes beneath supercell thunderstorms.

Our big question today will be how much forcing we can get off the dryline. The models are pointing towards good enough forcing to get storms to fire. Given the environment that they will be going up in, the likely hood of severe is high.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman has a very good chance of tornadoes in the central Kansas area (which is exactly where we're headed). My thoughts are that we're in a much better position to get some good storms today!

End of the day, May 18, 2011

2011-05-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

Well, a bust day was had by all. There were a number of issues that came together to kill the storms. What seemed to be a good forcing mechanism, the dryline, stalled out in western Oklahoma and just didn't move enough to get things going.

Everything else was in place. We had good moisture (finally), great winds at the surface, but without that one missing ingredient, things just weren't going to go.

Once it got a bit later, the cap (the layer of warm air aloft that slows down upwards motion of the air parcels) built back in and that was it. No storms at all for us today.

On a much happier note, Scott McPartland and Dave Lewison, our chase buddies from New York City arrived on the Plains and we hooked up in Kingfisher. Yay! THe team is back together.

Things are going up a little north of us in Kansas right now, but it's time to get some sleep.

2011-05-18T08:32:00.001-07:00

We have adjusted our target a little bit and we're looking at Kingfisher which is just northeast of Oklahoma City.

The models are telling us that we may see some storms close to 6 pm, but our big problem is the forcing and the upper level winds. Both are somewhat weak and that means that the storms will have some trouble getting going. However, if they do pop we are expecting a good chance of large hail and possibly tornadoes.

We stayed in my favourite hotel out here on the Plains - the Guest Inn in Norman Oklahoma. It was quite the long drive yesterday so it was nice to get here and pass out. We did a bit of forecasting and some shopping when we got here, but that didn't take too long.

So, after a good sleep, we're just packing up and heading out to the Souper Salad for lunch. After that, it's on to Kingfisher!

May 17, 2011 Day Two Tornado Alley 2011

2011-05-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

We've done some forecasting using the latest runs of the NAM computer model. It's a more short range model and thus can give us a pretty good idea of what's going on in fair detail about 24-48 hours out.

Our preliminary target for tomorrow is now Weatherford, Oklahoma. Supercells are possible so there is a risk of tornadic development.

We've worked on the truck and everything is ready. Our roof camera is giving us some trouble so we're going to have to rely on our old SD camera for now for live streaming back to the Weather Network.

May 17, 2011 Day Two Tornado Alley 2011

2011-05-17T11:51:00.001-07:00

On the road between St. Louis and Norman. Brad and I have just forecasted the heck out of tomorrow and Thursday. Our targets are now Norman for tomorrow and Harper for Thursday.

The forecast is a bit muddled for an exact target for tomorrow, so our plan is to stick around Norman until we can get goodsurface observations. That will give us an idea of how good the models are doing and then we head for our specific target.

Looking at a good warm moist flow of air heading up into the Plains along with a fairly good jetstream above. A very nice recipe for strong storms.

Snow Storm

2011-02-04T10:37:00.001-08:00

Well, that wasn't a bad storm. Not a huge storm, but not bad still.

I think the biggest problem with it was the way the media was hyping it way up (as usual - not that I'm not applying a double standard here as I work for the Weather Network). However, one of the guys on my stormchase email list pointed out that with the extra hype came school closures, work closures etc. and that meant that a lot fewer people were out on the roads. Thus, with less traffic, less accidents, and faster drive times for those that were, the storm may have seemed less than it actually was. Interesting ideas.

However, as I was one out on the roads, I can tell you that it wasn't too bad a drive and even though I borrowed my dad's 4X4, it was stil tricky to get around. The tires on the truck were summer versions and not really suited to deep snow. So I dropped it into 4 wheel drive and powered my way to Spencer Smith Park in Burlington.

Spencer Smith is one of my favourite spots to shoot from as the wave action there (when the winds are right) is incredible. You can get right up beside the breakwall and get some awesome shots. Take a look here:

February 3 Snowstorm

WHen I arrived there, it was juse before the sun came up over the horizon and there was just a little bit of light. The light colour was really amazing so I managed to shoot a bit of HD footage with my broken camera.

I should explain. One of the things I'm trying to do right now is redo much of my old SD footage with my HD camera, but I recently broke the switch on the HD by accident. Not good. However, me being me, I managed to kludge a repair with a bit of tape. Not bad eh?

So, with my broken camera, my full parka and my still camera wrapped around my neck, I trudged through the snow down to the water's edge. I set up the tripod and stepped out onto the boardwalk...and into about 6 inches of freezing cold water. Doh!

Still, I had no choice if I wanted the shots, so I waded into the water and over the edge. What was really cool was the fact that the waves had deposited huge amounts of ice along the edge of the breakwall and I managed to step up on to the pile and out of the water. Damage was done though - seriously cold wet feet. Yay.

And then after about six minutes and got slapped in the back with a big wave. Instantly, my parka froze and my arms stiffened right up. Ahh, the joys of shooting in the winter. It looks good on TV, but man, shooting in bad weather conditions is simply tough. You have to deal with frozen fingers, flying water, the fact that you can barely see what you're shooting, the waterproofing around the camera is frozen etc. I'm impressed that I get anything at all!

I managed to get quite a bit of good footage (out in front and in behind the camera) of the waves and ice. What I found really cool was the amount of small ice chunks in the water that had built up thanks to the very cold temperatures combined with the extreme wave action. There's a few pictures of them in the gallery above. Even cooler was the vast solid fields of them that had bulit up along the shoreline. You could have walked out a hundred feet into the water on them.

I was somewhat disappointed to note on radar that the bulk of the storm had passed to the east and all that was left was a few lingering flakes flying on the wind. Nevertheless, I still could shoot one last place for wave action and then head back to Toronto to get a bit of a rest before my shift at TWN. The place: Burlington Piers just around the corner from Spencer Smith.

When I arrived, one thing quickly became apparent - the southern pier (the good one) was under construction... Doh. I wasn't about to give up though. I ended up hiking up and over the lift bridge and out onto the northern pier. Not nearly as cool, but still wet and slippery. And icy. And cold. Why again do I do this to myself all the time?

I managed to get all the way out to the end before a huge waves rolled about ten inches of water across the pier and mostly into my boots. Now I really had cold wet feet. Yurg. I can't tell you how unpleasant wet, cold feet are when you know that You can't do anything about it for a few hours. The shots were great though. I got huge rolling waves, snapping winds, breakers across ice dams, George shooting a cold bird (Oh right, forgot to mention that when I was out at the end of the pier, George showed up and made the same trek as I did. He, however, in his wisdom, brought waterproof, warm and big boots. I still have not learned this lesson because I'm stubborn. And poor.).

By the time we had both finished shooting the pier and it's attendant ice and water, were both freezing and hungry. As a wonderful end to the chase, you just can't beat a good bowlfull of Tim Horton's chili.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

War on Science

2011-01-20T12:34:00.000-08:00

There's a war going right now.

It's taking place all over North America; in United States as much as Canada unfortunately. I see it everyday - on blogs, on TV, in newspapers, on the streets. People aren't dying instantly, but the damage is being done.

The war on science is ramping up in a big way.

Forty percent of Americans seriously believe that the world was spontaeously created just over 6000 years ago with every living creature exactly the same as we see now. Vaccinations of children have dropped off to the point that old diseases like polio and measles are being found in modern cities like London. The number of people that accept the evidence that the planet is warming and that we are the cause of it has plummeted. More and more people think that water has some sort of "memory" for the substances that have been in it and are using it to combat sickness.

What the hell is going on?

In the last little while I've been paying more and more attention to the online newspaper reports about a variety of scientific topics. The substance of the articles is not so interesting as the comments that are made by people who have read them.

It's stunning.

Why is science becoming so reviled? Actually, the wierd thing is that most people aren't hating on science directly, but saying that they're using science when they aren't. Ok, that's a bit of a confusing sentence and I'm going to qualify it.

When people who are using anti-science, they seem to think that they're using science in the right way. The problem is that they have already formulated a conclusion and twist the facts and evidence around to fit their conclusion. eg. dinosaurs and humans co-existed and Noah's Ark held two of every animal on the planet.

Critical thinking has utterly failed in these people and it shows. That's really really sad and speaks volumes about the lack of true science education in Canada and the United States.

I love science and all it stands for. It's perhaps the greatest thing that our species has ever come up with. Forget religion, forget intuition - science is the greatest tool we have ever had to understand the true nature of the universe of which we are part.

And it's being twisted to serve a new master; politics. Actually, I should say that it's serving a very old master; politics. Ever since it's inception, science has battled to remain free of politics, but is now in the fight of it's life.

More soon...

Time for bed

2010-09-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

Stopped just outside of Edmunston, NB tonight. Toally exhausted and I'm looking forward to a nice long sleep tonight.

Earl is now a Category 2 storm, but is still expected to make landfall in Nova Scotia as either a strong tropical storm or a Category 1 hurricane. George and I have decided that we are going to go for the southern most tip of NS near a town called Clarke's Harbour. THe highest winds and waves should hit that area dead on. THe track path has not changed much at all. It's still a long way so we're going to zonk out early tonight and get up early in the morning to keep going.

G'night!

Hurricane Earl

2010-09-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

Here we go! On our way to Hurricane Earl in either New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, but we're not exactly sure yet. The models have been slowly trending the landfall point to the west.

Earl is a large, category 4 storm and it's beginning it's turn to the north right now. We are expecting this hurricane to impact Nova Scotia somewhere near the southern tip at dawn on Saturday.

THis may be a significant storm for Atlantic Canada because it's expected to maintain it's Category 1 strength when it hits. The big question is: where do we go? If we're too far to the east, we'll miss the best winds, but due to the Bay of Fundy we have to choose either Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. We can't do both.

So, right now it's time to check out the models, bite our nails, and generally try to get into the right spot. This is going to be tight!

Travel day today

2010-05-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

Just a travel day today. We're now in Garden City, Kansas and it looks like we'll be headed up to the north eastern corner of Colorado tomorrow.

We'll make up our mind in the morning.

Whooops

2010-05-20T04:50:00.001-07:00

So, so tired. But happy to be still here and able to post.

Kinda drove into what we thought might be the edge of a tornado yesterday.

Given the high risk, we decided that our target would be Clinton, Oklahoma. Not a bad guess as things began to go up around the 4 pm time period. We were a bit far east and decided to go north and west as the first towers popped up near the Texas/Oklahoma border.

We ran west and north quickly to get in front of a large, tornado warned supercell near Canton. As the storm rolled towards us, we knew that we had to beat it to the town itself or we'd be stuck behind a large river with no way to pursue it thanks to the road network; bridges were rare.

We raced up to Canton and as we got closer the air changed from clear to a sort of foggy dampness - an unusual event near that large a supercell. No matter how many times I'm near a supercell, it's always different and I get to experience something new. We raced into town and headed east, just sneaking ahead of the hail core which GRLevel 3 was telling us had golfballs to baseballs in it. A little close for comfort, but still ok.

We ran ahead of the storm and looked for a road option that would take us back south of the storm so that we could get a good visual on it. You don't want to be on the north side of the storm as there's no good way of seeing the business end of the system (i.e. the tornado).

We figured that we could get ahead of the storm far enough to drop south and slip south just before the hail core got us. A south road option came up pretty quickly and we started south. Only to run into a large 18-wheeler slowly, heading in the same direction. Since we just weren't going to make it, we turned back north before we got cored and began to go east again.

And then we noticed a better storm to our east and north. We noticed that the storm that we were trying to get to wasn't nearly as nice as it had been so we decided to go after the new one. What we didn't know at the time was that it was dropping a gorgeous tornado in Kingfisher County. Still, it was better than trying to get south again.

So, that's how we ended up driving far to the east towards the I-35 and closer than I'd like to be to a developing tornado.

As we got close to the I-35, we knew this storm was going hard - through the rain haze, a slender rope tornado hung from the cloud base and small puff of debris erupted from the ground as it touched down ever so briefly. As we got closer and closer to the wall cloud we could see the motion in the cloud above and we knew were just moment from another tornado - close up and personal. The condensation scud beneath the main area of rotation was racing upwards and swirling like only a few storms I've seen. Moments later, dust burst upwards from the ground as the tornado touched down.

It was only on the ground for a brief time, but we were right in the perfect spot for viewing it and being safe. Could not have picked a better spot. THe tornado swirled on the ground for about three minutes, lifted and disappeared. We were free to proceed and get ahead of the storm to the next town where we could decide what to do next if this one didn't produce any more tubes.

Unfortunately for us (not so much the town of Stillwater), the storm began to become outflow dominant and we headed south again to see if the storms that were firing there were doing anything interesting. Not our best plan.

As we dropped south, one storm got our attention and we figured that we could get ahead of it in a similar manner to our earlier encounter. Ummmmmm....

After a couple of quick misadventures on near dirt roads, we once again snuck out of town ahead of the hail core (that was rapidly growing) and headed south. Scott was on the radio saying that we had to move really, really fast as the storm was quickly growing a hook (an area of extreme rotation) and it was heading towards us at a rapid rate. We had two choices - race south to get out of the way of the developing tornado, or get cored by softball to baseball hail. As the rotation wasn't too bad on radar (broad rotation, but nothing tornadic yet), we chose the hook and blasted south. What we didn't know was that the area of broad rotation was very quickly tightening up and a tornado was developing fast.

Cloud Nine came on frequency and I could hear Charles and George calling to each other about the fact that they had a huge wind shift, funnel cloud, go faster, move it people, we have a funnel right behind us, drive faster! That put my heart in my throat as I was pretty sure they were right behind us.

As we raced south Scott and Dave got ahead of us a little bit and Brad was suddenly freaking out in the back seat (all he could say was "umm, umm, go faster, go faster). Scott and Dave roared across a bridge and we bounced across it in pursuit. Suddenly Scott's brake lights came on and all I heard on the radio was "Stopping! House...garble" THe winds exploded out of the west at close to hurricane speed and it was all I could do to keep the van on the road. The entire windshield went white and I slammed on the brakes and turned into the wind as I pulled up behind a small hill with a couple of hay bails that could serve to protect us from some of the flying debris. All I said to everyone was "Brace yourselves, here we go"

And as suddenly as it was there, it was gone. The circulation passed to our east and we suddenly realized what had just happened - we had just come closer to a rain wrapped tornado than I was really comfortable with.

Whooops.

Still, we weren't in major danger as both Scott and I kept our heads and did what was right - drive carfeully, get ready to bail and above all else - didn't panic. Nevermind the house that was flinging debris off itself just our south.

Whew.

The rest of the night passed without any major incidents and we broke off pursuit as it was getting dark. A little lighting show and it was all done.

Now I'm going back to take a nap. Another chase day in the works for today perhaps and then it's time to begin the long journey home.

Active Day(s)

2010-05-18T05:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, here we go. After taking a rest day, we're ready to go again and looks like Mother Nature is going to oblige (knock on wood).

Today's risk is along the western Texas Panhandle (Panhandle Magic....) and we're in Norman (just south of OKC):

Tomorrow looks even more impressive. Could be a couple of interesting days if the forecast pan out.

Stay tuned to either this blog or the Weather Network (streaming live to them) for the next couple of days. I know I don't update nearly enough, but I'll try to get video and shots up if we get some good stuff.

More updating

2010-05-15T19:26:00.000-07:00

Whew.

Getting updates to the blog has been exceedingly difficult this year. With all the work I've been doing for TWN and trying to keep everyone else updated with forecasting etc., I've barely had any time to do my blogging, keeping my YouTube updated etc.

Still, it's been an amazing first week. We had a half decent day yesterday. Actually, it was pretty good. We started off in Amarillo, Texas way up north in the Panhandle and our target was for Oddessa (it's about a 4 hour drive). The warm front was pushing up from off the coast and bringing up the moisture with it.

