To publish, or not to publish

I have drafted an article (likely falls into the category of "technical note") regarding my observations of funnels and tornadoes here in the northern Virginia area that otherwise go unwarned and undetected. The premise is that interaction of convective cells with local terrain and weather conditions provide the impetus for low level rotation that is undetected by the NWS Sterling radar (~50 miles distant). Now that I've finished the first draft I am undecided as to what to do with it. The effort involved in gathering and analyzing data and writing the paper was considerable, but nowhere near the effort that will likely be involved in presenting and defending it during the peer review process. I haven't yet convinced myself that getting the article published (in either a print or online journal) is worth the aggravation of answering nit-picky questions from others. Thus it's probably a good thing I never decided to enter the world of academia...

Gustnado from 2002 Kansas chase

The column of dust in the center of this photo is a gustnado that my brother recorded during our first "family chasecation" in 2002. We were a bit north of Liberal KS in the southwestern quadrant of the state. The following is my original terse writeup of what we saw that day, May 15th:

"Stopped north of Liberal off Rtes 83/160 to view approaching cold front. Saw several gustnadoes form, one north of us ~2 miles and several south of us ~0.5 miles."

May there be other family chases out on the Great Plains!

Thunder and lightning...finally!!!!

King George county actually experienced a thunderstorm today, complete with lightning, thunder, and even some radar-indicated hail. I was - only slightly - tempted to head out and chase, but the infernal cold air damming and accompanying low overcast rendered visibility horrendous at best, so all I would have seen was a darker gray mush. Still, lightning in November is noteworthy!

May 9th northeastern Texas chase reprise

This was taken from underneath a Paris Texas bank drive thru overhang where we were hanging out waiting for hailfall to finish. Fortunately it didn't last long, but the rain came down in buckets causing street flooding as seen above. After a long day of low overcast, HP storms, and non-chaser friendly terrain we concluded that chasing northeastern Texas was the pits so we skedaddled to the western side of the Lone Star state. Funny how this was six months ago; sure doesn't seem like it. (If it seems like I'm reposting old chases...I am! It helps keep SDS at bay!)

May 15th 2009: Kansas to Oklahoma chase

On May 15th we started out just outside Pratt Kansas (tornado central) watching as a line of storms grew along a cold front. All afternoon long we moved south and east to stay ahead of the line in hopes of catching a tornado, sharing the byways with other chasers and - after crossing into Oklahoma - the Vortex 2 motorcade. This photo was snapped during yet another leapfrog sprint across southern Kansas, trying to keep ahead of this outflow-dominant cell (note the shelf cloud out in front of it) in hopes that it would cycle into a more inflow dominant regime. We did witness a nice rotating wall cloud or two this day but never saw a funnel or tornado.

Since today is Veterans' Day (and here's a SALUTE!! to all those who have served in our armed forces) and there are no chaseable storms in the foreseeable future for the Mid-Atlantic I have to conclude that the 2009 chase season is officially over. I could yet be surprised but I doubt it. I'll just have to hope that March 2010 holds some potential so that it's only four months 'til another chase season.

Ida's on the move

So, since the Atlantic hurricane season officially runs thru November 30th we shouldn't be surprised to see a tropical system form this time of year. The surprising part is that the "I" named storm occurred this late in the season. Normally the ninth named storm occurs before the end of September, so the effects of this "El Nino" suppressed season are plainly obvious. However keep an eye on Ida's forecast as this five day track has been gradually creeping northward over the past few model cycles. If it continues to trend northward we could see some effects here in the Mid-Atlantic later this week. Will there be storms to chase? I'll be watching.

Precursor to 13 May 2009 Anadarko OK tornado

This is the first identifiable wall cloud we saw north of I-40 in Oklahoma on May 13th 2009 while chasing the "tail end Charlie" storm on a line that stretched several states north of us. This storm produced the night time tornado over Anadarko OK about 90 minutes after I took this picture. As noted in a previous blog post we stopped at dark just south of I-40 and videoed the tremendous lightning display to our south, unwittingly capturing several powerflashes that were a result of the tornado plowing through power lines. Other chasers braver (or was that more foolish?) than us continued the chase and captured night time video, one of which can be found here. As I've said repeatedly, I don't chase at night willingly...!!

There's a reason we're off road here

From our May 12th 2009 chase northeast of Lubbock TX. This was my first chase (a) in the Texas Panhandle and (b) of a dry line storm. Other than very dusty and windy storm outflow we didn't see much, but the outflow that slammed through this area was obviously too much for the electric poles. We didn't think it was a big deal until we headed further east and realized we were waaaayyy low on gas with no electricity to power gas pumps in the nearest town. After holding our breath for another 25 miles or so we found a town that had both electricity and gas pumps and refilled the very empty tank of our vehicle. By that time the storms had scooted off to the east far enough that we packed it in for the day.