Deja vu all over again...King George funnel

Three months ago today I was at this exact spot in King George county filming and videoing a rain-free base between two cells when a funnel extended toward the earth. Today, I spied a decent cell on radar heading northward from the Caroline / Hanover county line and decided to stop in this same spot to observe - yes - another rain-free base. As I watched the feature above descended almost in the exact spot as the one in May. Given the fuzzy visibility from the tropical haze plus rainfall I wasn't certain whether this was just scud or a rotating funnel, so I didn't call it in to the Sterling NWS mets. However...after reviewing the stills I took (didn't have the video camera with me) I am now convinced I saw another funnel in the same place I saw one on May 28th. (Especially with the view in the bottom photo in which a clear core is very likely the center of rotation.) A review of radar velocities didn't show anything definitely rotating, but this is most likely another case of minor rotation occurring below the NWS Sterling radar horizon. One of these days I'm going to write a paper on that...

Will Danny produce?

Given TS Danny's forecast track it doesn't appear that we here in Virginia will get much out of it, either rain or chaseable storms. However, if the synoptic situation changes and the track shifts to the west things could be different. Here's to keeping an eye on the sky and hoping for something tropical to chase!

Missed King George chase

This is what I get for being out of town today. This storm, crossing Potomac River between Dahlgren and Colonial Beach, shows obvious rotation (circled) in this doppler radar view at 8:02 pm. I would lay odds that there's a significant wall cloud on that storm, if not a funnel or two. Oh well, can't be in the right place every time!

19 August Shelf cloud video

This video is sped up 16 times, compressing over 15 minutes of real time into a little less than 1 minute. It shows the parent storm movement from southwest to northeast (quartering toward the right side of the frame) while the shelf cloud scoots from northwest to southeast (toward the left side of the frame), being pushed in that direction by the outflow from the storm. It also shows the upward motion of scud into the base of the cloud. No rotation, and nothing severe, but it was cool to watch as it approached. Meanwhile, I missed the convective action today as I was out of town. Oops!

August 19th intercept

Given the paucity of storms in our area recently I took full advantage of an approaching cell in King George county to execute an August intercept yesterday afternoon (8/19). Nothing severe happened, but the outflow pushed out a neat shelf cloud as seen above. That, and a few CG's provided the sum total of my Augustian (is that a word?) chasing success to date. There may be one or two more chase opportunities left this month, but that's about it. Tropical-induced storms on the horizon? Perhaps, but I think my monthly rental of a cellular antenna and service will end at August's close. There's always next spring!

August chasing?

So far I've had exactly zero chances to storm chase this month. As evidenced in the above radar view all the setups have featured storms in the highly populated suburbia north of us (no thanks!) or to our southeast when I haven't had the time to dive eastward for a - probably - futile tail chase. The forecast for the next seven days calls for thunderstorm possibilities each day, but the severity of said storms is in doubt with little or no upper level wind support. Still, a good storm can "pulse" severe when encountering mesoscale boundaries that our area tends to provide (river/bay breezes, outflow boundaries, etc.), so hope still exists. Even if nothing severe happens this week a decent thunderstorm is always worth observing, so I'm keeping my eye to the sky as much as possible. Will I be able to justify the cost of hanging onto the cellular aircard this month? Ask me in September.

Slo-Mo of night video from 13 May chase

This is a slow motion clip of video I shot the night of May 13th as we were watching a storm south of us in Oklahoma. We didn't know it at the time but this storm turned out to be tornadic. After playing with the clip and some video frame grabs I think the tornado was actually visible from our location...if it hadn't been dark. Thus the reason I don't willingly chase at night!

Blog entry on local storm chasing

Jesse Ferrell of Accuweather published a blog entry today discussing the details of chasing in your own local area. Being in Pennsylvania Jesse's experiences parallel those of ours here in the Old Dominion. He's right on the mark in his discussion, and I only had one comment on his writeup. He did not discuss having an escape route preplanned in case a storm goes crazy or does something else unexpected. That is vitally important here in the East given the seemingly random road system. (Trust me, I speak from panicked experience!) Other than that it's a great article. Give it a read!

Nothing ventured, nothing bagged yesterday

I guess it was a good thing that no storms fired within my chase radius yesterday as it turned out I wasn't able to head out due to some important family matters. We did have a rather noisy storm scoot by just south and east of here in the wee hours this morning, but nothing else convective seems to be in the making for a while. With a brief appearance of the Bermuda High early next week things will become hot and dry from Saturday until Wednesday, when a front is forecast to plow through here and - hopefully - provide some more storms to chase while cooling things down. Next best hope: tropical systems that provide impetus for late August and September thunderstorms. (Preferably without an accompanying damaging landfall...)

Another 5% risk tomorrow

SPC has our area under a 5% severe risk for tomorrow, not enough for a slight risk designation. After skimming over a couple of models I tend to agree given that there won't be much upper level wind support overhead the Mid-Atlantic. However, with the forecast instability (CAPE) and a prefrontal trough ahead of an approaching cold front who knows what boundaries may lurk in the making? Maybe we'll get a repeat of last Wednesday's funnel-producing cell...then again, maybe not. Who cares? I'll still be out chasing given half a chance!

Night chase, anyone?

If I was so inclined I'd be paralleling the southern cell of this complex on Rte 20 in Orange county. It looks like a beauty, with some rotation indicated on doppler at the southern edge as well as some hail. Bet there's a wallcloud there...but I don't willingly do night chases, and I'm getting ready for bed!