Combine that with a nice dry punch from the west and we had a pretty good set up for thunderstorms and possible tornadoes.

We got a bit of late start, but that wasn't worrying us too much as we thought initiation of the storms wouldn't be until around 7 pm or so. However, we hadn't counted on Mother Nature being difficult. As we were heading south the first storms began to go up around 12 pm. Not good. Considering that we were in about 10 degree weather in Amarillo (very, very cold for this part of the country at this time of the year).

As we watched the radar pop up storm after storm and even worse, tornado warnings began popping up. All we could see is a grey cloud deck and the temperatures were still very cold. Not exactly condusive to thunderstorm development and yet they were popping up like crazy to our south. That was a problem as they began to fight each other for the mositure and warm air.

As the storms fought each other, they headed north at a pretty good clip. We had the choice to either wait for the storms to come to us in the cold air and maybe collapse, or continue to head south and not get the storms.

We decided to head south and go for the warm air just south of the front. We punched through the precipitation and got into the warmer air just south of one storm and noticed that a more southerly one was begining to build. And beginning to spin. We had a our target storm.

We raced south to get ahead of the core and just sneaked by as the massive baseball hail barrage banged off the roads behind us. As we entered the bear's cage area, the winds began to howl past us into the updraft and we could see the wall cloud to our south. It looked pretty good and even better, we had a good road option that would lead us up under the wallcloud.

Being chasers, we headed right for the core and found ourselves atop a bridge looking directly into the main updraft region. It looked dark, black and the winds were howling into the storm from almost all directions. We jumped out of the car and set up the cameras expecting a tornado to drop at almost any moment. Lightning flashed aroun us as bolts slammed into the earth all around. Megan and Dayna were trying to get Brad and I to get back into the car, but we had to get the footage for TWN and on HD.

The team jumped into gear - I called TWN and did a live hit from the bridge, Heather got the stream up and running to them and Megan started shooting HD as best she could from inside the car. It was working like a well oiled machine.

And of course, Mother Nature wouldn't cooperate - the storm was spinning, the inflow howling, but somehting wasn't quite right. The storm just wouldn't produce a tornado. So close, but so far. No tornado dropped, but man, the storm looked gorgeous.

The rest of the storm was kind of anti-climatic as we followed it for about two hours while it cycled up and died, then cycled up,then died etc. THe only hairy moments came as the storm died hugely and the winds gusted up past us at almost hurricane speeds. Try pumping gas in those kind of conditions - nasty.

THe day ended as the storm cycled up one last time and produced a nice wall cloud and some serious lightning, but that was about it.

We ran into Dave Sills as the storm died which was great - dinner and a chance to catch up.

Now it's a couple of down days and maybe some serious storms on Monday through Wednesday.

Finally updating

2010-05-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

Wow, this has been probably the busiest beginning to a chase season ever.

The first day ended with us being chased down the road by a tornado, barely making it out ahead of a barrage of baseball hail and managing to get some incredible tornado viz (thanks to Megan).

THe next day we chased across Oklahoma trying to get in front of a large LP thunderstorm that was supposedly producing a tornado (but we didn't see) and getting some incredible structure shots right at sunset.

Today we get into position to intercept a series of tornado warned storms, but they never really managed to do anything before they lined out and became one giant squall line. Not great, but still photogenic and fun to chase.

Now it's time for bed as I'm totally exhausted. More details tomorrow.

Whoa....

2010-05-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, here we go.

Things are looking incredible today and we're right in position. Still cold and wet here, but that's going to change fast in the next few hours. Not too much to say other than we're still in Blackwell and we're not looking to move any time soon.

I think we're right in position. TIme to hurry up and wait.

Getting ready for Monday

2010-05-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

TOmorrow is looking quite good. Not quite the perfect scenario that was in the models a few days ago, but still a very good chance at tornadoes. We're heading for Blackwell, Oklahoma and that's right smack in the middle of the target area. Even better, we're not going to have move very far tomorrow.

Other than that, not too much to report. Temperatures are still kind of cold right now, but the moisture and warm air won't be in place until late tomorrow. Winds will be backing with height, giving both speed and directional shear; thus, tornadoes.

StormHunter2010

2010-05-08T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Well, here I am in SPringfield Missouri and we're almost to our target for Monday. Yup, we're actually ahead of the game for once.

THe last two days have been pretty uneventful as they were just travel days on the way to the Alley. We started off with a good sign - thunderstorms in Toronto and lighting for a good long way towards Windsor.

We crossed the border at about 1 am and finally stopped around 3 am somewhere in Ohio. The place we were at wasn't too bad, but Dayna and Brad found blood on their sheets and I had to stay in a smoking room. Yurg. Stll, I got a few hours sleep and we were back on the road by 10 am.

We met up with Scott and Dave at around 7 pm tonight and we just got into the hotel here in Springfield. We're not going to bother trying to chase tomorrow, but instead, we'll get set up for Monday.

Things are looking quite interesting (right now) for that day - possible strong tornadoes. THe SPC text is:

FCST
HODOGRAPHS EXHIBIT STRONGLY VEERING LOW-LEVEL WINDS WITH THE
COMPLETE VERTICAL PROFILE SIGNATURES INDICATIVE OF HISTORIC STRONG
TORNADIC CASES. VERY LARGE HAIL WILL ALSO BE POSSIBLE.

Yipe!

Climate Change

2010-03-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

And now for a slight break from all the chase stuff:

This is probably the best comment I've ever seen in regards to climate change deniers (from the comments section on a CBC news story):

arethereanynottaken wrote:

"Why the hell does anyone cling to something that is going to disappear never to return, that pollutes the planet, that causes wars, that is going to ruin the economy of any country that sticks with it....it's just ludicrous to fight action on moving to renewables, it makes absolutely no sense at all."

To which Cogniatus Prime replied:

"I believe you are missing the point of climate skepticism. You should not expect logic from people who write posts like to ones that have appeared here. They are not interested in data: they will dismiss it as corrupted if it disagrees with their views, and cling to the few instances that do agree. They will faux-educate themselves enough to reassure one another that they understand the system, and to post misinterpreted bits of data, but not enough to truly understand how science really works. They are not interested in the truth: if they were they would acknowledge that 'climategate' involves the professional misdemeanors of a few people, and that the majority of scientists do sound work on a real phenomenon, rather than inventing world-wide conspiracies involving hundreds of scientists. They are not interested in taking right action: they prefer to preserve the status quo without regard to long-term consequences because they do not want to look beyond their immediate prosperity.

What they really desire is reassurance: that life will not change, that ours will not be the generation in which the environmental bill finally comes due, that we will not have to cede any of our convenience and affluence. They cling to skepticism as a shipwrecked man does to a bit of flotsam. Logic does not enter into the equation."

Utterly brilliant.

Inside Equipment

2010-03-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Inside car equipment

This is the part that I love – gadgets. Seriously, I think that’s why half the chasers I know go chasing – just to have cool gadgets. When I started chasing, internet wasn’t available in cars (remotely) unless you wanted to pay a hell of a lot through your cel phone. And even then, you have to tag it though an external modem to get it to work. So, we relied on ham radios, scanners etc to get as much info into the car as we could. Nowdays, internet sticks are pretty ubiquitos and you can get online pretty much anywhere you can get a cel signal (and the networks are getting better and better coverage). However, keep in mind that west Texas and west Kansas have some seriously sparce coverage and even then, it tends to be really damn slow. Get near a thunderstorm and good luck on keeping the net running. We ran into this problem in 2009 – whenever we got near a storm we’d lose connection to the Net if we were anywhere off the interstates. However, we had backups so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The Net has become almost essential in chasing, so get the best signal and best coverage you can get is vital. I go with a Sprint card along with an external antenna (about 35$) – it gives me great signal and coverage pretty much anywhere and tends to stay running (slowly) even when we’re being hammered by the storm.

However, there are times when you lose all connection and things get dicey (especially when you’re near the core of a storm). That’s when the other systems you’ve got running kick in. One of the best (but really, really expensive) systems is the Baron Weather Worx radio/computer system. It essentially uses a Sirius type system to deliver weather radar directly to your computer. It’s not perfect radar and it’s mostly used for warnings to truckers and the general public, but it’s good enough to be useful to chasers. Especially when the Internet fails and you really, really need to know what’s going on. This system saved our butts more than once in 2009 chase season.

Scanners are next level of backup. Using radio scanners you can listen in on police, fire, ambulance and ham radio nets. Pretty damn uselful for finding out how the traffic is doing when you’re going through a city, but nowhere near good enough to find out the fine details of a storm system. Still, you can glean good info from police and fire crews that are keeping an eye on the storm as it comes through their community.

Ham radios come in very handy when you're doing car to car or car to base communications. THey can also come in handy when you're trying to get info from other chasers (there are a lot of ham radio licenced chasers) when nothing else is working. However, one of the chief advantages to having a ham isn't for the chaser at all. CANWARN and SKYWARN are two organizations that are based in Canada and the US respectively whose job it is to get information from people who are ham radio operators about storms that are occuring. In the case of chasers this can be from anywhere they happen to be (both CANWARN and SKYWARN do NOT condone chasing BTW), but many CANWARN/SKYWARN guys are non-mobile base stations who simply report on what's happening near them. This information is gathered by Environment Canada and the National Weather Service and diseminated to the public in the form of weather warnings etc. Having a ham radio allows you to be a part of this organization (although nowdays they rely a lot more on cel phone calls) and help the general public understand what's going on in the weather. Google CANWARN or SKYWARN and you'll find the links directly to these organizations.

Internet. Hooo boy, this could be a whole post unto itself. The bottom line is: get it for mobile in the car use. Don't care how, just do it. It's the single biggest, most important tool in the chaser's arsenal now. When I first started chasing, the Internet was incredibly useful, but really, really expensive to get mobile (and s-l-o-w). Now, with the overall coverage of internet throughout the US and Canada for relatively cheap price and fast download/upload speeds, it's become a valuable tool.

Unless you get near a thunderstorm.

Whoops. Did I forget to mention that? Yeah, that's a bit of problem. However, you can get external antennas for the Aircard that will help with this problem.

Ok, getting internet in the car isn't that hard anymore. All you need is a laptop, and an aircard (from one of the various companies - Sprint, Bell, Telus etc). Note to Canadians - using an aircard from Canada in the US is financial suicide (think 30$ or so for a MB of data - not a good idea).

Ok, more tomorrow on this subject.

Equipment (Cars and trucks)

2010-03-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

Vehicles/equipment

What kind of car/truck do you need?

Ah, the eternal question. However, contrary to popular belief (and popular movies), you don’t have to have an SUV to go chasing. Cars will do perfectly well. It really depends on exactly what you plan to be doing while chasing and how many people you’ve got going with you.

However, either way, there are a few general things that you’ve got to think about. Reliability is number one. Imagine bombing down the road racing towards a big tornado when your fule pump goes out. Happened to me. Or, driving to your target zone and your rear wheel drive side falls off. Yup, happened to me. To combat this, make sure that your vehicle gets a full inspection by your mechanic before you go. Don’t skimp on this. Get him to check brakes, fluid levels, transmission, plugs, exhaust system, etc. Get an oil change right before you head down. You’ll likely be getting another one at about the halfway point through the chase. Think about a rad fluid change as well. You’re going to be pushing your vehicle hard through very hot temps. Check the tires – if you even think you might need a new set of tires, get them. You’re going to be hammering through giant puddles, mud, wet roads etc. You want to make sure that you’ve got the best set of tires you can have.

A comfortable car. Got air conditioning? No? Not good. While you can go chasing without it, air conditioning makes life so much nicer. It gets bloody hot down there, especially on chase days. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in the car so you’d better be sure that it’s as comfie as you can get it. Bring along some movies, books etc. You’re going to be driving a LOT each day. But more on that later.

Cars vs. trucks

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Let’s talk about trucks/SUV’s first. The big advantage to these vehicles is their size. You can simply get a lot more people and stuff into them. Keep in mind that chasing isn’t like most vacations - it involves a lot more equipment – usually in the form of cameras, weather stations etc. You need room for all that stuff. You can also get off-road easier with an SUV. Four wheel drive can count for a lot in the Kansas mud. Unless you come from there, you have no idea what that mud is like. It’s like mutant mud – it somehow manages to be the slickest and stickiest crap you’ve ever had the unfortunate luck to come in contact with. Luckily it’s generally only found on the dirt roads and I can tell you from experience, even an SUV has trouble there.

The disadvantage to SUVs (especially nowdays) is that they’re horrific on gas. My little diesel car doubles the gas mileage of Scott’s XTerra. Totally amazing! I love pulling up to the gas station and saying “Naw, I don’t need to fill up this time, maybe next time”. As gas gets more and more expensive this will become a serious concern for chasers. Even climate change considerations should have you thinking twice about driving around the US alone in a giant truck.

Ok, now for the cars. And here, the big advantage is gas mileage. You’re simply going to go a lot further in a small car than a bif SUV. There’s also someothing to be said about having a low profile in high winds – it’s a more stable platform to shoot from. I’ve had both a truck and a car down in the Alley and I prefer the car in terms of shooting. Of course, when you’re bombing down the highway and trying to shoot, a good set of shocks (generally found on SUV’s) can be pretty helpful.

The disadvantage to cars is their size. They’re small and hard to get all the equipment that you need into them. You’ll be hard pressed to get multiple scanners, camera mounts, radios etc into a small car where it’ll all go easily into an SUV. However, if you’re good, you can get everything you need into a car without too much trouble.

To give you an idea - I drive an older model diesel Jetta. It’s small, compact and easy to repair. That comes into consideration more often than you realize.

Filming and Cameras

2010-03-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

First things first – if you’re going chasing and you want to get good stuff, learn how to take pictures. I can’t stress this enough. Look at some website, talk to someone who’s already a photographer, take a course. You’ll be happy you did in the end.

Still cameras (http://www.wired.com/reviews/product/giftguide_camera)

This is pretty much a requirement for going chasing. Describing a tornado to someone isn’t nearly as good as showing them a pic of a West Kansas tube. Film cameras are just about passé nowdays so the first thing to look for is a decent digital camera. These come in all shapes and sizes, price ranges etc. If you’re brand new to the field, I would sugest a good automatic. You’d be surprised at how good the shots that you can get even from a cheap one. However, I wouldn’t go too cheap as there’s some bad, bad merchandise out there. The requirements for chasing run towards the better made simply because one, you don’t want the camera to fail just as a tornado enters the viewfinder and two, the camera is going to take some abuse. I’m often asked if you need a waterproof housing for the camera. I’m pretty happy with my case cover – you really don’t need much more than that unless you’re going after hurricanes and that’s just a whole other world.
Rather than going though a huge list of cameras and listing their strengths and weaknesses, I’ll just put a list of good websites at the end of the vvideo so that you can peruse them yourself.
Gotta mention DSLR’s. These are the cameras that you see most pros and a lot of more serious amateurs with. You don’t NEED a DSLR (BTW – DSLR stand for Digital Single Lens Reflex), but it helps – a lot. These take a lot more learning to use properly and tend to be best if you use them in manual mode, but in the hands of even a good amateur – holy cow, the pics that you can get… These cameras are generally better as you can control all aspects of the unit – shutter speed, film speed, aperature, etc. This allows you to set the camera to get the best shot possible (the camera doesn’t always know best – this is the problem with automatics). These cameras are also more expensive than automatics – you could spend whatever you wanted on these – I’ve seen one camera worth close to $50K. Yeah, insane! Again, I’m not going to get into a huge discussion about the different cameras – there’s lots of this info on the net for that and it’s not worth me replicating here.
Photography in chasing is unique in it’s problems and needs. Fast, difficult shots are the rule of the day. You have really bad contrast in most shots (around thunderstorms there tends to be a lot of blue sky and if you’re underneath, you get a huge difference between the base of the storm and the blue sky beyond – shooting from far away isn’t that big a problem). Things in storms tend to happen very, very fast so you really need to know your camera well. You don’t want to be trying to find the aperature menu when there’s a tornado on the ground in front of you. I tend to leave my camera on automatic when things get really hairy. Better to have a shot that you can photoshop later than no shot at all.
One special type of shot is the lightning one. This requires a camera that can be set to a timed exposure. Many of the cheaper automatics do NOT have this, so if you really like lightning, don’t skimp on the camera – get a good one. The trick to these shots is to wait until after dark (usually pretty easy on a given (successful) chase day) and set the camera up on a tripod, open the shutter and wait. I normally set my camera on about a 5 second exposure and shoot lots and lots of shots. This is why digital is so great. You’ll know right away what kind of shot you got and you’re not wasting tons and tons of film. Digitals were made for lightning!

