Stormin Skies
Stormin Skies
Getting Ready for the Chase!
Apr 21st
I am beginning to get incredibly anxious to get back out there to join up with John once again to chase this season. I am about 2 weeks away from heading out. Seeing those videos from the latest storms hasn’t helped either. I want to watch them but at the same time I am doing my best to ignore everything. It’s not happening if I am not there! And yes, I’ll keep telling myself that.
I just wanted to get in a quick blog to update you all and let you know we will be chasing soon and to keep an eye on us. Last year, our first day chasing was all we needed to see our first and what happened to be our only tornado of the year. Hopefully we’ll have that same luck again on day one, except please can we get more than one tornado this year? We will be pushing hard for it, especially with the support. Thanks again to all who have supported us and as well as those who continue to support us.
Please pray for our success and safety at capturing nature’s beauty.
Thank you!
Andrew
Lightning Photography Part 4 – Got it!
Dec 30th
This has been great! Yet another small storm pushed through the area tonight and I was ready for it when I went out there. Ready and I got it!
The great thing is, I wasn’t even planning on taking pictures. I saw one flash out the window and not another for 5 minutes or so, but then came a consistency of one every couple of minutes and I had to give it a go. Glad I did!!
**Update - I went back outside for more, and got a couple others, but this one was the best of them.
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Lightning Photography Part 3 – I need more practice!
Dec 23rd
Lately I’ve been taking a lot of photographs, and experimenting with all differnt settings and such. I’ve also been taking pictures of the stars and trying to catch a few meteorites a week ago as I posted. However tonight, we happen to get a nice little thunderstorm roll through the area, and I grabbed my camera and went outside. Insted of choosing my normal settings, I was playing around with it a bit. So of course, my best photo is to bright. Not that it mattered, it was out of focus anyway….ugh! lol. But I still came up with a few decent pictures that I will share.
Meteor Shower
Dec 14th
We all have an obsession for the sky. Of course it usually involves tornadoes or lightning for our obsession. However, for me tonight it involves the meteor shower. I’ve always loved looking up at the stars at night, and especially when meteor showers come along. I always try to watch for at least 2 or 3 hours, and usually sit outside the night before and after it’s peak. Recently I’ve made a strong move into photography, and now have pushed my camera up towards the stars in the sky. So far capturing this one good photo. I’ll be heading back out in hope for some more captures of streaks across the starry night sky!
***Update***
I was able to get a few more shots, some barely in the picture and some not worthy of sharing. I did get this one below that was decent enough even though the camera moved slightly, Bah!
Quick Chase to Clearwater, KS 8/14/2010
Aug 15th
It’s been quiet awhile since I’ve gone storm chasing. The combination of several major events in my life have really prevented me to get out and witness nature’s fury. However, today’s setup allowed me to quickly take the short drive from Wichita to the Clearwater, KS area.
Many readers probably know we typically get storms along a frontal boundary. While this was certainly true on 8/14/2010, I wanted to go a bit more in depth with the meteorology to explain how this particular front developed.
On the evening of August 14, 2010, an upper level trough was situated throughout central Canada which extended into portions of the Northern Plains. As indicated by the 300 mb chart below, an elongated jet stream was present along northern Utah into portions of the great lakes. A weak jet streak was defined in southeastern South Dakota. In relation to Kansas, the general jet circulation provided an area of divergence across the region. This is typically referred to as the right rear jet entrance zone, which nearly always means divergence aloft.
Further downward into the atmosphere, the 500 mb chart also showed the upper level trough with its center located in south central Canada. A key point I More >
Working on Lightning Pictures
Jul 20th
Ever since I ended my chase season, I’ve been waiting for the monsoon season to start up down here in Arizona. It’s finally starting to get a little active and has now given me the opportunity to work on my lightning shots.
Tonight was the first night that I was able to grab the camera and go out to get some shots. The night before had some good lightning, but I wasn’t at home so I couldn’t grab my camera. Tonight however, I just happend to look out the window and see a flash, checked online to see a few spots show up on radar and decided to grab the camera and go. This is what I got tonight. I’m still learning how to do this more properly. It wasn’t the most active lightning storm so I couldn’t test settings as much, but I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity to do more of this in the coming days.
#gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; }Heading out!
May 8th
My Storm Chasing season is about to begin. Early tomorrow morning I will be leaving for Kansas to join up with John, just in time for what will hopefully be a good Monday. Obviously I am super excited and ready to get out there, sad to leave the fiance though. Next year she’ll be ready to chase with me though. Love you Kate!
I had a dream a couple weeks ago that I left to go chase and I forgot my video camera, that was a horrible dream, I remember how much that feeling sucked! By having that dream, the video camera is the first thing I have packed! I shall not forget it!!
Hopefully monday will be a great and successful day! We’ll let you know!
-Andrew
4/29/2010 Preliminary report
Apr 30th
Just a quick update here.
Had a late start to this chase due so I some fellow ATMO majors at KU could join. Storms were forecasted to initial by or after 00Z, however, the first convection began at 21Z north of Salina, Kansas. Storms quickly moving off to the northeast along a cold front orientated from SW to NE. More details of the setup and what evolved later will be posted in a few days, however, we ended up having a success chase despite the late start.
We planned to head northward from Topeka and eventual west along highway 16. We soon realized that it would be difficult to catch these storms but somehow we did it. We finally arrived near the Maryville, Kansas area where we could finally start seeing some storm strucutre. At this point we noticed lowering in the distance and it soon became apparent that this was a well defined wall cloud. We finally caught up to other chases who were all witnessing a pretty well organized mesocyclone. Unfortunately the entire system became disorganized once we got into good viewing distance. However, considering the time we left Lawrence and the unexpected result of storms initialing earlier than expected, More >
