Staying overnight in Missouri Valley, IA

Tonight we are staying overnight in Missouri Valley, IA along I-29 between Sioux City and Omaha. We are right in the dead center of the 10% hatched tornado risk SPC put out for Saturday!

Cell that caused F2 damage

Latest image from Verne's mobile picture phone. This cell went on to produce F2 tornado damage in the town of Surprise, NE (of all places) Our route took us:

Started in Wakeeney, headed north on 283 and then over to 183 through Alma, NE

Then we went through Holdredge to Hastings, NE where we drove past Tim Marshall watching a rapidly rotating tail-end-charlie that came very close to dropping a funnel many times.

We then got up to I-80 where we took the Seward exit and got cored by intense rain on Hw92

We made it into Omaha ahead of the now MCS line, where we had dinner at the Toca Bell.

We watched a flying eagle approach Lincoln so we decided to shoot for that - as soon as we got down infront of it where it could pass by us, it weekened and died off. Watched lightning all night and then bedded down east of Blair, NE (home of Mike H!)

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Latest image from Verne's mobile picture phone

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Latest image from Verne's mobile picture phone big towers by Oakley KS!

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Latest image from Verne's mobile picture phone nice CU field

Birthday Chase!

Hadn't really planned on chasing today although all week long the models have been showing a pretty decent potential for severe storms today. SPC this morning was enough to entice me to take my birthday off and go chasing! Looking at this morning's RUC I have decided to not necessarily go straight up to NE but instead I will go to Wakeeney, KS and check things from there. I am leaning towards sc KS, the forecast Capes are great down there and there is better upper level support from the approaching low over the great basin.

More from down the road!

Looking good for a Saturday Chase to try out the Cams!

From the Omaha, NE HWO:

MOIST AND UNSTABLE AIR COMBINED WITH STRONG SHEAR SATURDAY AFTERNOON WILL PROVIDE THE INGREDIENTS FOR DAMAGING WINDS AND LARGE HAIL WITH THE STRONGER THUNDERSTORMS INTO SATURDAY EVENING. A TORNADO OR TWO ALSO APPEAR POSSIBLE.

From the Hastings, NE HWO:

...DUE TO STRONG WIND SHEAR AND MODERATE INSTABILITY...AN ISOLATED TORNADO OR TWO WILL ALSO BE POSSIBLE. THE BETTER CHANCE FOR SEVERE WEATHER FRIDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING WILL BE ALONG AND WEST OF HIGHWAY 281...WHILE THE BETTER CHANCE OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ON SATURDAY WILL BE ALONG AND EAST OF HIGHWAY 281.

When in doubt go south?

For saturday I'm seeing two target areas for tornadoes. One is hopelessly far up into MN and northern IA and one is less certain in e KS but more obtainable from Denver. A few days ago Tom Dulong sent out a similar setup day in a past Oct tornado day that showed a number of brief touchdowns nearer the surface low in Wisconsin BUT a greater number of longer lived tornadoes in e KS. If the dryline forcing can overcome the stouter cap over e KS then we may get some good discrete supercells in the area south of Topeka, KS

When in doubt head south!

Potential Chase Saturday Sept 16th

Latest GFS run is showing a trough strengthing on Saturday evening from nc KS into central NE. Most chasers are watching this one closely and there is alot of excitement about this day. This would be my first chase in September and one day after my birthday. A tornado or two would make it a great birthday present.

I get my Yagi antenna in the mail on thursday and have 1 MiniTurtle and 1 PoleCam built, tested and ready to go. Conditions look good to atleast get the cams into some severe weather this weekend!

Tornado PoleCam Prototype

Tonight I completed making a prototype of the Tornado PoleCam. Using a velcro strap and single sided sticky velcro I created the version you see above. Some further ideas I had are to shrinkwrap the camera to the velcro to make it more rain resistant. The wireless security camera I have chosen seems to be pretty tightly sealed so I think that it will do pretty well against it's short life in the storm environment.

Today I got confirmation that my Yagi antenna is on the way. It is set to arrive on thursday so hopefully I will have everything to try a full field test this weekend!

Tornado PoleCam

This weekend I plan to build another version of the wireless Tornado cam. Many of the country roads we chase tornadoes along have telephone poles and fence posts along them. This cam would be sewn into a velcro strap along with it's 9V battery. To deploy I will slap it up as high as I can on the pole and point it towards the approaching tornado. I would hope to get video as long as the velcro holds and the pole is not knocked down!