Video cameras

Ok, here we go, this is the big one (well, for me at least). Video cameras are the bread and butter for most chasers. If a still shot of a tornado is good, then full video of it tearing across the landscape is even better. Full sound? Awesome. A shot of you in the chase vehicle as you race to get into position – even better. Think of the home movies of your vacation now…

HD vs. SD

There are tons (literally thousands) of cameras out there, but right now there ‘s an easy split – HD and SD. High def and Standard def. At the moment SD is going the way of CD’s – still around, but not nearly as good as the new formats. The advantage to SD at the moment is that most computers can handle capturing and editing it – even with cheap editing programs that come with the system. The cameras are also super cheap right now as few people want them anymore. I’d suggest that they make a nice backup camera, but for your main camera (if you afford it) go with HD.
HD is the new format on the block and most people are familiar with it. Right now there’s a bit of a format war going on so there’s not a lot of standards that have been worked out. Still, if you aim for 1080 cameras you’re going to be ok. Amazingly, these are pretty much broadcast quality systems – yeah, you shoot something good, the TV stations might want it (and can use it). The quality of an HD system is very, very good pretty much no matter what camera you get, but you have to be careful not to get the wrong kind of camera for chasing. What do I mean? Well, HD cameras shoot on a few different types of media – tape, DVD, solid state (flash drives). I would recommend tape drive to anyone wanting to go chasing. Right now (2009), flash media is very good, but horrendously expensive for what you’re going to need. You don’t want to be downloading to your computer while a tornado is on the ground because you ran out of room on your 600$ 10 GB flash drive. DVD is similar, but I find those cameras way to finicky to properly write to the DVD while they’re getting bumped around in the car etc. Tape is cheap, plentiful and easy to slap in and out of the camera while things are going on. And trust me, you’re going to use a lot of it (hopefully anyway).
(Update) As of 2010, the Flash memory is coming down in price insanely. You can now get cameras that use basic SD cards as the media and this means that 60$ will get you a multi GB drive. THe only problem is that the cameras that use these are still in the 3000 - 4000$ range.
Finally, I would suggest, no almost require, that you get a good tripod. Shaky cam might be great for the latest “reality” movie, but you’re going to hate yourself if you get too much shake (and it’s very, very easy to do) in your shots.

Basic Forecasting

2010-03-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

This post assumes that you have a bit of a background in meteorology, so if you don't, it may go over your head a bit. DOn't worry if it does because I'm going to post an even more basic series of modules soon.

We'll start three days before the actual chase as this is the time period that we need to begin the process.

Day Three

First things first – check out your models a few days before the event. I suggest the NAM for close range and GFS for long range. GFS isn’t much good after about 120 hours, but it may hint at pattern shifts and often that gets you part way to getting ready for a moving trough etc. I use the GFS control runs mostly to see if there’s a trough coming through and the timing. Ensemble forecasts are good check on how well the control run is doing. I mostly suggest using the 0Z and 12Z runs. I’ve found them way better than the other two runs.

Day Two

Once you’ve got a handle on an event moving into the area (eg a good longwave trough coming into the Plains), it’s time to move on to the NAM/WRF models. There’s something to said for the GEM models, but they’re kinda hard to read and mostly are used for synoptic scale systems (from my experience). Medium range models are pretty good with small synoptic scale to mesoscale disturbances, but keep in mind that they can still be way off at 3 days. Don’t plan a solid target on three day models! Check out the regions of divergence aloft, CAPE advection, vort maxes, etc. Pick a basic target – i.e. a region rather than a town, but I’ve seen some good forecasters hit a town two days in advance. Because this is a basic module, I’m going to handwave some of the more complex and detailed forecasting that I do here. Check out the modules on Day 1, 2 and 3 chasing for more details on how I do my thing. Just keep in mind that all chasers do things differently and you’ll find your own methods that work for you.

Day One

On the day of – this is where things can get hairy. First thing to do is check your surface maps. Look to see if the models that you were using the night before have got a handle on things. Take a look for back and veering winds at the surface (indicating areas of convergence and lift). How’s the moisture? I often have the RUC model open as I work on the surface analysis just because I want to see how well it’s handling the day’s forecast. If it’s got warm air advection in an area of obvious cold air accrding to surface maps, I’m not as likely to believe it. Still, the RUC is generally pretty good (even if it’s known for overblowing CAPE on a regular basis). Then pull open a satellite map and check the cloud cover. Is there cloud over the target that you came up with or is it clear? Don’t foregt to animate it as you might miss movement and possible clearing before solar max. Check your skew T (tephi for the Canucks) and hodos for shear and advection trends. How tight is the cap? Too much and nothing’s going to go. Too little and you’re going to get an early boom or even worse, a total turnover. Then, pick a town and go for it.

What are we looking for?

There are some generalities that you look for in when you’re forecasting. For now, I’ll just deal with thunderstorms because hurricanes are very different, snow storms depend on temperature regimes (but are unsurprisingly, not that different from what you’re looking for in thunderstorm systems).
Remember that the fuel for thunderstorms is water vapour together with warm air. So, look for any areas of warm air advection generally coupled with an accompanying surface low and cold air mass. Serious advection is often hand in had with a deepening low as it moves up a steep trough. So, first things first – look for the trough in the 250 mb jetstream. That will give you a good idea of timing and the eventual strength of the low. Always remember – right entrance and left exit of a jet stream are the areas of upper divergence and hence, lift. There will usually be accompanying areas of convergence at the surface – moisture or otherwise.
Cold air advection aloft and warm advection at the surface sets things up exactly the way you want. CAPE will be enhanced with steep lapse rates above a decent cap with nice juicy air at the surface. However, don’t forget that that not all you need for supercell storms – wind shear is essential. Without it, all you’re going to see is either a big mess or giant squall line (not altogether a bad thing – they can be spectacular.). Take a look at your shear – i.e. what is the wind direction at the surface compared to the winds aloft? A perfect wind field would be southeast at the surface with much faster northwest winds in the jet above. Vorticity is often enhanced in these areas as well.
This is a really quick look at an incredibly complicated and detailed field of study, so I’ll eventually being doing a series of modules on the more complicated parts of forecasting for thunderstorms.

Models

There are a number of models I like to use when forecasting. What you’ll find is that each meteorologist has his or her own way of forecasting and some will favour one set of models over another. Some of the older crowd like to still do hand analysis (yeah paper and pencils if you can believe it) of the surface and upper level winds. Personally, I use the GFS, the WRF and the RUC to do my analysis.
The GFS is a long range, generally large scale (you can get fairly detailed versions though) model that used to forecast as far as 14 days out (but not worth much beyond about 5 days – thank you non-linear nature of the atmosphere). The acronym stands for Global Forecast System (???). This one is good for showing you general timing of the troughs, warm air advection, low progression etc. I often use it to plan when the stormchase trip will commence.
The WRF is a medium range model (goes out to 84 hours) which is more detailed (grid scale is 100 km as opposed to the GFS’s 250). This allows you to get a more detailed picture of the area that you’re targeting. Actually, it allows you to actually PICK a target. CAPE is usually forecdast with this model along with streamlines, vertical velocities, dewpoints, flow at all levels, etc. Keep in mind that despite this model only going out to 84 hours significant changes can occur from run to run so you should be using this to pick a general target (even the night before the day).
The RUC (Rapid Update Cycle) is a short range model that’s generally used to forecast day-of events. You still may find yourself using the WRF in the morning, but you’ll be able to compare the two models and see how each is doing. The RUC is extremely useful as it ingests data much quicker than the other models and because of that only goes out 12 hours. You can pretty detailed with this one and by using a surface analysis, you can normally figure out whether the model is handling the day alright. I.e. is there warm air advection where the surface data is saying there is? If so, then the RUC is working ok. Just as a side note – the RUC is well known for overblowing CAPE< style=""> There are some neat models that I’ve seen that actually run a forecasted radar loop for the day. I’ve used them a few times and they seem to do a decent job, but as far as I know, there’s been no work to determine how good they actually are.

Part 2: Safety and Reality

2010-03-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

2 – Safety and Reality

6. Is chasing like Twister etc?

a. Yeah right ! Life is always like Hollywood right? Uh yeah, no. In Twister they found tornado after tornado, had time to stop for lunch, have a shower, could get right up to the tornado without getting killed. It’s not like that at all. Think long distances, long days, exhaustion, frustration, bad food, cramped hotels, gorgeous scenery, great friends, incredible excitement and the wonder of nature baby!

7. Driving talk

a. This is what separates the men from the boys (so to say). Or maybe the serious chasers from the people that just want to take play Twister. Chasing involves serious amounts of driving. Think 8 hours on average a day. On the first couple of days getting to the Plains it’s about 14 hours the first day (from Toronto) and then another 12 the next day (to get to OKC).
b. During the actual chase you might easily drive four or five hours once you’re in the target zone. And that might not get you anything at all. I’ve been on many, many busts. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

8. How many tornadoes do you see?

a. One a year is good, more is better, but unusual. In 2009 (my best year so far) I saw two very nice tornadoes, but that was also because I stayed out for a full month.

9. The reality of busts

a. These happen all the time. All the time. I spend a good chunk of my time driving under blue skies to areas with blue skies and then back under dark (but normally blue) skies. I

10. Making money at this

a. Good luck! Actually, I’ve spent many years slowly building up a career out of stormchasing and it’s been very, very hard. In fact, most of the time I can just cover my expenses and sometimes the loss of my work income, but you are never going to make enough to get rich. A few people can, but it’s pretty rare. George Kourounis is one of the few that actually make money at this as he's managed to build a TV hosting career out of it.

b. I’ve gone a different way with my chasing. I returned to school and have gotten my meteorology degree. Now I’m working as a meteorologist at the Weather Network. I’ve been working with them as a freelance videographer, a news writer, and an “on-the-spot” reporter for hurricanes, but I’m finally going to be doing a full time met position. It’s just one of the ways that you can make money with weather.

An Intro to chasing

2010-03-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

A little while ago, I developed a series of webisodes based on "how to chase". I haven't been able to film them yet, but since I know that we're coming up on chase season quickly, I wanted to make sure those that needed to read these could. So, in that vein, I am posting the original drafts so that you can read them. This will be a large series of posts, but it's chock full of chasely goodness.

What is stormchasing?

Stormchasing is exactly that – pursuing some of the most powerful forces on earth in order to get up close and personal with them. Sometimes it’s just for the love of weather, but other times it’s for research – VORTEX and STORMFURY

Why do people do it?

Depends on the person. If its for research then that’s the reason – to gain a greater understanding of the storm in question so that we can know how to better forecast severe weather .
Some people just love weather and want to be as close to the severe weather as possible. Some are meteorologists who already have a good understanding and want to know the storm better so that they can get better information out to public when severe weather does happen.

Different types of chasing

There are all kinds of chasing – tornado/thunderstorm, hurricane, winter storms, nor’easters, waterspouts, fire, etc. I’ve gone after tornaodes, winter storms, nor’easters, hurricanes, steam devils, but not fire and the rest yet. There are even volcano chasers – George Kourounis.

Who does it?

It’s a total cross section of people. I personally know a doctor, a filmmaker, and IBM engineer, TV host, tile company owner, etc. All of them have a love of weather and will do just about anything to get out and pursue the storm. Oh, and I also know a bunch of mets who love it too.

How do you chase?

Chasing involves a lot of driving, a lot of prior knowledge – I studied the whole thing for almost a year before I chased my first storm. A solid love of weather is essential. You won’t be seeing a tornado the first time you head out. It involves a lot of boredom. It’s difficult, uncomfortable, and you don’t always get what you’re after. However, if you do persist you can see some of nature’s most incredible spectacles.

When do you chase?

Depends on the type of weather you’re going after. If it’s tornadoes and thunderstorms, it’s spring and summer. Hurricanes – fall. Snow and blizzards – winter. Volcanoes – any time you can.

What’s next?

Now it’s time to dig a little deeper. If you’re really interested in chasing – welcome to my channel. I’m going to put up a series of modules all about chasing, forecasting, the atmosphere, and whatever you’ll need to understand how to pursue severe weather.

Some science

2009-12-09T18:46:00.000-08:00

As I've become somewhat embroiled in this in the last little while (as the Copehagen talks go on) and those of you from York will know what I'm talking about, here's a few science papers:

Hansen, J. E. et al. (2005), “Earth’s Energy imbalance : Confirmation and Implication”,
Science, vol. 308, 3 June: 1431-1434.

Tett, S.F.B., et al. (1999), “Causes of Twentieth-Century Temperature Change Near the Earth’s Surface,” Nature, 399, 10 June, pp. 569-572.

Caldeira, K., A.K. Jain and M.I. Hoffert (2003), “Climate Sensitivity Uncertainty and the Need for Energy
without CO2 Emission,” Science, 28 March, pp. 2052-2054

Hansen, J.E. (2005), “A Slippery Slope: How Much Global Warming Constitutes ‘Dangerous
Anthropogenic Interference’ ”, Climatic Change, vol. 68: 269-279. (CP: 221-231)

Foley, J. A. (2005) “Tipping Points in the Tundra”, Science 310: 28. Oct: 627-628.

Schneider, S. (2009) “The Worst-Case Scenario”, Nature, 30 April 458:1104-1105

Weitzman, M. (2009) “On Modelling and interpreting the Economics of catastrophic Climate Change”, The Review of Economics and Statistics, XCI: 1-19.

Prins, G. and S. Rayner (2007), “Time to Ditch Kyoto”, Nature 449: 973-975.

also, try to understand the view of Stern and those who disagree with the insights of the Stern Review

Nordhaus, W.D. (2007) “Critical Assumptions in the Stern Review on Climate Change”, Science, 317: 201-202.

Stern, N. and C. Taylor (2007), “Climate Change: Risks, Ethics, and the Stern Review”, Science, 317: 203-204

Urban Heat Island Effect

Hansen, J., Ruedy, R., Sato, M., Imhoff, M., Lawrence, W., Easterling, D., Peterson, T., and Karl, T. 2001. “A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change.” J. Geophys. Res. 106, 23947–23963.

Parker, DE. 2004. “Large-scale warming is not urban.” Nature 432, 290.

Parker, DE. 2006. “A Demonstration That Large-Scale Warming Is Not Urban.” Journal of Climate 19, 2882-2895.

Peterson, Thomas C. 2003. “Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found.” J. Clim. 16(18), 2941-2959.

Peterson T., Gallo K., Lawrimore J., Owen T., Huang A., McKittrick D. 1999. “Global rural temperature trends.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 26(3), 329.

I've beginning to compile a list of papers so that I can point people to the blog so that they can look up the science. Unfortunately, I've found that the deniers (not the skeptics, they're a different bunch) are so out of touch with the actual science that this will be way over their heads. Still, they aren't stupid and I desperately hope that many of them will come here and at least try to understand the science. More on this later as I've got a few thoughts...

