SNOW!

Woke up to a nice dusting of snow, and still coming down hard!

Michaels new Subie

Just got Michael a 2000 subie much like mine now we are the subie chase team!

Aerial Survey of Greensburg, Kansas

It's been almost six months since May 4th when at 9:55pm CDT an EF5 tornado destroyed 95% of the structures in Greensburg, KS.
On Weds Oct 17th, 2007 we took the following aerial photos from the center of town to document the rebuilding efforts.
This is the view looking west out towards Dodge City along HW54, west Greensburg is in the foreground.

In this picture we see Bay, Grove and Walnut Streets south of HW54. As you can see many of the blocks are empty with only the house pads remaining.

Spruce Bay and Grove Streets on the west side of Greensburg.

In the upper right a house still has tarps on the roof with large sections missing. The red car on the lower left is Michael, Eric and I from our launch point of the WW5 Digital Camera Plane.

Here debris piles are on the street and house pads and foundation holes are all that remain. A new driveway has been added at the bottom of the picture.

Along HW54 through the center of town a new Qwik Shop has been built (lower right). Next to it on both sides are damaged buildings including the old Grocery Store. The John Deere dealership has been rebuilt and opened. There is also a motel and welding shop. The Fire and Police department can be seen along the newly paved HW54 in temporary buildings at the upper left.

An old foundation is dug out but is currently flooded by recent rains on the left. A new foundation is in the center.

Modular home half sections await their foundation for placement in the upper left. At the bottom is the old driveway of a scraped house.

New foundations and another modular home being completed. Other lots sit empty. HW54 is on the right.

Another view of the new foundations and modular homes.

Again same view of the new foundations and modular homes.

View of the north side of Greensburg along with Kiowa county state park lake. Many scraped lots remain. Huge cottonwood trees are no taller than 15 feet high and are growing new branches and leaves out of the sides of the trunks.

In this view we see how rebuilding has allowed the brown roofed house in the center to be placed at an angle on it's lot.


These photos were taken with the Wicked Witch 5 electric powered glider carrying a Nikon 5.1MP Camera. The glider was hand launched from the center of town and flown to an altitude of about 800 feet. This was a test of the system I plan to use in the following springs to document tornado paths and damage on the morning of big events.

Mileage: 1416

Motel Stays: 2

Heading back home

We are now heading back towards Denver on I35 north of OKC. today was largely a bust. storms did form in areas expected and we were on them from the start but they never did produce tornadoes. oh well we had to try this one as it had such great potential. I did manage to get the WW5 up over Greensburg and shot off over 50 shots of the rebuilding of this town that was hit by an EF5 on May 4 this year.

For Amanda

On our way to KS

Michael Eric and I are passing Byers, CO on I70 on our way to an overnight in Dodge City, KS for tomorrows storms.

Big chase day Weds Oct 17th!

This is nuts! The WRF shows the individual supercells along the dryline in central OK. I don't think I've ever seen that!