More pics of the MiniTurtle Tornado Cam

Simplicity is the key here. The MiniTurtle is made from an orange soccer cone and the top of a wiffle ball cemented into place on the top. The off-the-shelf security cam is then mounted inside and powered by a 9 V battery.

MT Field Test #1 Moderate Thunderstorm!

Conditions: Moderate Thunderstorm, Frequent Lightning, Moderate Rain
Estimated Winds: 30kts

This evening I tested the MiniTurtle prototype in a thunderstorm off I-70 east of Denver. Here's what I learned:

Good:
1) Video quality is good during rain, as suspected the small lens size does not bead up with water and obstruct the view.
2) Car engine was running entire time, system running off car inverter power. No noticeable interference.
3) Lightning does NOT break up video signal!

Bad:
1) Camera angle too high, need to adjust lower.

In video #1 I show the turtle viewing a typical storm sky with sunlit towers and dark lowerings:
http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060907_MT_Test1.wmv

In video #2 the turtle is pointed through sunflowers to show the wind motion. At this time there was moderate rain and I was inside my car with the wipers on!
http://www.stormchaserco.com/20060907_MT_Test2.wmv

Small setback and more MiniTurtle testing

Today I tried to buy a 1.2 Ghz YAGI antenna and could not add the item to my shopping cart online. I called the supplier and was informed that sales of these antennas is now limited to the military! I had noticed earlier that there are none of these antennas available on eBay and was wondering why. So today I decided to switch to the more widespread 2.4 GHz band. This meant buying a 2.4 GHz setup which I got for $75 which includes 2 cameras and a 4 channel receiver. This will allow me to deploy two turtles and point the Yagi at the one with the best view. Systems are widely available with 4 cameras and 4 channels so I may eventually deploy 4 turtles at 100 foot intervals and increase my odds of an intercept.

Tonight I hooked everything up and ran the MiniTurtle out the driveway to a distance of 150 feet where I lost a good signal. This was done through the walls of the house and with the stock 3" receiver whip antenna so with a Yagi I should be able to greatly increase this distance.

Here's the video for the quick test I did from the dining room window:
Close Range Video from Prototype MiniTurtle

Sample video grab from MT (MiniTurtle)

Grabbed this quick image from the MT camera. This gives an idea of the potential resolution that can be obtained. This image is 640 x 480 pixels.

Mini-turtle Tornado Video Probes for 2007

I've been working on a prototype mini-turtle video probe for deploying next year in the path of tornadoes. This morning I completed a first attempt. Borrowing from the great design of Tim Samaras' HITPR probes I have come up with a version that is much smaller, simpler and best of all wireless. This probe will use an off the shelf wireless security camera running off a 9 volt battery which will allow me to put the minimal amount of equipment in harms way and to have all the recording equipment and receiver safe in the car with me. They will be so small and inexpensive that if it cannot be found after the tornado passes then it is no big deal. They are expendible. I will also be able to stream video directly to my laptop as AVI or WMV files so conveivably with a wireless cell phone connection I could stream it to a website in real-time!

In the next few days I will be refining the design by blocking the hole in the top, possibly mounting the camera at a more horizontal angle, etc. I plan to test the maximum transmission distance with the stock receiver antenna and then also plan to purchase a directional YAGI antenna which will greatly boost the range. I will be testing it's wind resistance and rain resistence as well. Another potential benefit of this design is the lack of a windshield and therefore the problem of water beading up on the glass is eliminated. I will have to see if it's possible to get one big drop right on the lens and what that does to the view.

Video: Color, 380 scanlines, NTSC
Transmitter: 9V, 1.2 GHz, 200 mW, 1000 ft range
Receiver: Yagi 1200 MHz antenna, 9V

A-Basin Lift Chair

Amanda and Mabs love 'lifty', our new lift chair porch bench!

Eastern CO Bow Echo Chase

The storm really intensified as it neared Limon, CO. We met up with Jon M and Shawn along hw71 here.

Storm crosses hw 71 north of Limon, CO. Golfball size hail was reported south of Limon.

Michael and I check out the forward flank shelf cloud with many eddies in it and spinups.


Interesting lowerings on the north side of the storms, we saw this kind of updraft feature a few times today at different locations. We made it out past Flaggler before calling it a night and trying (unsuccessfully) for some lightning shots.

Severe Storms Thursday Night

Models are showing storms firing over the Palmer Divide and heading east from 5:00pm to 10:00pm at night. Michael and I will be going out and chasing supercells. We should atleast get some good lightning shots!