An Interesting Idea

2009-11-27T18:13:00.000-08:00

I've been reading some of the articles on the CRU hack debate and I come across this one:

Grim reaper's role in climate change denial

A very interesting idea and it does seem to follow the debates that I've been having. Most people my age seem to accept the science while older people have really dug in and ignored or dismissed the science. In some ways that might just be the way things go. As the older generation disappears and/or retires, the younger will take up the work of dealing with this massive problem.

What I worry about is that the time that we have to work on this is rapidly disappearing and the deniers are holding things up in a big way. But maybe that's the point - keep things the same because they're on top at the moment. That might be a bit harsh though. It may be as simple as the fact that people really, really don't like to change the way they've always done things. Add in a little some feelings of entitlement and it's an argument for why denialism has become so prevalent.

Why does this denialism bother me so much? I think it's a combination of the bad science and the total misunderstanding of how science works. So many people seem to be o unwilling to do anything about anything unless it directly and immediately affects them. I'm probably guilty of that as anyone, but I do try to think beyond the end of my nose. Then again, I've had years of training in the field of critical thinking. Unfortunately for many, critical thinking education has been a failure. People accept nonsensical ideas like Creationism, crystal healing, homeopathy, etc. etc. Climate change denialism is just another one of those things.

Here's how I look at it: it CANNOT be refuted that carbon dioxide is a diatomic molecule. It CANNOT be refuted that carbon dioxide absorbs infrared (heat) radiation. It CANNOT be refuted that this energy causes the molecular bonds to bend and vibrate. It CANNOT be refuted that the increased kinetic energy can be transferred to other molecules around the carbon dioxide molecule (i.e. increasing the heat energy of the system). It CANNOT...ok, ok you get the point. The earth absorbs incoming radiation from the sun as blackbody and re-radiates that heat as infrared radiation. That energy mostly passes back into space but some is absorbed and re-radiated back to the planet by a few molecules in the atmosphere (mostly water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane), thus warming the troposphere.

We are pumping more carbon dioxide into the air through our use of fossil fuels (along with a few other activities like cutting down carbon sinks (forests) and adding cows etc). Ergo - more carbon dioxide - more infrared radiation - more warming. How can this confuse people? I just don't get it.

BTW: A new paper reconstructing (and confirming) the hockey stick graph:

A Bayesian Algorithm for Reconstructing Climate Anomalies in Space and Time

CRU hack

2009-11-26T08:47:00.000-08:00

I have to say something about this as it's become quite the news story in the last few days.

rant/

The CRU hack is news? Ok, it's definitely news, but not for the reasons that the Denialosphere wants it to be.

What's way more interesting is the knee jerk "Everything about science is a fraud!" response that has been frantically screamed by every denialism pundit from the top of whatever soapbox they can find. Before any sort of investigation can be launched into very their very serious allegations of scientific fraud (and I for one, welcome an investigation), they've gone from accusing to pretty much saying "Well, now that the fraud is proven..." Anybody else catch the problem here?

And yet, when more than a cursory investigation into the emails is done, the full story emerges - cherry picking of quotes, things taken out of context etc. etc. And yet, the world keeps warming, and the problems we face keep mounting (as in this article) and human induced change is still the most likely reason for this. And yet, the Denialists keep insisting that what they're doing is great science. Sorry, but denialism is not only bad science, it's obstructionism at its best.

Ok, here's a thought - even if the CRU hacks show that not only did Mann pull the data out of his rear end, but he eats live puppies three times a day, how exaclty does this change the fact there have been multiple independent studies done all over the globe that support the original conclusions?

On top of that, I seriously doubt that most deniers can even point out the papers that are "compromised" by the supposed manipulation of data. All they seem to be doing is aping comments put out by people who hav vested interests in keeping things the way they are. I.e. energy companies, fossilized conservatives (I say this as I know some young conservatives that are quite eager to listen to new ideas) etc. Please show me that I'm wrong and that some deniers do have an idea of what they're talking about.

Please use the brain that evolution has granted you the use of and read just a little bit. I'm willing to change my mind if the data is there (known as science). The deniers don't seem to be able to change theirs (called religion/dogma - something that accuse AGW proponents of all the time).

/rant

30 year Climatology

2009-11-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

One last thing for now: click the link below for an explanation of why I was referring to a 30 year period that used to establish trends:

30 Year Climatology

Context

2009-11-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

BTW: here's the links to the two articles in question. You may have to dig through the comments to find what I said vs. the others:

Al Gore article

Telling the climate story poorly

Just ... wow

2009-11-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, just ... wow.

I've been having a debate online (at the Toronto Star website) with a bunch of climate change deniers. Unfortunately, they've been screaming at the top of their collective lungs about the fact that either climate change is not happening or warming is good for the planet. It really depends on the denier and their tactics.

Sadly, the ignorance level is also very high in their ranks (or seems to be from the evidence I can see). This is not to say that they're stupid. In fact, many of them seem quite intelligent. However, ignorance seems pretty rampant. And I'm definitely not saying that they're being paid off by fossil fuel companies. I just think that they've fallen into the trap of theory before evidence. It's common with Creationists too (not that I'm comparing - yet)

I was stunned at the vehemence of a few of them - no I'm not going to name anyone specifically. One thing I have repeatedly asked for is evidence from primary literature and as always, all I get back is either really bad (or, in one case a paper that was self published - i.e. not science at all) papers or ones that are taken out of context because the person posting the link either didn't read or doesn't understand the full science.

Today was a real doozy. Yesterday a certain poster had made a comment that there were less hurricanes this year than last, events were within normal climatology and I tried to explain that single events and single years are not considered when examining climatology. 30 years is generally considered a minimum time period for a data set. I.e. 30 year average of temps, of CO2 concentration etc. We can extend that period out, but generally we still need a 30 year period as a data point before looking at trends. This should be an easy concept for people to understand and yet the deniers totally got it wrong.

Instead they adhered directly to well documented denialism attacks (click this link for a full explanation of denialism and why it isn't science - Denialism Blog). Attack directly and accuse me of admitting that AGW is a fraud. Wow, total non sequitor. Rather than providing real science, attack, attack, attack is all the deniers seem to know. Can't stand on the science? Attack!

As I'm not anonymous on the Star site and this blog is published on my site, it's probably going to be seen by the deniers. Should be interesting to see if any post replies here.

Still, the debate is quite enjoyable as I've gotten a chance to stretch the ole debate muscles. It's also proven to me that there's a serious lack of understanding when it comes to science and how it all works. And that's gotten me more and more interested in getting going on my series on logic and science.

More to come...

So very freakin quiet

2009-11-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

Man, it's been so quiet this November. In fact I think it's one of the quietest stretches of weather I've seen in a long time.

However, that's not a bad thing. I'm just finishing up my degree and it's taking all my concentration to get these courses done. Dynamics and Cloud Physics - not easy by any stretch of the imagination. I may have to redo one course next semester, but that's not a bad thing. I have a job at the Weather Network as an on-call meteorologist but it's just part time for now. I'll be looking at full time in June, but that gives me some time to work on another course (and bring my average up).

I don't know if I'll ever be able to get my MAsters or PhD, but for now, I'll take a met job! I'm hoping to eventually get on air, but that may take a little while. And I might be too old to be allowed in front of the camera (LOL).

For now, it's just waiting time for the next big storm.

Logic fail

2009-10-28T11:30:00.001-07:00

The sheer amount of epic stupid that I've seen lately when it comes to topics like climate change, vaccines, H1N1, etc. is driving me right up the wall. So many people are so utterly ignorant when it comes to science and logical thinking that I fear for the future of Western science.

Ok, maybe it's not quite that bad, but man, I'm seriously stunned at the lack of critical thinking abilities of so many people. What's worse, they actually believe that they're using critical thinking. This has become more and more apparent with the rise of the "Comments" additions to many newspaper articles, blogs etc.

I've been following the Toronto Star (I've even written FOR it) and I've been monitoring (and commenting) on a number of science articles in the paper. Now, normally this would be limited to hard science like astronomy, biology etc, but lately a number of more popular articles that are linked directly to science have been appearing. This isn't unusual as science infiltrates so much of lives. However, what seems to be different now is the ability of people to comment directly back to the article in moments using the comments section.

I really think that this is an incredible tool and useful as all hell, but where we run into a problem is the utter lack of scientific understanding of some of the commenters. I'm a huge proponent of critical thinking (as some of you know), but only when it's being used correctly. What I'm seeing is a lot of people thinking that they know all about science and it's methods but really, don't have a clue.

One example - today I was reading an article on the hype surrounding the H1N1 virus and the media's penchant for blowing things out of proportion. While I do agree with the article, there were masses of comments talking about how the vaccine itself was dangerous. This, unfortunately, isn't new, but what struck was one comment:

"The vaccine contains an immune adjuvant called squalene (MF-59) which has been linked to autoimmune disorders like MS & Lupus. This is the vaccine adjuvant linked to Gulf War syndrome, which killed thousands & caused a 200% increase in ALS (Lou Gehreg disease). "

This is a good example of a logic failure: the poster throws out a stunning accusation with no evidence to back it up (killed thousands and caused a 200% increase...). Aim straight for emotion and never mind the facts.

Another example is the constant barrage of comments saying that Al Gore is going to directly profit from carbon trading so therefore global warming is a scam. Ouch. This is basically a straw man attack. Set something up that can easily be attacked and while it may be partly true doesn't say anything about the core argument itself. It seeks to draw the attention away from the original issue and on to something that the one side can easily attack.

I think that the big problem is that people simply don't understand how science works or how to apply it in life. Science is the most powerful tool ever created to understand the universe and the reality in which we live, but without a solid understand of it, can be so easily mis-used. And that is why I'm beginning to work on a series of YouTube videos and blogs (on this site) designed to educate people about science and logic.

Consider this an intro to a whole new world for some people...

Broken foot

2009-10-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

The trip to the hospital took about 15 minutes and the entire way was excruciating. The large lump on the side of my foot seemed to be throbbing and getting bigger every minute and it was really disturbing. I was sure that I had some giant bubble of blood in there that was going to break loose and kill me at any second...

Luckily, that wasn't the case. When we finally arrived at the Port Colborne hospital the nurses took a quick look at me and said "Yup, likely broken foot"

Doh!

They handed me a couple of Tylenol 3's and said "take these, try not to giggle when they kick in." And then they stuck me in a wheelchair Mr. Kourounis was trying hard not to start laughing, but I managed to wheel myself around a bit and do all the paperwork needed to get me admitted. Unfortunately, my foot was really starting to ache and I was havng trouble concentrating and getting around due to the combined efforts of the screaming pain and Tylenol 3's.

So, yeah, George got to wheel me around.

*sigh*

To make a long story short I finally ended up in the X-ray lab, got pics taken and then waited around for about a half hour while things got examined, checked, prodded, and queried. And I finally got the diagnosis of broken 5th metatarsal on the outside of my left foot. It turns out that if you fall down and try to stay up by just using your foot, the tendons in said foot can rip chunks out of the bone. Yarg. It scares me that I have bits inside of me that can do damage to other parts of me. Especially the bone parts.

BY the time we had finished I had a half cast, crutches and more pain that I knew what to do with. However, the drugs were helping a bit, so I asked George to get us back to Crystal Beach. I managed to get a few more shots, but things weren't feeling all that well, so we headed home.

Since that time I've been sitting on the couch, waiting around, and just slowly healing - actually it's been healing more quickly than I thought. I now have a boot cast, crutches and my stepmom's car ( for now). I can't drive the chase mobile because it's a manual - takes two feet to drive.

I'm nearly back on my feet and I'll be out chasing very soon. Right now it's study, study, study. Nearly done school (oh, and I had an interview at TWN last week - maybe a job there soon!)

Pics

2009-10-01T20:27:00.001-07:00

Not in the face!

2009-10-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I can finally update this blog. The chase down to Port Colborne went well, but very quickly became somewhat of a nightmare.

As we headed down to our target area (Port Colborne) we could see a massive series of storms pooping up off the lake and were likely directly over the target area. We headed directly to the port town and started looking around for a good spot to shoot the waves. Bleh. We could see waves pounding on large seawall out in the lake, but it was impossible to get to.

We drove around a bit to find a better spot and finally settled on our usual - Crystal Beach, which is about halfway between Port Colborne and Fort Erie. When we got there, the wind was howling and the waves were huge. A number of people had gathered in the parking lot and a few surfers were out braving the waves.

I jumped out of the truck when we stopped and shot a few rounds of still shots for Global TV. Great fun and I got a few nice ones. Finally, I decided that I need to get some video and went back to the truck. Unfortunately, I chose to do something stupid - I changed from my solid hiking boots to my sandals. My reasoning was that I'd have dry boots to go back home in and I wouldn't have to worry about cold feet as the water was pretty warm. What I didn't anticipate was the lack of support for my feet in case of a fall.

I was up on top of the breakwall shooting some surfers who had ditched the boards in favour of being pounded by the giant waves that blasting up and over the wall. Really spectacular and neat shots.

And then a really huge one began to pile up and head for the rocks. I whipped the camera (by the way, it was in my underwater housing so it was protected) around just in time to catch a huge face full of water. This wave was just the perfect size, speed and depth to not only hit the rocks dead on, but dump a massive load of water over the crest and into me.

The water hammered me and I could feel the ground disappear as I floundered for balance and enough air to breathe. I had the presence of mind to hold on to the camera, but that was a deadly move. I slammed into the rocks below me and as I searched desperately for a handhold that would ensure that I didn't go head over heels into the water below, I felt a sudden explosion of agony in my left foot. And then my right.

Then the wave was past and gone. I found myself sort of laying across the rocks, drenched to the bone and with agony running up and down both legs. Something very bad had happened and I wasn't sure what. As I began to struggle to my feet, the surfers all came running over to see if I was alright. I seemed to be ok, but I suddenly realized that my glasses were gone. I waves the surfers off and tried to take a step. Searing pain exploded in my foot and I nearly fell down again. The surfers immediately grabbed me and began helping me down off the rock. As they did so, I reached down and tore off my sandal to reveal a huge lump on the outside of my left foot. Something was very, very wrong.

George ran up, grabbed my camera and we hastened (with the help of the surfers) to the truck. I staggered into the seat and tore off the other sandal - blood welled up and oozed down my foot. Not good. Even worse, the left foot was almost without feeling. I looked at George and said "Time to go to the hospital"...

Hurricane on the Great Lakes

2009-09-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's not going to be quite a hurricane, but it's looking very interesting as the system is gonna get real strong.

Environment Canada is forecasting winds over 70 km/h at the shorelines of Ontario and Erie. Even better, Lake Erie is forecast to have 5 m (yeah, that's 15 feet) waves crashing ashore. Even better, we may see actual storm surge at the east end of the lake.

So, George and I are heading to the Crystal Beach area to see if we can get giant waves and serious winds.

More tomorrow!

Where'd the storm go?

2009-08-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

As we finished the last few shots of the beach and waves, we decided that we had better move along to the east as Bill began it's march along the coast. If we didn't Bill would get away from us and that would be that. We had gotten a few wind readings from the new anemometer on the car, but we wanted to monitor Bill for the full length of time before landfall.

The internet connection was intermittent, but there was enough to get a few radar images through and I was astonished to see that Bill had moved further along the coast than what I'd expected. And it was now looking like the eye was almost due south of us. We needed to move quickly to keep up. With the way the storm was moving and developing the winds and waves would be greatly reduced if we got too far behind the eye.

We jumped back into the cars and headed east, aiming for another point at which we could stop and shoot more footage of the waves. However, it looked as though the only points that we'd be able to do this were on long outcrops of land that jutted out into the Atlantic. And those took a long time to drive down and back. If we chose the wrong one, we'd be out of luck and miss the storm.