...THERE IS A MDT RISK OF SVR TSTMS ACROSS PARTS OF CENTRAL AND ERN KS...WRN MO...CENTRAL AND ERN OK...NWRN AR...AND PARTS OF N TX... ...THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS ACROSS PARTS OF THE CENTRAL AND SRN PLAINS AND INTO THE MID MS VALLEY REGION.... ...SYNOPSIS... LARGE/NEGATIVELY-TILTED TROUGH WILL PREVAIL OVER MUCH OF THE WRN 2/3 OF THE CONUS THIS PERIOD...WITH AN EMBEDDED SHORT-WAVE TROUGH FORECAST TO CROSS THE CENTRAL U.S. AND EVOLVE INTO A CLOSED LOW OVER THE MID MO VALLEY BY THE END OF THE PERIOD. AT THE SURFACE...LOW IS FORECAST TO DEEPEN WHILE MOVING ENEWD FROM WRN KS INTO THE MID MO VALLEY. A SURFACE DRYLINE EXTENDING S FROM THIS LOW SHOULD SERVE AS A FOCUSING MECHANISM FOR AFTERNOON STORMS...WHILE A COLD FRONT DEVELOPS/SHIFTS EWD ACROSS KS AND SEWD ACROSS OK AND THE NWRN HALF OF TX THROUGH THE SECOND HALF OF THE PERIOD. ...PARTS OF THE CENTRAL AND SRN PLAINS INTO THE MID MS VALLEY... SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER EVENT -- INCLUDING THE POTENTIAL FOR DAMAGING TORNADOES -- IS FORECAST ACROSS THE CENTRAL U.S. THIS PERIOD -- CENTERED OVER PARTS OF KS AND OK. THUNDERSTORMS WILL LIKELY BE ONGOING AT THE START OF THE PERIOD ACROSS PARTS OF THE OUTLOOK AREA...AND MAY PERSIST INTO THE AFTERNOON. THIS PRECIPITATION AND ASSOCIATED CLOUD COVER WILL LIKELY LIMIT POTENTIAL FOR HEATING/DESTABILIZATION ACROSS PARTS OF THE AREA. BY AFTERNOON HOWEVER...MOIST BOUNDARY LAYER COMBINED WITH AREAS OF HEATING SHOULD RESULT IN POCKETS OF DESTABILIZATION...WITH 500 TO 1500 J/KG MIXED-LAYER CAPE LOCALLY EXPECTED BY AFTERNOON. AS UPPER TROUGH APPROACHES FROM THE WEST...CONVECTIVE OUTFLOW OR DIFFERENTIAL-HEATING BOUNDARIES AS WELL AS THE SHARPENING DRYLINE MOVING TOWARD CENTRAL KS/ACROSS WRN OK SHOULD SERVE AS FOCI FOR NEW STORM DEVELOPMENT. GIVEN ROUGHLY N-S DRYLINE AND DISTINCT WLY COMPONENT TO THE MID-LEVEL FLOW -- PARTICULARLY ACROSS OK/N TX...DISCRETE STORM DEVELOPMENT IS EXPECTED. VERY STRONG WIND FIELD IS FORECAST...AS 50 TO 70 KT MID-LEVEL FLOW SPREADS ACROSS THE WARM SECTOR ATOP STRONG SLY BOUNDARY-LAYER FLOW. RESULTING DEEP-LAYER SHEAR SUGGESTS THAT INITIATING UPDRAFTS SHOULD RAPIDLY ACQUIRE ROTATION...WITH SEVERAL SUSTAINED SUPERCELL STORMS LIKELY. ALONG WITH THREAT FOR LARGE HAIL AND LOCALLY-DAMAGING WINDS...LOW LCLS/MOIST BOUNDARY LAYER AND FAVORABLE LOW-LEVEL VEERING/SHEAR SUGGEST THAT MULTIPLE TORNADOES WILL BE POSSIBLE. A FEW OF THESE TORNADOES COULD BE STRONG AND RELATIVELY LONG-LIVED. STORMS SHOULD CONTINUE/SPREAD EWD ACROSS MO/AR AND PERHAPS INTO THE MID MS VALLEY REGION OVERNIGHT. GIVEN MOIST BOUNDARY LAYER AND STRONG MIXING...NOCTURNAL STABILIZATION MAY BE LIMITED ENOUGH THAT A TORNADO THREAT CONTINUES WELL INTO THE OVERNIGHT HOURS AS CONVECTION SPREADS EWD.

First significant snow of the season!

This morning we awoke to 6 inches of snow in the foothills of CO at my house in Coal Creek. Tornado chances today look impossibly far away and to slight to warrant the 6 hour drive to central OK. Last night we chased in the Parker area where we got marble size hail, lightning and nice inflow structure.

Synapse Ducted Fan Jet!

Just took the first test flight of my new toy! It took a little adjustment to get it into the air but once airborne it was very fun to fly. The sound of the ducted fan is very cool! On a high speed flyby I went inverted and ripped one of the wings off! Too many Gs! Am now gluing it back on for a second flight. What a fun little jet, too small to carry video but a fun little practice plane.

Moab, UT Aerial Photographs

Our camp at Dead Horse Point, UT









Aerial photographs taken by the Wicked Witch 5 using a Nikon Coolpix 5.1MP camera. These shots were taken in the morning from our camp before we went mountain biking around Moab, UT. The winds stayed light long enough for me to get up to 1000' above the mesa and shoot off about 150 images. These are some of the best - enjoy!

Potentially a big day on Sunday Oct 7

90kt 500mb winds punching into western Kansas!


Compare these two images above to April 21st when we had 12 tornadoes in the TX panhandle: April 21 Texas Panhandle Outbreak


GFS breaks out a large area of precip on the CO/KS/NE border at 0Z Sunday evening


Nice band of 1500 CAPES into western Kansas up into the surface low in northeastern CO. If this setup can hold, I smell an outbreak of severe weather and potentially tornadoes!!