...CNTRL HIGH PLAINS... WHILE STRONG MOISTURE RETURN DOES NOT APPEAR LIKELY ACROSS THE REGION...MODEST BOUNDARY LAYER MOISTENING WILL OCCUR NEAR LEE-TROUGH AND ADVANCING COLD FRONT FROM SWRN NEB SWD ALONG CO/KS BORDER. SURFACE DEWPOINTS AROUND 60F AND TEMPERATURES CLIMBING THROUGH THE 80S WILL CONTRIBUTE TO MODERATE DESTABILIZATION WITH LAPSE RATES STEEPENING WITH DAYTIME HEATING. MEAN LAYER CAPE ON THE ORDER OF 1500 J/KG IS ANTICIPATED BY AFTERNOON...WHEN FORCING NEAR INTERSECTION OF COLD FRONT AND SURFACE TROUGH/WEAK DRY LINE SHOULD LOCALLY ELIMINATE CAPPING ASSOCIATED WITH ELEVATED MIXED LAYER. WEAK BUT VEERING WINDS WITH HEIGHT FROM LOWER TO MID-LEVELS...BENEATH MODERATE WESTERLY HIGH LEVEL FLOW...SHOULD PROVE ADEQUATE FOR ISOLATED SUPERCELLS WITH HAIL AND HIGH WINDS. ADDITIONAL ACTIVITY WITH SEVERE HAIL POTENTIAL MAY ALSO OCCUR IN RELATIVELY MOIST POST-FRONTAL UPSLOPE FLOW REGIME FROM NEB PNHDL TO THE CO FRONT RANGE.

August 26, 2006 Eastern CO chase

Eric shoots the storm from Cedar Point, CO as it moves towards us rapidly from the west.

We were hit with incredibly strong outflow winds from this storm, upwards of 60kts!

Street flooding under I-70 at Deer Trail!

Michael films the street flooding up close.

End of the day lightning from the tornado warned cell coming out of Pueblo.

Tornado warned cell over Pueblo!

Latest image from Verne's mobile picture phone tornado warning! We were thinking that our chase was done when we saw Pueblo go tornado warned and 'We're Gone!'

Playing around with Photo Borders

Created this digital photo frame in photoshop tonight so that I can frame my favorite pictures. I titled this one "Fan of Fire"

May 26, 2006 Elbert County Funnels

Tornadoes over Bennett, CO!

I just watched and videoed this tornado over Bennett that was visible from all the way up at our house in Coal Creek Canyon (50 miles away - line of site). This tornado was on the ground for up to 5 minutes. Michael and Eric were out chasing today and were able to get much closer shots and video! More pics to come soon!

The A-Basin Ski Lift Chair Restoration Project

I was surprised to find that these chairs came from the manufacturer with yellow vinyl seat covers. At some point they were stapled over with black vinyl. I will be replacing the pad and cover with the black operational vinyl.

Getting a true piece of history, I was lucky enough to buy old ski lift chair #23 that spent many decades shuttling skiers and snowboarders on the Lenawee lift at Arapahoe Basin, Colorado! In 2001 the old two person Lenawee lift was taken down in favor of a new higher speed three chair. Over the next few days and weeks I will be restoring her to her former glory with a new coat of paint, new knee board, and all new padding and vinyl cover. When all done, this chair will become our new front porch seat.

Lightning over Downtown Denver

Tonight I was lucky enough to catch a couple bolts of lightning that lit up downtown Denver. This picture was taken from the window of my livingroom.

May 23, 2006 Tornado Video for the SLS Conference

Another video for the SLS conference, in this video we chase numerous gustnadoes including a large one at the end of the day that tossed a water tank across I-29 as it passed in front of us.

Here's the actual link to the wmv file:


May 23, 2006 SD

May 7, 2006 Tornado Video for the SLS Conference

This video is the one that I made for the November Severe Local Storms Conference in St. Louis, MO. It is 4 minutes long and includes approach of the Scott City tornado as well as the Garden City funnel and reported night time tornado that formed as the storm passed beyond the city. A link to the actual video is here:

May 7, 2006 Garden City Video

Storm over the Flatirons in Boulder

Latest image from Verne's mobile picture phone. A nice little cell just popped up over the flatirons of Boulder at lunch. Had some nice low-level structure and lightning.

Another lightning pic makes into onto Denver's 7!

Tonight Mike Nelson showed this lightning shot of mine on the 10pm weather segment. This is one of my better lightning examples and I was happy to see that Mike thinks so too. I was able to record it on my DVR so tomorrow night I will put up a post of the actual broadcast.
Here is a zoom of the bolt on the right where you can see it hitting some kind of structure.

Testing out Audio Blogging