As we drove along Marine Drive (the main east-west road along the coast) we began to realize that this was not a quick or easy road to drive. The road was scenic, beautiful, bumpy, slow and quite interesting to drive. It just wasn't exactly what we needed to get us close up to Bill. And the storm was rapidly pulling away from us.

Still, I figured that we have no trouble getting another shot at Bill as it was a large storm and it was still within our reach. George and Peter poured over maps in the other car looking for a spit of land and finally found it in an area known as Fisherman's Reserve. We turned the cars onto the road leading down to the little village and stepped on the gas. And then ran into traffic. Yup, lots of traffic. It seemed that everyone was out to see the waves.

We finally pulled into the village and jumped out of the cars into the gale. The wind was still strong, but not quite as bad as it had been before. The biting cold of the wind was just a bit less, but the waves were still huge.

And this time, there was flying kelp! When I jumped out of the car with my camera I nearly wiped right out as the slippery seaweed slithered underfoot. Add the smooth rocks in and it was like standing on greased ball bearings. Always fun to help you keep your shots steady!

George and I ran around shooting as best we could as Peter tried to set up and get his shots. Tim remained in the car and ran the data monitoring gear and shot a bit of video of me slipping an sliding on the rocks. After a good 15 minutes of this, we decided to move on to the next spit of land and shoot again.

As we raced down the highway we began to notice something ominous (for chasers at least); the wind was dying, and the clouds were starting to break up. So, we drove faster. And then the wind began to really die. SO we drove further and faster. And then it died altogether. And that's when we realized that we were in serious trouble. The hurricane had moved faster and died quicker than we had ever thought. It seemed that Bill had run ahead of us and we'd lost the race.

We finally pulled into a small town near the Cape Breton area (I don't remember the name unfortunately) as the wind died to absolutely nothing and the chase ended. I managed to get an internet signal and a quick radar shot showed us the truth. Bill had pulled well ahead onto the Cape Breton island and was moving even faster than we were. Bill had escaped us.

All that was left was to drive back to Dartmouth and find a good place for supper.

Still, in the final analysis, we'd had a good run. We'd managed to test out the new data gathering systems in a real world situation, we'd gotten a bit of video, and we'd managed to catch a very difficult to nab hurricane. It had been a tough, long chase, but in the end we'd done pretty well. Still, the outcome was even better for Nova Scotia. Bill had brought huge waves, some strong winds and plenty of rain for a dry province. THe winds hadn't been enough to do a lot of damage, the waves had destroyed very little and the rain was a blessing.

So, the storm had proven to be bad for chasers, but good for the province. A mixed blessing for us!

As always, Nova Scotians had proven to be resilient, hardy, friendly to a fault and great to visit once again. My hat's off to all of you!

And now it's looking like things will be quiet for a little while in the tropics. Maybe not in Southern Ontario, but that's still to be seen...

Pics

2009-08-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

Goin home

2009-08-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

Well, the hurricane is over and we managed to intercept.

But, what we intercepted was a tad bit different than we were expecting. We were hoping for huge waves, lots of wind and a spectacular storm, but what we got was...well, read on as I explain.

The day started at the Hampton Inn in Darmouth NS which is essentially a part of Halifax with very little wind and no rain at all. I'd been up for a good chunk of the night getting radar reports, storm model estimations etc. Generally, just getting ready. So, by the time it was light, I had everything nailed down and was ready for a good intercept.

However, when I went out to the car, I realized that I'd forgotten about the heat shield that was loose and rattly. Especially when I went over to the Wal-mart to pick up some bolts to tie on the new RM Young anemometer. So, in the parking lot, on my back and partly under the car, I tried to get the heat shield off. That was fun. Especially as it started to rain just as I had it partly off and dragging on the ground. Long story short - I had to drive the car back over to the hotel with the heat shield dragging and scraping across the ground, making massive scraping sounds and attracting all kinds of attention.

*sigh*

Old cars are fun. But I did finally get it off and officially left another piece of my car on a chase trip.

Once Peter and George were ready, we headed out towards Lawrencetown Beach - a popular surfing spot. A quick gas stop and we were on our way. As we neared the area, it was pretty obvious that all the locals knew exactly what happens in these storms. THere was actually a traffic jam near the parking lot for the beach.

We quickly found spots and pulled in. The rain was coming down really hard and the winds were kicking up strongly so it was a bit of a chore to get the rain gear on, the cameras prepped and the anemometer reading correctly, but we managed it.

We jumped up on top of the rocks that overlooked the beach and noticed that the beach itself was nearly underwater. Massive waves were crashing against beach and rolling up almost to the rocks. I jumped down towards the beach area and was quickly hit with one.

The water was C-O-O-L-D. To the point of making my feet and legs actually hurt.

Ok, staying out the water might be a good idea. Still, I wanted to test out my underwater camera housing see what kind of neat shots I could get. And that meant getting down real close to the water. As in standing in it. Ouch.

I jumped down off the small wooden staircase that was trying to hold itself together in the battering waves (while simultaneously trying to batter George with the torn out boards) and onto the rocks below. As a wave receded I put the camera (in the housing) down on the rocks and held on. Within seconds a huge wave slammed up the rocks and exploded into the housing and nearly knocked me off my feet. I nearly lost my hold on the camera, but thankfully I managed to keep my death grip even in the freezing water.

I had my shot and it was time to get a few more of some different stuff. I grabbed the other camera and aimed it up at all the people standing gawking at the waves as more and more joined them. Occasionally I'd hear screams as one of the waves breached the rocks and poured down into the parking lot. Most people seemed to be taking the storm with good humour as it seemed that there just wasn't much danger at this point. We figured that it was only a matter of time before Bill swept in and really pounded us.

And as always, Mother Nature had different plans than we did...

12 noon

2009-08-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

So far so good. Giant waves along the coast and the winds are picking up considerably.

We've registered wind wind gusts 46 mph at 12:15 ADT. SUstained winds at the moment are around 30 mph (have to use mph right now as our anemometer is American). We're moving up the coast from Lawrenceville towards Sheet Harbour where we think Bill may make landfall.

Halifax

2009-08-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

We made it Halifax. Whew. Long drive.

Ok, Bill is expected to land on top of us sometime tomorrow. The strength and exact path are still somewhat in question, but we believe that the storm will maintain it's hurricane status and impact us somewhere close to early afternoon. We are heading east to the town of Whitehead (likely) and will set up along the coast as close (safely) as we can.

There is the expectation that the combination of large waves and the high tides will end up causing some flooding along the coast so we have to be very careful. We don't want to get swept away by accident. So, we have some work to do the in the morning to get the car ready and get to our target area. Tomorrow is going to get very, very busy...

Made it to Montreal

2009-08-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

Ok, made it to Montreal. It wasn`t quite as quick as we were hoping, but we made it. It`s about 1 in the morning now so I`m a bit wiped.

Still, we made it this far and now comes a bit of sleep and an early day tomorrow. We`re tryng to make it Halifax by tomorrow night and that will put us in good position to get to our target zone for Sunday.

Our target (for now) is the small town of Whitehead near Cape Breton. This is where Bill may make landfall and along with that the strongest winds and waves. Things will get interesting in that area by Sunday even if the hurricane doesn`t make landfall. Right now the NHC and the CHC are predicting that the hurricane will skirt along the edge of the province and may not make landfall until Newfoundland. That`s the gamble we`re taking this time. Will Bill come onshore or keep the strongest winds offshore and away from land?

Only time will tell, but we`ll be there to find out!

Hurricane Bill

2009-08-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go. It's off to chase Hurricane Bill in Nova Scotia and after the system that we just had come through here in the GTA, it's like the neverending storm chase!

I've never quite seen anything like the storms that blasted through the GTA last night here in Toronto. I mean, I've seen them down south in Tornado Alley, but not around here. Too bad that I was too busy getting my car ready for the trip out east. Doh! I did manage to get some footage of the storm that passed through the southern end of the GTA, but nothing like what slammed into Vaughan.

Still, it's now onwards and upwards! Off to Bill we go. Right now Bill is looking like it will make landfall just to the north and east of Halifax and that's where we're headed. This should be quite interesting....

Tornado

2009-06-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

The problem was that the dust swirl on the ground was just to our west. That meant that the tornado was going to moving straight at us. Or, maybe if we were lucky, just to our south. Either way, we suddenly had a tornado forming really, really close to us.

Yipe.

This is not a situation that one finds themselves in every day. In fact, it`s about the furthest from normal as you can get. Then again, in my life, normal is kinda subjective.

My stomach instantly did a flip flop as I realized what was happening. This was it, my first truly close up encounter with one of Mother Nature's most rare phenomena and I was right where I'd always wanted to be. Up front and personal.

Hmmmmm. Maybe I'd just bitten off more than I could chew.

The tornado began to kick up serious amounts of dirt and the base of the thing took on a bowl like shape and a funnel of perfect white could poked down from the rapidly swirling could base. This was getting very real, very fast.

I jumped into the car as Scott and Dave did the same. Scott called over to me on the radio, "Aren't you glad you didn't go home early?". I had to agree, but my mind was racing at top speed. I`d really never been in the direct path of a tornado in my life so this was a bit of a new situation. Amazingly, I felt an eerie calm as opposed to the frantic nervousness I'd been feeling before the tornado touched down. And that helped me a lot. Of course, my mouth suddenly went drier than I'd ever felt before, but that didn't matter too much.

Scott and Dave pulled over as the dust swirl faded into the background. We seemed to be far enough ahead that we felt that we could pull over and film safely for a bit. And then Mother Nature decided to mess with us.

As I got out I looked up almost directly over the car to see the funnel stretching down towards us, a white cone against the black of the parent cloud. Scott and Dave were looking down the road desperately searching for the swirl that would indicate that the tornado was still on the ground. Scott thought we were safe and Dave figured that the tornado had lifted and would re-form a little bit back.

I grabbed Scott's arm and pointed upwards. He got this funny expression on his face and said, "Uh, yeah, we gotta move".

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some great video so turned the camera towards me and pointed it up at the funnel. I now had a shot of me and of a funnel just over my shoulder. Ah, self promotion - ain't it great?

We dove back into the cars and headed east. Incredibly, the road that we were on was perfect - the tornado was headed due east and all we had to due was play hopscotch with the other chasers that were with us. Shoot, drive ahead of some of the guys, stop, shoot, drive ahead of the guys, etc. You could not ask for a more perfect set up.

As the hopscotch game began we had to make sure that our position was perfect - too close and we'd be in danger, too far and we'd be getting rain from the main core of the storm and the shots would be bad. It was finesse at its scariest and Dave and Scott were very good at it.

Our first stop allowed us to turn around and see the tornado as it began to really touch down. Dust swirled around the base and as we watched, the black dirt began to lift up into the sky even while it stretched out sideways. It was like watching a gigantic bowl made of wind and dust being spun on a massive potter's wheel. I'd never seen anything like it and I was totally in awe. Seeing a tornado on a TV screen is one thing, but witnessing it roaring down the road at you is quite something else.

As it drew closer, I could hear the hissing roar of the wind as it was drawn around the centre of circulation. I'd never before been able to actually hear a tornado, but finally, after 9 years of chasing them, I heard the roar. I've stood in the centre of many hurricanes and listened to the bass rumble of the storm, but this was very different. I kind of expected it to be the same sort of rumble, but it was more like a hiss or high pitched screech crossed with that same sort of hurricane rumble. Incredible.

As we continued to play hopscotch with the tornado, it went through various phases. One minute it looked huge and nasty and then suddenly, on the next stop, it was barely there. Then another stop and it was huge with a massive dust cloud on the ground and accompanying white bowl above. Then, an elegant elephant trunk snaked down to the ground and seemed to be almost delicately vaccuuming up the fields. Finally, it was a huge stovepipe, black along it's entire length and spinning so fast that you barely tell that it really was spinning.

As we entered the town of Aurora, we watched as the tornado began to fade into the darkness of the rapidly deepening night and began the final phase of it's lifecycle - the rope out. Even as we watched in the rear view mirrors, it disappeared into the air from where it had been born.

I'd just witnessed a tornado from birth to death and now my chase trip was truly complete.

(video coming soon to my YouTube channel!)

Tornado Part 3

2009-06-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'd finally hooked up with Dave and Scott despite the incredible journey that I'd just gone through and things were looking up. The car was still covered in mud and now that I'd changed into something dry, I was at least comfortable.

Scott and Dave waited for me at a small gas station outside of Marysville and were amazed at the story of my adventures in the mud. After a few minutes of laughter, we decided to get back on the road and aim for our original target of Grand Island. There was still time to get there, but it would be close.

As we began the drive, Dave noticed a small blip on the radar near the town, but not much more. It wasn't moving very fast or far so we wondered if it might be just an initial shower and nothing more. As we sped north on the 83 we watched the shower intently, hoping that it would either begin to move eastward or get a bot more intense. For once, we were in the right area - as the storm moved east we would be able to intercept and likely, if things went according to plan, we'd reach the eastwards driving storm just as it matured and dropped a tornado.

And, as always, Mother Nature had her own plans. The "shower" began to mature and show signs of hail, winds, and possible rotation. Great! It would come right to us.

Uh no.

This storm decided to go up and then stop. I mean, literally stop. The thing wasn't moving at all. And it was rapidly becoming mature. We'd miss the whole thing! Grimly, we stomped on our collective gas pedals and hung the turn onto the west I-80 on two wheels. Then we really got going (the speed limit is 75 along there).

As we hammered across the prairie, we could see the magnificence of the storm laid out before us. The anvil was crisp, backsheared and utterly huge. The storm had obviously been going for a while as the downstream anvil was enormous and stretched over and back of us for as far as we could see. The updraft core was solid with boiling convection that reminded me of old atomic weapon videos. As we neared the main core, the flanking line came into view and it was just tight up against the main updraft. A barber pole updraft was clearly visible and we all immediately knew that this storm had very serious rotation in it.

This just couldn't get any better.

And then the tornado reports began to pour in. Even when we were 30 or 40 miles away we guessed that this storm would produce a tornado and we were right. The magnificent storm dropped not one, not two, but three tornadoes and we just couldn't get to them. It was simply too far away. Even worse was the feeling that with storms like this one, so often it produces a few small tornadoes and then dies out. It was beginning to look like we'd missed the show.

Still, it was worth getting up underneath the storm to see if we could spot the wallcloud an maybe even get some good structure and wall cloud shots. If nothing else, we'd made it to the storm we'd targeted and maybe we could even get close enough to really say that we'd caught it.

As we raced west, the storm just sat there, slowly rotating and looking gorgeous. It was just west of the town of Grand Island Nebraska and it looked like it was starting to move very slightly. We decided that the best way to intercept this storm was to drive past Grand Island and attack it from the south. We'd be able to see any tornadoes that dropped and still be in position to get up and under.

We turned right at the next exit and headed north, then east, then north again, and finally west. The base of the storm came into view and it was incredible. The wall cloud was dark and ominous, nearly touching the ground. Lightning flashed almost continuously as we advanced towards the centre of the storm. Dark cloud boiled and riled at the base as a great vault of clear space arched upwards into the heart of the storm. I could see the entire base of the storm slowly spinning and the gray cloud was contrasted against the white of the sky behind. It was like looking into Armageddon.

Since the storm was moving very slowly, it became no issue to tuck ourselves directly underneath the rapidly rotating wall cloud in the heart of the thunderstorm. If it was going to drop anything, we were going to be there to see it. Even better, the lack of low cloud meant that we'd be able to see the whole event unfold directly in front of us.

