March 30th, 2008

Video finally up!



Screencaps (Click for full image):

Speeding through the fire as it quicky ignites around us.

WW makes an unexpected flyover.

As a bit of an experiment, I attached my action cam to the front bumper of our car and set it to record for the entire day. It continued to run even after braving large hail and rain, sitting inches above the ground. Here's the video sped up ~270x (Not for the motion sick):

It captured some particularly amazing moments through the day, which I'll include in the final video.

subie is doa!

got a busted radiator in denver.

Cells popping in CO SPGS

Nice little treat on the way home here as small cells are popping in the 48/24 T/Td air.

2008-03-30 Report

Heading back to Denver today after chasing yesterday in westcentral OK. We are currently passing through the data hole of northwest New Mexico near the Capulin Volcano. Yesterday Michael, Eric, Tony, Carl Young and I left our place in Amarillo and headed out I-40 to our target area of Elk City, OK. On the way we saw a large grass fire that was pushing up such an updraft that it actually was causing a condensation cloud above it. We spent the next hour 'Fire Chasing' driving through the smoke and next to the fields as the farmers lit them up from 4 wheelers. This was a good test of the WW3 as I was able to get in 3 flights from the car out into the rising updraft and smoke plumes!

Oh and then there was a storm chase to boot after that.. two large cells developed south of Elk City at six o'clock magic hour and we chased 3" hail, rising scud motion and somewhat high-based mesos till 11pm! Stayed overnight again last night in AMA and are heading back today.

cell near condell, ok!

this thing just exploded here

Sunday Mar 31 and Thurs Apr 3 chase potential

Michael O'Keefe IM'ed me last night and said to look at Sunday on the WRF - and boy was he right! SPC has now picked up Sunday Mar 31st as the next chase day in the southern plains. A nice surface low develops in the panhandles on sunday afternoon drawing up moist air ahead of a cold front and develops up to 3000 capes. Only downside is the upper jet support being a little weak and out of phase. Still SPC has some strong wording on the Day 3!

THE CURRENT SYNOPTIC PATTERN
OVER THE SRN PLAINS FORECAST FOR SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING
SUGGESTS A SUBSTANTIAL TORNADO THREAT COULD DEVELOP IF THE TIMING OF
THE UPPER-TROUGH PHASES WELL WITH CONVECTIVE DEVELOPMENT AND THE
STRENGTHENING LOW-LEVEL JET LATE SUNDAY.

Right now I am in Amarillo with Amanda and NONE of my equipment. The plan is to have Tony and Carl Young grab my stuff and meet me down here for chasing sunday. Those guys would go on east and chase monday as well. Monday looks interesting but I want to save as much of my PTO for May and June.

Thurs Apr 3rd looks very interesting right now, so I tentatively have marked down a PTO day to chase thursday. For that I'd come down weds after work, chase thurs, work from home here friday and return friday after work.

More details as they come together!

West of Throckmorton

We are limpimg back to Lubbock with a transmission that will only go into 2nd gear. We are done for the day unless anything fires in front of us here.

waiting for initiation in Graham, TX

We are just northwest of Dallas, TX hoping for the triplepoint are to light up first. today is moderate risk with a 15 percent hatched risk of tornadoes!

Today we busted in the panhandles

But sometimes busting is a good thing!

First FPV flight using goggles

Today I flew the WW3 with a wireless cam for 10 minutes on just FPV using my new video goggles! It was a little hard to tell where I was in relation to my car but I was able to go up and down the road and well out away from me for quite a distance!

St Patty's Day Tornado Outbreak?

With a little luck of the Irish we might just get a chance at tornadoes on Monday March 17th. The GFS now shows a more classic setup for monday than the cold core setup it had before. The one uncertianty is how quickly the moisture return will be once the gulf is scoured on Fridays setup (which is too far out in AR for me to be concerned with). I don't believe it will be a problem with the combination of a double barrel low setting up (one in s TX and one in KS) and a good fetch of moisture around a high in the east. I'm starting to mark monday down as a PTO day.

Cold Core setup for Monday March 17th?

The GFS is hinting at a cold-core setup for central KS on next Monday. A strong 500mb low (-30C where < -24C is needed!) is forecast to be near a surface low (240 close to < 200 miles separation) in north-central KS with a nice fetch of CAPE into the low. Have to keep an eye on this one!

Which brings me to this quick reference guide (ref Jon Davies):
WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR COLD CORE??
1) 500Mb upper low with < -24C temps
2) Surface low within 200 miles, preferable to the east-northeast
3) Low to mid-50's dewpoints

2007 Chase Stats

Went back through all of last years logs and pulled the following stats from the 2007 chase season. Here they are:

2007 Stats:

Mileage: 12,570
Motel Stays: 15
Chase Days: 25

Keeping an eye on Weds Mar 12th

GFS has been hinting at the next chase day for quite awhile now. Next weds looks like a potential chase day in central OK once again. Have to keep an eye on this one. Stay tuned!

March 2nd, 2008

Great first chase of the year. Lots of awesome moments through the day. I captured about two tapes worth of video. Here's some screen grabs and a quick video montage of the day:

Wall cloud in central ok near Alden

We started the day in Amarillo, drove down to Vernon, TX where we ran into Amos M. Headed north to Altus and then to Blair, OK. We headed out east through Roosevelt, OK. Not much was happening with the storms and the structure was not great. We and the O'Keefe's left the main group and headed south a bit to get a look at the tail end storm where we got hit by a brief blast of nickel size hail.


I was able to put the WW3 with the wireless cam up between storms and test out flying by the laptop which worked well except that I could not tell how fast I was climbing and was soon up so high the plane was almost out of sight above us.

The storms to our northeast started showins signs of rotation so we headed back up and caught up to them again as the now three supercells went tornado warned and started showing rotating lowerings. We saw this rotating wall cloud today with the O'keefe's near Alden, OK where I was able to fly the WW3 again but this time with the ActionCam as we were having inverter issues in the car and losing power to our laptops when stopped.

The updraft was very strong and at times I had to dive the plane to keep it from being drawn up into the storm. It was getting dark so I had a hard time seeing the orientation of the plane and had a rough uncontrolled landing in the field down the road from us. The plane hit with a thud and dust flew up in a puff, but the plane and camera was fine. Back at Amarillo now where we have 3" of snow with driving winds last night. A fun first chase of 2008 even though we didn't get the beautiful cone up by Canton, OK that was streamed by channel 5 OK.

Mileage: 1354

In Childress, TX

Getting some lunch at the Sonic in Childress, TX