Even as we watched, the wall cloud began to tighten up and spin more rapidly. The vault became slightly obscured, but we could still see the storm towering far above us. Cloud began to slide past each other faster and faster and the base began to lower even further towards the ground. This storm was getting its act together one more time. We still might see a tornado on it.

Even as we retreated east, we noticed that things were becoming more and more interesting. Finally, as I pulled into a small side street on the east edge of town, I noticed the first truly scary moment.

Scott and Dave had pulled in beside me and were facing to the north and away from the west. They didn't see it, but I did:

Just as they were getting into position, a huge blast wind screamed past along the ground and right past their truck headed due north. This was the first clue that things had become fully organized. A north wind that strong under the wall cloud meant only one thing. A tornado was now in the process of touching down.

I spoke calmly into the radio that I was going to keep going east to the Wal-Mart parking lot that I could see which was about a kilometer away. I pulled out and went for it and Scott and Dave soon followed. It seems that Scott had gotten himself turned around when they parked and he had thought that the blast of wind had come from the north headed south - a safe direction and would have simply meant a bit of outflow. The reality was totally different.

As I pulled into the parking lot, things began to happen very fast. Scott and Dave pulled in beside me and we all jumped out of the vehicles. Then, wrapping around the centre of rotation, a clear slot appeared (a clear slot is the RFD wrapping down and around the developing tornado; it often appears just minutes before the tornado itself touches down). The center of rotation began to develop a core of extremely fast movement and suddenly a bowl shaped, laminar lowering appeared; almost directly over the other end of the parking lot.

We gulped and jumped back into the vehicles, heading east at a rapid clip. This was it. A tornado was beginning to form almost directly over our heads.

We stopped one more time to get an idea of what was happening when I noticed dust and dirt suddenly swirling just to the north of the road.

Tornado.....

Pics

2009-06-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

Tornado Part II

2009-06-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

I knew that the farmhouse I'd seen was a bit of walk away, but I had no idea exactly how far it was. Or that the rain wasn't going to let up for a long time.

I started the long trek out of the mud and along the dirt road as the rain poured down. In very short order I was totally soaked to the skin and cold. My sandals filled with mud and gravel and my toes were rubbed raw by the walk. It was a totally miserable experience. Especially since I figured that my chasing was done for the season and it had ended on such an inglorious note.

As I neared the farmhouse (after about 20 minutes of walking), I noticed that there were still a few pieces of hail left melting and as the sun began to appear from around the clouds, even they were rapidly disappearing. It was as if the storm had never happened. Except for the soaked chaser and the stuck car of course.

I tentatively walked up the beautifully manicured porch and tapped on the door. Now, at this point, I had taken off my soaked shirt in a vain effort to dry it as the sun came out and wind picked up. I'm also now in a rural area in Nebraska, without a shirt, dressed in shorts and covered in mud. I'm kinda surprised I didn't get shot on the spot.

As it turned out, the farmer that opened the door with a bit of a shocked look on his face was named Leland Weink and he turned out to be a complete lifesaver. Not only did he immediately offer to help, he dragged his very large tractor out of the shed that I had hid behind earlier to drag my car out of the mud. Now, I don't know if you've ever stood beside a full sized tractor, but they are BIG. I mean, really BIG. And the wheels on them...whoa. Ironically, depsite their size, there's really only room for one person to sit in the cab, so I got to go along for a ride while hanging on to the outside and trying to stay out of the way of the large, spinning tire that rotated only inches from my leg. I say, if you're going to ride on a tractor - go extreme.

As we neared the car, Leland knew exactly what had happened and where I was. He explained that teenagers often got stuck there when joyriding and I wasn't the first person to be pulled out of there. He did say I was possibly the most interesting person to be pulled out, but the car was definately the most interesting vehicle he'd ever towed.

The car was sunk into the mud pretty well by the time we'd gotten to it so I figured that it was not going to be easy to get out. Ummmm, no. After I'd attached the chain to the tow point on the car, Leland dropped the massive tractor into low gear and just yanked the car right out of the sucking mud. It was as if the car was sitting on dry pavement on a gentle hill. I don't think the tractor even noticed the extra weight. Absolutely the most incredible thing I've ever seen. And my cars have been pulled, towed, pushed and prodded out of all kinds of situations.

I ended up back at the farmhouse when Leland wife came along and she just loved the fact that I had been chasing the storm when I'd gotten stuck. She'd never met a chaser, but had seen many thunderstorms in her time. After a bit of filming the giant hail that they'd saved and after they let me borrow a bathroom to change out of my very wet clothes (and a good wash off with a hose), I said my goodbyes and decided to head out. If I left right then, I'd be able to make it home early and surprise Beth. I figured that Dave and Scott would be long gone and I was out of luck chasing any more that day.

I was to be proven wrong in a most spectacular manner as it turned out that Dave and Scott were passing by very close to where I was and the original target was still well within reachable distance. I had no idea that Mother Nature had quite a massive surprise waiting for me...

Tornado again

2009-06-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, that day has to rank up there with my wedding day and the birth of my daughter in terms of days I will remember.

The day started in Newton Kansas. We knew that things were going to be good in Nebraska and since I was on my way home it worked out nicely. I planned to go out through Iowa along the I-80 as it was the fastest route to get home from where I was. It also helped that there was a good tornado risk at the same time.

We began the long trek up Highway 81 from Newton and as we moved north we noticed a small cell beginning to blow up just to our northwest. Looking at the radar, it seemed that the storm would cross our path just to the south of the town of Hebron. No problem. It might make a nice little storm before the main show. We had targeted the area of Hastings Nebraska for the main show at 6 pm or so and this would make a nice little diversion. I had no idea what it would turn into.

As we neared the state border, we began to get up under the base of the storm and we saw the coolest circular striations underneath and boy, did that get our attention. The storm was definately already rotating and that meant that we might actually get to see something. Neat!

As the storm began to build towards the ground, we decided that we needed to move a bit east and follow the storm to see if it would do anything. The winds weren't great for tornado potential, but we might get big hail. The road network wasn't great as we headed east, but were did some mapping and driving and finally managed to get into a position that we could get a good look at the storm and see what it was doing.

During our drive, the storm had really intensified and was now show a rotation couplet that could signify the beginings of tornado formation. It wasn't too strong yet, but definately looking good. We decided to move east once more and just keep ahead of the area of strongest rotation. We stopped a couple of times and watched, filmed etc. as the storm began to really intensify. Suddenly our little side chase had turned into quite the event.

And that's when everything went wrong for me. I was following Dave and Scott and got a little behind when I went to change a tape in the camera. As I raced to the east, a cop pulled out in front of me and I was forced to go south down a paved road. Directly into the path of the strongest rotation.

I knew that this was spectacularly bad move and so when I saw a good dirt road that led directly along the state border I took it. As long as I stayed ahead of the storm the road was going to be ok and I could move at pretty good pace and not have to worry about being in serious trouble. As long as the road stayed good. Famous last words.

At one point I managed to get ahead enough to chance stopping and seeing what was going on. That was when I noticed that the meso (the mesocyclone - the area of strongest rotation and where the tornado would form) was directly behind me and spinning like a top. Yipe!

I jumed back in the car and fled east once more. Very quickly the road ended in a highway, but only led north and south. And that's where I ran into Ron Gravelle. After a quick greeting, he headed south along the paved road and I made my big mistake. I continued to head east along the dirt road and boy did I find out how fast a situation can deteriorate. As I headed east, the road began to get worse and worse. I bombed through an area of thick mud and the car didn't stop or slow down too much, but I knew that it was going to get bad if it rained there.

And then the road ended.

Uh oh.

I had only a north or south option so I headed north. I knew that I'd get into the core with giant hail and big winds, but I'd avoid the tornado danger, so the choice was pretty obvious. I had to head north and hope that the hail didn't get too big. I turned the corner and hammered the gas. If I could find some sort of shelter I might make it out of there without losing any glass in the car. I was pretty sure that I'd get some dents (this is a good thing for chasers - having dents means that you're cool), but I'd be ok.

I popped up over the top of a hill and saw a steel shed about a kilometre away and I knew I could make it before things got really serious. I threw caution to the wind and stepped on the gas. Thee bangs of the hail ont he car began to get louder and I knew that it was going to be close. If I could shelter from any horizontal hail, I'd be in a perfect place to get some really good video. Just as the bangs on the roof and hood increased to the point where I thought I was going to lose a window for sure, the car slid to halt in the lee of the shed and I knew that I'd likely be ok.

The hail barrage didn't last all that long and even the rain let up pretty quick. That meant that I could possibly cath up with the storm once more if I could figure out a way to get back to the paved roads. I quickly checked the GPS and found a south road that led back to the highway so I figured that if got back down there, I might even be able to cath up with Dave and Scott again. Hoo boy, was I ever wrong.

I left the shelter of the shed and headed back south. The road was a bit wet, but not too bad so I knew that I'd be ok.

And then I turned right back towards the point I'd nearly pun out earlier. Suddenly the road began to get very, very slippery. I could see the dark silty mud beneath the thin layer of small gravel and I knew that I was in trouble. Mud was spraying in arcs from the front tires as they began to spin wildly and the car started to slide to the right depsite my frantic efforts to steer the other way. Lessons learned from a lfetime of driving in snow and slush came rapidly to the fore and I spun the wheel the other way while letting off all brakes and keeping a slight bit of gas. No good. This was something even an experienced snow driver couldn't handle.

The car slid into the thick morass at the edge of the field and stopped. I immediately let the gas up and jumped out. I knew that if I tried almost anything, the car would be done, done, done. The chase was over and I was stuck in the mud. The passenger side tire was nearly half sunk in a thick, gray sludge that built up at the bottom of the hill that I'd just driven down and the cornfield to my right was helping to add more and more with every rainfall. I'd just hit the perfect car trap.

Chase done. I was finished, kaput etc.

I nearly wept with frustration.

Then I remembered that I'd just hid behind a nice farmhouse shed up the road. Maybe they could help...

Pics

2009-06-17T22:27:00.001-07:00

The last three are from Dave Lewison (www.facethewind.com)

The first two are mine (he has a much better camera).

Tor-freaking-nado

2009-06-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

There's just no other way to describe what we just went through.

To make a long story short - we just got chased down a highway by a large, desstructive tornado. I will post the whole story tomorrow as I'm totally exhausted and I have to drive home in the morning.

Whew.

I'll post some pics now.

Pics

2009-06-16T06:50:00.001-07:00

Yet another late update

2009-06-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know this one is late, but man, it's been busy!

So, as a quick shot - the day before George was scheduled to go home, we had one last chase that went from Amarillo, TX to Childress, TX. It was quite an incredible chase and we managed to get even more hail dents in the trucks, but not quite big enough to destroy the windshield.

One highlight - as we blasted south to catch a cell nearing Childress, we had to punch the core from the north (incredibly dangerous because if there is a tornado in the storm, you can't see it until you get out of the rain and it's possible that it's right beside you). Still, we decided to make the run through and wow, were we ever in for a treat. As the rain began to clear and the rotational area of the storm revealed itself, the colour of the sky and the incredible power of the wall cloud was totally evident. The sky under the storm was an ugly yellowish gray and the wall cloud was a nearly black lowered block below the storm to our west.

And then the baseballs began to fall. It was one of the most incredible hail barrages I've ever seen and I was sure the we were going to lose the windshield as soon as one of them hit us. I watched out the side as the hail exploded as it hit the pavement, bounced high as they hit the grass or rip bits off trees as they ripped through them.

Incredibly, we never got hit in the windshield. A few bounced off the roof with a thunderous bang, but we made it out safely. Things became a bit of a blur after that, but essentially the storm tried to wrap itself up and produce a tornado, but it couldn't quite do it. We had a few scares as, at one point, I was sure it was going to drop a tornado directly on top of George (it didn't).

Yesterday was the final day as George and Peter and Nik (there's a whole story about Nik which I will reiterate at a later date - he could fill a book he's such an interesting guy) headed to Oklahoma City along with myself and Jack. I was picking up my car and Peter and Nik were flying out. Jack and George were driving back as well.

I, on the other hand, decided that I wanted to do a couple more chase days, so I headed for southern Kansas as soon as I could. I left a little late, but I saw one large supercell in Kansas that I might be able to make. As it turned out, after multiple road detours, a bridge out, and a number of wrong turns, I didn't quite make it before the sun went down. Still, I did manage to get some beautiful lighting shots in a wind farm.

And then there was today. I will try and get some text up about today. Incredible structure, big hail, gustnadoes, and almost a tornado. More later!

Another late update

2009-06-13T20:47:00.000-07:00

I have to start doing these updates every night! All the days are beginning to blur together.

Where did I leave off? Oh right, it was the night we got what we called the "Dirt-i-cane" . We stayed that night in Colby Kansas. We thought that most likely spot for development would be near Limon COlorado so by being in Colby, we had a good shot at getting to the target area easily.

We got up in the morning and began to make the trek west under a gray sky and temperatures that are normally reserved the late fall. Brrr... Not an auspicious start to the day. Still, we had confidence that the further we got west, the more heating and sunshine there would be.

As we neared Limon, CO, we found ourselves in sunlight, but not a lot of heat. George assured me that this was ok as upslope storms just don't need that much heat. Perfect. We'd stop in Limon, assess the situation and wait for the storms to fire. We didn't have to wait long. About an hour after we stopped, a small storm went up near Denver. We immediately jumped into the vehicles and sped west. Jack was having some trouble with the truck and we kind of dropped behind, but we did try to keep up as best we could. George outdistanced us as we got closer to the storm, but it didn't look much good. Long story short, we took one dirst road to the north and Cloud 9 + Scott and Dave took another. We quickly ended up on dirt roads which slowed us down so badly that the storm quickly took off and got way ahead of us. We had little choice but to try and keep up, but no matter what we did, we couldn't quite break free of the precipitation.

We decided to give up and head back to Limon as the storm bowed out and took off to the east. As it turned out, that storm would keep going almost to the eastern side of Kansas until after sunset. We did stop for a few brief pictures as we headed bac to Limon (which we happend to be due north of by that point). By the time we'd arrived back in Limon the next storm had already begun to fire. Problem was that it was about three hours to the south. Luckily, it was moving very, very slowly.

Perfect.

We had a very good chance of intercepting this new storm and it was in much better (warmer) air. This might be our best chance at getting our big hail. Sweet!

We raced south trying to get ahead of the storm and as we got within 50 miles of it we could actually see the storm itself. The clarity of the air and distance that you can see in the Plains is simply amazing. THe storm didn't look like much, but it was the only one in the area, so e continued southward. We carefully gauged the track path of the storm and began to look for a place to pull off when we were directly in it's path. Because it was still many miles off, we had a perfect vantage point to really get a good look at it. Jack pulled the truck over to small dirt road that had about 6 other chaser cars and George pulled in behind. We all jumped out the vehicles and threw the cameras onto tripods and suddenly realized that this storm had a very good chance of producing a tornado right in front of us.

The structure was nearly perfect. A wall cloud extended tendril of mist towards the precpitation that dumped from the core and even at the distance that we were, rotation of the cloud was clearly visible. The updraft core stretched into the sky above the dusty ground and was illuminated from behind by the early evening sun. It was one of the most beautiful storms I'd ever seen.

And then, another storm began to form to the south of the one we were looking at. George was determined to get into the hail and he blasted south with Jack and I in hot pursuit. I wasn't convinced that we were doing the right thing, but George would prove me wrong once again. As we dropped south we kept in radio contact with George and he told us that he was headed west, directly into the core of the storm. I thought he was crazy taking on a storm like this one, but off he went. We tried to keep up, but was forced to drop south on a paved road parallel to George (he'd come to an abrupt halt at the end of his west road and had to turn south on a dirt road).

This was perfectly ok as the southern storm began to look better and better. Still, it became a nightmare for me as I had keep swithcing from storm to storm trying to figure out which one was going to drop the tornado. As the southern storm moved east towards us it began to wrap up and spin more rapidly. This had to be the one that was going to produce a tornado!

And, as Jack and I had dodge and deak through the dirt roads and towns in the way of us keeping up with the storm we got almost directly below the circulation. We were in the perfect spot to see any tornado that hit the ground. George caught up with us pretty quickly and together we headed east trying to stay with the storm.

As we passed through the small town of La Junta, the storm began to take on less of a supercell characteristic and more of a linear shape and we knew it was time to play in the hail. We blasted east and suddenly the truck began to shudder under a barrage of hailstones. We had found the core and it was mean. Jack and I knew that this might be it and as we raced east, the barrage began to get worse and worse. Soon golfballs were pounding the ground around us and the thunder of ice hitting truck began to deafen us. The only way Jack and I could communicate was to scream at each other. Talking to George on the radio was utterly impossible.

As we pulled through yet another town the barrage began to ease and we could hear ousleves once more. We skidded to a halt on a small road just north of the town and set ourselves up to once again recieve the barrage. George was utterly delighted. This is what he'd came for and he was getting it good. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had it out for us, and we were forced to give up our position and race east to get into the hail again.

This time George raced ahead we quickly began to hear his delighted yells and the smashing cracks of hail over the radio. Jack and I followed him in, but were just a bit behind the core and as the storm began to slide south of our road, we knew that it was almost over. There was no way to catch up and intercept one more time so we pulled up behind George to assess the damage.

His windshield had been completely cracked through and a circular pattern of new cracks radiated around a single impact point. He'd finally done it - his windshield was cracked and the new Angry Planet episode was complete. There was time for dinner and then a long drive back up to Limon.

Little did we know that Mother Nature had one last surprise for us...

Pics

2009-06-12T08:38:00.001-07:00

We did it!

2009-06-12T06:21:00.001-07:00

The last two days have been suprisingly successful.

The day before yesterday was a bit of a stealth chase; essentially, we targetted an area well outside the risk area for severe thunderstorms and was pleasantly surprised by a rip-snorting storm that ended up producing a tornado.

The day began in Kansas after we'd been kind of skunked the day before. We did some forecasting and determined that the best chance of storms the day after was in Colorado (back near the place we'd caught the Goshen tornado) and thus, we needed to get pretty far in order to be in position for that. So, when Dave Lewison suggested a south western Kansas target we hummed and hawed about it for a bit and then decided that he might be right.

We made the very long drive towards west Kansas and as we got into Garden City we noticed a few small storms beginning to percolate a bit to our west. I was unimpressed to say the least, but Mother Nature was determined to prove me wrong yet again. I argued against heading towards the storms, but in the end we decided that it was at least worth the quick trip.

I kinda figured it might might make for some pretty shots near sunset and hadn't set up my video cameras in the car. Whoops.

As we got close to the storm we could see that it was producing a nice shelf cloud and the sky had gone kinda green and that's the universal sign of big hail. We stopped for a quick gas up and flush out and then raced out of Sublette to the west. The storm began to turn right and speed up. And we were right in it's path. Perfect.

We skidded to halt in a small town (the name I forget) and watched as a slender funnel poked its way out of the front of the shelf cloud. I frantically grabbed my cameras and tried to get a shot of it, but no luck. I missed the good shot by seconds. That'll teach me.

We waited as the storm rolled towards us and small pinged off the truck. Nothing serious, but the storm had the potential to produce something bigger. George and I decided to run south down a dirt road to get south and hopefully into bigger hail, but no go. Dirt roads in the rain just aren't a good idea.

And that was when Charles (Cloud 9 tour leader) noticed a tight couplet (it's a Doppler radar thing that basically shows a possible tornado) just to our south. We had to get east and south fast. The problem was that our road options were limited and the storm was moving fast.

We raced to our east, but the tornado was moving too fast and we just couldn't get out in front. THe rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was beginning to howl from the north. We bounced and juked over the poor roads as we began to punch through to the front of the storm. But we still couldn't get ahead of it. Finally, as we watched the couplet fade, we realized that we just couldn't make it.

We came to a halt behind Scott and Dave at a lonely intersection. Charles was ahead of them in one of the Cloud 9 vans and Rocky behind us in the other. The wind was howling and the rain was pounding off Scott's truck in a spectacular fashion. I shot a a little bit of video and then suggested we head north up to the highway. We made the turn and then everything wents nuts.

The storm must have gusted out or we managed to get into the worst part of the winds because all of the sudden visibility dropped to zero and Jack had to hang on to the steering wheel with both hands just to keep us on the road. Small stones began to bang against the side of the truck and Jack's door began to flex under the screaming winds. The air went brown with flying dirt being kicked up off the fields around us. It was suddenly like being in the midst of a hurricane. We travelled slowly north to the accompanyment of the radio squawking of various members of the group swearing and yelling as the trucks rocked and bucked.

Then as suddenly as it began, it ended and we burst back out into sunlight and beautiful clouds rolling slowly through the darkening sky. We'd just been through one of the most wild gust outs of a storm that I'd ever been through.

And there was more on the way the next day. We just didn't know it yet.

Successful days!

2009-06-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, two very successful days. More tomorrow - very tired now.

Big hail, almost two tornadoes etc.

Very, very tired now.

Wasted potential

2009-06-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

Well, that was a huge waste of a potentially very, very good day.

Things just didn't come together the way we wanted them to, but to our credit we did manage to get to the right place at the right time.

THis day had been building for quite a while before. The models were painting a huge bullseye right on Wichita, Kansas and we were right in the target zone long before the day began. We essentially slept right in the middle of where we needed to be. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the more hype there is, the less chance of something good (which should give you a clue to how well today went).

We got up late in the morning and looked at the SPC (Storm Prediction Center) outlook for the day and were extraordinarily pleased to see a very high chance of tornadoes, giant hail, and high winds. Everything looked good and in place to produce an amazing day.

After a leisurely breakfast we headed out to the west to a place called Harper, Kansas. The last time I had been there was after the Attica tornado and about 20 minutes after a very violent F-4 tornado had levelled part of the town. It was interesting to be back there.

As we drove west we began to notice something was wrong. The surface winds were coming from the wrong direction. A little explanation: in order to get storms to fire up and begin rotating (or at least to help them), the winds at the surface need to be coming from the southeast. We call these "backing winds"; exactly why they're called that is beyond a quick explanation here. What we noticed was that the winds were coming from the southwest. Not good.

We did notice that the surface observations to the east looked much better for backing winds. After humming and hawing for a while, we headed out east and just as we passed the 35 we began to notice that the storms were going up even further to the east. We had to hurry or we were going to miss the whole show. However, that sneaky old problem of the non-backing surface winds was creepng in again. Even worse, now the models were showing that the winds just above the surface were doing the same thing. This was looking very bad.

Still, we had a nice storm in our view and we had the chance to get on it. We then noticed another storm to our southwest, but it was in even worse flow than we had. It looked nice and we were tempted to go after it, but we decided that the one we had was nicer. And it was within reach - i.e. right over top of us.

We raced into a town west of Independence (which I don't remember the name of) and stopped to assess the situation. The storm looked alright on radar, not great, but not bad and we needed a better angle on it so that we could see what was going on. After a few minutes, we drove out of town and parked on the east side. Jack angled the car so that he was looking to the north and I was looking to the south.

As we watched, things began to happen very fast. The circulation in the storm wrapped up and got tighter and tighter and then suddenly, right beside the car, a funnel poked down out of the cloud, touched the ground and disappeared. Even worse, Jack was the only one out of all us to see it. I was too busy being very worried about how close we were to getting killed by a tornado, and everyone else was looking in the wrong direction.

Even worse, that was it. The storm wrapped up briefly, got too close to a large mess of storms to the north and turned into a mess of rain, tiny hail, and lightning. Our day suddenly turned from a super spectacular one to a huge mess.

All that was left to do was go and shoot some some pictures of the incredible greenish mess that the storms were and then head for dinner.

Very, very tired now, so I'll post some pics tomorrow.

Quick pic

2009-06-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

Potential today

2009-06-09T07:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I've gotten a bit behind in my blogging due to the fact that things have been very, very busy.

To make a very long story very short (and I will be writing this up properly), got large hail two days ago, got George's windshield cracked (but not smashed), got out of position on a beautiful supercell and then stared straight up the throat of a mesocyclone (that's the part of the storm where tornadoes are born), and then got blasted by RFD (rear flank downdraft) winds while trying to get through a chaser traffic jam.

However, what I wanted to put up today was the fact that we have a high potential to get tornadoes today (and possibly significant ones). However, as always, it's never easy to get into position to see one, let alone a significant one.

We'll see, but things look good.

Tornado Day

2009-06-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, that was an incredible day.

It started out in Limon Colorado and ended in Gothenburg, Nebraska. A total of almost 900 km. Whew.

The models looked good a possible tornado day, but the target was kind of diffuse. We were almost directly south of the area that we wanted to be in, so we headed north to the target town of Stirling, Colorado. It was kind of the middle of the best winds, moisture, and it had a good road newtwork coming out of it. As and added bonus, it was only about three hours away.

After a good breakfast at Denny's, we headed out north towards Stirling. Things still looked good, but a veil of high clouds had begun to move in. I figured that this would really cut off heating, but George assured me that he'd seen tornadoes on days with even more cloud cover. I wasn't totally convinced, but that was to change. Big time.

We decided to hang out in Stirling and wait for something to happen because not much was going on. Some showers were beginning to start in Wyoming and that was where I'd forecasted initiation fo the storms. However, looking at the models, I expected things to be better down closer to us, so we decided to wait and see what would happen with the northern showers and building storms. They were in an area of significant high clouds, so I really didn't expect much of them. And they didn't do much at all. Right up to the point where one exploded.

Ummmmm

Time to head north. With some caution. We didn't want to get suckered into racing to a storm that would die out only to watch cells go tornadic right in the area that we'd just left. It's a matter of strategy. You don't want to always go after the first cell because that isn't always the best one. You really want to assess the situation carefully and go after the best one, not the first one. Only this time, it was quickly becoming apparent that the first one WAS the best one.

Watching on SPotter Network (a network of GPS localed chasers on a radar program that we use), everyone was racing towards the storm. Even better, it looked like we were in position to intercept the cell. We could make it, but we'd have to hurry.

And the tornado warning for the cell went up.

We knew we had to get north and fast. Luckily there was essentially only one way north and we rocketed up towards the cell. The road network was good and there was an east-west road that led directly to the cell. As we raced north, we began to come up under the cell and to our west an ominous lowering began to form under the rainfree base. Something very serious was going on and it looked like we were going to make it. The storm was dark, almost black under the base and lighting began to pulse and flash across an massive updraft core. That was when we noticed a suspicious cone like structure under what was obviously a massive wall cloud.

We screamed around a left hand turn on two wheels and rocketed towards the base of the storm. And that's when we saw it.

A massive cone plunged towards the ground beneath the wall cloud. There was no longer any question. We were looking at a huge, almost wedge tornado and we were racing towards it at breakneck speed. Jack raced the engine as we tried vainly to keep up with George and Jim Edds, but his poor little Kia wasn't going to have any of that. George's black CRV began to dwindle into a small black dot, but that didn't matter. There was no way to miss this tornado. It seemed to sit there slowly changing shape, twisting and dancing beneath the blackish greenish base.

I stuck my feet into the space between the dashboard and the window in an attempt to get a solid mount for the camera as the car bounced and jigged over the highway. In the viewfinder the tornado did the same, but the shape was begining to go from cone to stovepipe. An utterly beautiful updraft and wall cloud graced the sky above the tornado and I was in awe. The pure beauty of the storm was incredible and we were pulling closer and closer. As the sky above us began to darken as the cloud closed over. We were almost under the mesocyclone itself.

We blasted over the edge of a hill and the tornado along with its parent storm was laid out before us. I cannot put into words the beauty and power of the storm and tornado. The funnel had narrowed to a thin, almost pencil like shape. It twisted and writhed at the centre of sheath of white cloud as the final stages of it lifecycle began. We skidded to a halt and leaped out still camera and video cameras in hand. Tripods were set up and we whooped and hollered. I have never seen such a beautiful sight.

As we watched, the tornado began to rope out and disapate in front of us. The collar cloud above it continued to rotate and curl above the rapidly disappearing tornado and the storm motion was directly towards us. As the tornado disappeared competely a new area of rotation appeared almost directly in front of us and a new cone shaped lowering began to slide out of the gigantic collar. And it was coming directly at us...

Tornado!

2009-06-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

Running back and forth

2009-06-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

Today was an interesting day. It began far to the south in Liberal Kansas and ended here in Limon Coloarado, a place I'd never been to before.

We forecasted an area along the Colorado/Kansas/Nebraska triple point as a spot for some good hail (which is what we're after) and we knew that the drive was going to be a long one. We got going earlier than we normally did and headed straight north along the 83 which led pretty much from Liberal right up to the I-70. Not too much exciting going on during the trip north so I'm not going to bore you with details of flat farm fields, high density feedlots, and lonely gas stations. Suffice to say that things didn't get going until we hit the I-70.

We knew that we had to blast west to get into position and we were already slightly behind time, but go west we did. And, as we rocketed towards our target area, we noticed the first towers starting to go up. One beautiful one was aiming directly for our target town of Limon and we knew we had to catch it.

The dewpoints (a measure of the amount of moisture in the air, hence the storm "fuel") were pretty low, but we figured that there might be just enough to get things fired up. Well, we were kind of right. We expected that the storms would head south east because of the wind field and most of them did. Except our target storm. Which wasn't a bad thing as it was coming straight for us. We figured on an intercept near Limon.

Perfect! And then it died.

Uh yeah. It was looking good for many scans of the radar and as soon as we got near it, it just went 'poof', gone. Literally almost totally gone in less than 20 minutes. We'd been skunked by Ma Nature again. No hail this time. George's windows stayed intact and we knew we needed to forge on and find the next storm. Remember, this time we're looking for the biggest hail we can find. The quest must go on!

We halted in Limon at a truck stop and waited for Cloud 9 Tours to catch up with us. Which they did. And then Charles once again accused me of killing the storms. I threw something at him. Jim Edds (a hurricane chaser and friend of mine) then pulled up. It was getting to be a regular chaser convergence.

We sat around glumly for any sign that another set of storms was going up. After a about 2 hours we got our wish. Another tower went up fast and beautiful (Colorado is just amazing for photogenic storms) and we were off!

We rocketed south west with everyone in tow, racing to catch the storm, moving as fast as we dared... and then it died. Big time.

Wait, there was another one on radar near where we had just come from. Everyone back in the vehicles! Rotation signature! This was the big one!

And then it died.

It just wasn't our day. Two storms, both of which went up big and died just as fast. Lots of driving, but I do have to say that these were just gorgeous storms (check out the pics).

And now, we're looking at tomorrow as a significant chance to get the big hail that we're looking for. All the parameters are correct, the winds are in the right position and there's finally some good juicy moisture to work with.

Stay tuned, this could be it.

Pics!

2009-06-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

End of Camera

2009-06-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

As the storm headed south on us, we had only one option and that was to head southwest to try and catch up. We were near the town of Post and the way the storm was moving, we could get into a good postion to see the southwest side and determine if there was good rotation.

The storm had begun to get very green which meant that there was some big (and lots) of hail in it. As Jack pulled to a halt, I jumped out of the car and started shooting both Jack, and when I could, George. The storm had definite rotational characteristics - in other words, it looked mean and nasty. We knew we had to get south, pull through Post and then go east to intercept the hail core.

We jumped back in the car and sped off. And that's right when I did the dumb thing. I had taken a couple of still shots and put my camera on Jack's spare tire so I could get the video of them. And, in the rush to get going, I'd forgotten that it was there.

We were about 1 mile outsde of Post heading east when I realized what I'd done. I frantically began searching in the truck to find it, but I knew what I'd done.

My camera had likely hit the ground at about 100 km/hour and shattered into a thousand pieces. I felt sick to my stomach, but there wasn't anything I could do. I kept shooting as best I could as the hail began to hammer us once again. We kept edging into the storm, but finally made the fateful decision to head back to Post and try and get south to once again intercept the hail core.

We ran back to Post and we knew we needed gas, so George and crew stopped at the gas station and Jack and I headed back up north to see if we could find my camera. And find it we did. At about three minutes into the trip. This meant that the camera had held on for a good long time before it fell off and bounced across the road and into the grass beside.

And it was actually less destroyed than I thought. Sony makes goooood cameras! (I'm actually waiting right now for it dry out and I'm going to test and see if I can take a shot).

I pulled the memory chip out and inspected it - still totally intact and recoverable. I couldn't believe it.

The rest of the day went along with much less drama. The storm accelerated and disappeared into a long bowing segmet without much hail, but we couldn't have caught it anyway. And then things began to dry up all around us. The day was over and we'd nearly gotten our hail shots, but not quite. We still need that one good, window smashing, mayhem inducing storm...

(and if anyone wants to donate a DSLR, my email is on my website - *grin*)

More Pics

2009-06-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

This is actually a gustnado, not just a dust plume. Very cool.

Ok, this is the bad part of the day

2009-06-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, Well, today started well at the Big Texan breakfast. Holy cow, the omlette was utterly huge. I mean really, really huge. I coudl barely finish it and I think I put on about 10 pounds in the last two days alone.

Anyway, we forecasted away in the morning and came up with a target area of Lubbock over towards Childress for today's storms. Not too high a tornadic potential, but there was the chance of very large hail - which was perfect, because the new episode for Angry Planet is all about hail.

We started out after breakfast and headed due south towards Plainview. A nice quick drive and some hail storms to catch. Perfect...

As we dropped south we suddenly saw storms beginning to spike out in front of us much earlier in the day than we expected. Chase on!

We raced through Plainview and headed down towards Lubbock and then east towards Rolls and Crosbyton. THe storm was rapidly building and hail markers of 2.5 inches were showing up on it. If we punched the core on this we had to very careful that we didn't run into a rain wrapped mixmaster of a tornado.

We assessed our chances and George plunged in. Jack and I held back a bit to ensure that we could still get radar (George's computer went down), but we quickly realized that while the storm had good rotation, it wasn't going to produce a tornado. In we go!

Bam, bam, bam, crack, blam, kaboom! I cannot even begin to describe the sound of hail the size of golfballs bouncing off the steel and fibreglass of the truck. Jack has modified his truck so that the back half is pretty much a fibreglass shell that hail bounces (while making a huge noise) off. At least, that's the plan. As we sat there becoming rapidly deaf, George hopped out of his truck and began to run around collecting whatever hail he could. THe stones he grabbed were all around us and I could see him wincing as some bounced off tender regions of his anatomy.

Like his toe! Get your mind out of the gutter!

After shooting as much as I could, I jumped out of our truck and began my own hail collection. They were of all sizes and shapes, spiked, smoth, clear, mushy and hard as a rock. Luckily the large ones had mostly stopped and I didn't have to worry about getting hail bruises. Still, I did manage to collet a few large ones - mostly the size of golfballs.

After waiting a bit to see if anything larger was going to show up, we decided to carry on down south and reintercept the cell as it passed over an east-west road. Little did I know that when we stopped, I was going to do a really, really dumb thing.

A good and very bad day

2009-06-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

TO continue:

I yelled at George that something was happening, he yelled to the camera and eveything went nuts for about 5 minutes as we all pointed our cameras upwards to catch whatever was going on above us.

The sky had turned an almost depp greenish blue as the storm swept towards us and on the radar indications were that rotation had begun to really get going on this storm.. Even better, we were in the exact position to get the tornado that it might produce.

Sadly, the storm just didn't want to cooperate and the rotation faded away. Our excitement didn't though - big hail was in the offing and we were going to go get it. We jumped back in the trucks and headed north right into the core of the storm. Unfortunately, the storm decided that it was going to accelerate away from us and thanks to the lack of roads, we just had to wave goodbye as it headed out in the wilds of Texas. No hail for us this day.

Still, the day ended with spectacular mammatus and a really, really good/big meal at the Big Texan that night. Even cooler, we stayed overnight at the hotel attached to the restaurant.

For those of you who don't know - the Big Texan is the ultimate chaser restaurant/hang out. Almost every chaser I know has been to the big Texan at least once.

Pics

2009-06-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Thunderstorms Today

2009-06-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

Finally!

We got some...

Today was an interesting one for me. I started off in Norman Oklahoma with my car and ended up in Amarillo, Texas without it. Now, this was kind of planned so no worries.

I had agreed to help George Kourounis shoot an episode of hs show, Angry Planet, this chase season (actually, I owe him big for it as he offered me the chance). Anyway, Jack Kertzie (another chaser) is going with George on a hail hunt so I'm in Jack's truck filming him while Peter films George and another guy, Nik Halik (Nik is also a heck of an interesting guy - more later on him).

So, I forecast the area of Amarillo to be a good one today, but the really good area was way up in Iowa. Not a chance were we going to go for that, so we decided that, because Tuesday looked so good in the Texas Panhandle, we would go for the Texas target and be in a good position to get storms today and be in position for Tuesday.

SO we headed across I-40 nd basically drove right up into a storm without really havfng to get off the highway. Still, we needed to be able to stop so we decided that getting off the main route would the the more prudent choice. As we began to get closer to our target storm, it just didn't look that good, but we decided that it was better than nothing.

However, as we began to make our way around it, the core started to tighten up and suddenly we were looking at a supercell rather than just a garden variety storm. Somehow we'd managed to pick the best storm out of a very large bunch of storms that were popping up all around us. We raced south on a series of dirt and paved roads, always trying to stay just ahead of the rapidly building monster on our heels. Of course, this was exactly what we were after, a storm with not much chance of a tornado, but good sized hail.

We skidded to a halt just south of the storm to assess the situation. That was when the sky turned green and the storm began to exhibit what we in the biz call "tornadic potential". Right over our heads.

....

Down days

2009-06-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well, my mom said there'd be days like this. Not much to do but rebuild the rear end of the car and do studying.

As it turned out, the big problem with the car was the rear wheel bearings. Now, if you know about cars, you'll know that bearings are one of the most important simple jobs that can be done. If you don't do it, the bearings will seize, melt and then weld themselves to the back axle. This will cause one of two things to happen: 1) the wheel falling off or 2) the wheel stopping solid and will result in a skidding halt.

So, replacing these is kinda important. And that's what I did in the parking lot of the Guest Inn in Norman, Oklahoma. I'm actually very used to this kind of thing with my cars on the Plains chases and this year was no exception.

New bearings in, I took the car for a test drive and lo and behold, the humming was gone.

I'd managed to just escape a very bad situation.

Now, all that was left was studying and relaxing. Which is what I did until today. Today, we headed out to Amarillo to chase whatever we could find....

That night

2009-05-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

On my way bac through Dallas, I began to notice that the thunderstorm activity wasn't slowing down at all. In fact, it was kind of picking up.

Wheeeeeee!

That's when I also noticed (I LOVE internet in the car) that a large cell was going to be directly over the highway when I got north of Denton.

Wheeeeeee!

I stepped on the gas (with an accompanying ominous hum) and blasted northwards. This cell was beginning to show rather large hail and I'm totally determined to get some hail dents on my car. As I began to enter Denton, I noticed that the storm was extremely electrified. The whole cloud was lighting up every few seconds as lightning flashed between different parts of the storm. Then, as I began to clear Denton, the storm both intensified with lightning every second to half second and began to accelerate away from me. My giant hailer was getting away!

Not a chance was I not going to punch this thing. I once again drove the pedal to the floor and roared off after the storm. But, by now the only way I was going to be able to core punch this thing was to get ahead of it and make a sharp eastern turn. There was a town called Gainesville about 15 km ahead with a perfect east-west road and I figured I could make it.

So, raced to Gainesville, made the east turn and raced across a gently rolling road that led directly into the heart of the beast. Now, one thing I should mention - core punching a supercell thunderstorm in the Oklahoma in May at night is likely one of the dumber things to do. However, since I've been doing this for a few years, I kinda knew that there was essentially no chance of a rotating death machine in the heart of the storm so I was pretty safe. However, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

Anyway, I finally began to catch up with the storm just as it began it's fading out phase. Mother Nature was really deteremined that I wasn't to catch her storms. Still, as I began to hit the outer edge, the rain was blasting down and the winds were rocking and rolling the car. It felt like one of the hurricanes. Until the hail started...

And, as with all my luck so far with this storm, the hail never got much beyond pea sized. Now, it sounded like baseballs, but alas, no hail dents this time. Even when I punched directly into the core, the hail was far too puny to do much more than sound big.

Sigh. At least Beth won't have any reason to get mad at me for damaging the car.

I stopped the car and watched as the storm faded into the distance and back into the water vapour from whence it came. Then I turned the car away and headed for Oklahoma City.

But first I had to sit on the OK/TX border until 3 am to get some good lightning shots at night. And then I passed out in the car and slept until 6 am whereupon I headed for my hotel (finally). Sleeping in the car - not so much fun. Still, it saved me a few bucks.

And then the car broke down. But luckily, not until I had parked it at the hotel. But that's another story...

some pics

2009-05-28T12:19:00.001-07:00

These are some pics from the other day.

Finally, a storm!

2009-05-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am sitting in Norman, Oklahoma without too much to do (other than study, fix the car - rear wheel bearings needed replacing - get my computer running correctly, cut video, get tapes off to Discovery, get groceries, etc), so I thought I'd update what's going on.

Well, we finally had a decent day of chasing two days ago. We had encamped in Childress, Texas after the poof storm. Nothing to do but wait and see for the next day. I decided that I needed to go back to Oklahoma City and get some work done, so I told Cloud 9 that I'd be headed back. They said goodbye and took off for breakfast. I proceeded to head out, but very quickly heard a loud hum from teh car that shouldn't have been there. I hooked back up with Cloud 9 just in case anything serious went wrong with the car, I'd have some back up (nothing did - whew, but that's another story). We proceeded towards Dallas/Ft. Worth as that was the area most likely to have storms, but it's also one of the largest conglomerations of urban area in the US. Not exactly great chase territory. Still, better than nothing.

We played the usual game of hurry up and wait at a gas station in 35 + degree sun (but we found a beer cooler - very nice....) and threw donuts at each other. Mostly I got the short end of the stick as usual. When Charles and George gang up you've got to watch out for both of them. Oh, did I tell you about the butter all over my car? That'll have to wait, but I'm still washing butter out of the windows.

Anyway, we finally saw a system start to spark up and we all jumped into the vehicles, thankful to have something to chase. And then we noticed that it was heading straight for Ft. Worth. Doh! Did I mention how much I hate chasing in extreme traffic? - wheee! Fun!

However, we managed to get past the metro area as the storm began to enter the city. THe look of the thing was incredible. Dark, high based, beautiful rainfoot and menacing as hell. We were sure that big hal was pounding the ground below it, but we wanted to get into position to catch any tornadoes that it might produce and that meant getting to the south west side. To Cloud 9's immense skill, they found a perfect vantage point in a small suburb and we all piled out of the vehicles to watch. We were in a perfect position. In fact, we were so good that if the storm produced a tornado, it was going to land in the field beside us. Why can't we always get as nice a position?

However, while the storm was looking really, really nice, the cloud base was just too high to have a chance of tornadoes, so we watched until it was beginning to pass us and then headed out and down south to catch the next storm in the line. This hop step continued until we had almost no light and it was time to head to the hotel for the night. I decided to break off as the car wasn't acting up too bad and I thought I'd be safe.

And I thought that it was going to be a quick drive up to OKC for a nice sleep in a bed. Was I ever in for a surprise...

May 26, 2009

2009-05-25T21:31:00.001-07:00

Ok, today was a slight chance on a marginal day. Still it looked like we might see something around the Amarillo area - possibly to the west. However, things just didn't look that good. The moisture was ok, but the winds were... well, bad.

For those of you who haven't had any training in meteorology, a little aside: In order to get thunderstorms that produce significant severe weather we need three things - a good flow (wind) at multiple levels throughout the atmosphere, a lot of moisture in the air (that's the fuel), and something to get things going.

So, today we had the moisture, not much flow and a posible dryline to get things going. We took our chances and drove from Guymon down to Amarillo. We had planned to stop there and check the chances that something would get going, but we noticed that we had good bubbling cumulus to the east (an indicator of low level mositure) and we headed for Childress. As we raced east on highway 287 we noticed a large building cu that was rapidly outdistancing every other cu in the area. As we drove, the anvil began to spread out and quickly become far too symmetrical for my lking. This meant that it was likely going to go straight up and then come striaght back down.

I was almost right - it went straight up and never came back down. I've never seen a storm destroy itself so quickly. It went up and one hour later was totally gone. Still, it was good looking storm while it was going, but man, did it ever go fast.

I'm in Childress tonight and it's looking like we'll be headed up to SW Oklahoma tomorrow.

"night all!

May 25, 2009

2009-05-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

Well, that was a couple of tiring days.

One of the reasons I came down this year was to shoot a piece for Discovery channel on Dave Sills and Neil. Incredibly, despite the bad year for thunderstorms (bad in the sense that there haven't been very many), we managed to get something in the area of North Platte, Nebraska yesterday. Not great storms, but still pretty dramatic. They went up, rotated briefly, and then went linear real fast. Still, we got a nice shelf cloud, some whale's mouth shots and then some decent rain and small hail.

We ended up in North Platte after the storms where we met up with the entire VORTEX2 crew and I was stunned at the shear numbers of vehicles, instrumented probes etc. etc. It was like chaser heaven.

I'm still working on getting my video editing program to handle the new HD footage and that's become a bit of a problem, but I should have it working by the end of the week. That way I can show everyone the footage that I've got so far. It's a really quiet year, so there just hasn't been that much, but we may be heading back to active period very soon.

I'm in Guymon Oklahoma now and it's time to sign off and go to bed. There may be good stuff tomrrow!

Day 2

2009-05-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm exhausted. I finally made it out to Tornado Alley after a 14 hour drive today (my poor car), but I'm actually in South Dakota. Um, yeah. Kinda not in Tornado Alley anymore, but this is where the VORTEX 2 guys (and girls) are. I'm shooting bunch of footage with Dave Sills, my chase partner as he's working with VORTEX2 this year (yeah, the crew that's all ove the Weather Channel).

Of course, I'm so totally wiped right now that I'm not sure I could even tell you my name, so I'm going to sign off for now and try and do more tomorrow. Video soon too!

Tornado Alley 2009

2009-05-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it. I'm headed out to Tornado Alley tomorrow morning.

Of course, this is also the year that has been declared "the worst for thunderstorms in 37 years". Ouch. Still, I'm going to give it a shot and see what I get.

I'm aiming for West Texas by Saturday as VORTEX II is moving there and I'm getting a front row seat with them. Whoohoo! I'm going to be filming my friend and fellow chaser Dr. Dave Sills. He's a Canadian severe weather researcher with Environment Canada and he's got an instrumented vehicle out with the crew. Can't wait to see it in person.

So, my beat up, battered old Jetta will once again be put to the test so keep checking in to see if I make it, what I find and how things are going. I'll be posting video to my YouTube (I hope - I got a new camera and it's not playing nice with my new editing program) channel (StormHunter).

More later!

Testing

2009-05-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

This is a test just to make sure everything works.