Monday, June 29, 2009

as Bob Ross used to say, a happy little accident

I played with the contrast/brightness settings and accidentally got this.This was the original picture.



Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Winfield storm 6/16/09


I didn't go chasing due to my location to the storm, but it was beautiful.

Stayed at the perch for about thirty minutes watching it. If I could have had a beer and a whisky bar . . . heaven.


Monday, June 15, 2009

Chase Log 6/15/09



There was a moderate chance for storms today, so when I heard a barely there patch of green on the radar had issued a significant weather advisory, I grabbed the camera and was off.


Initiation was explosive as the heat of the day met with almost tropical dew points.



I stayed at the perch until they announced a tornado for Matfield Green. Seemed a strange place for the storm to produce, but I went down 254 to investigate. Fellow Ruminator Brian T. called from El Dorado and had eyes on the funnel/tornado.
I made it to El Dorado but tried some shortcuts that left me behind trees and down bad roads.

I finally got eyes on the funnel just as it roped out.























I continued towards the wall cloud as it seemed to almost detach itself and fall from the storm. Within moments another wall cloud had formed.





















The rotation was fairly slow and not very well organized although I saw about 4-6 funnels try to drop from it.

It fell apart and split into a couple of wall clouds. One began to spin but just couldn't produce.




















Finally with dark approaching and nothing really organizing I called it a night, and drove into a huge squall line.

By the way, if anyone sees my other Ruminations of Thunder magnet, let me know.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Anywhere but Here?

Ever get that feeling that something is avoiding you?

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

06/07/09 chase


Just me on this adventure.
Watched everything blow up everywhere but tornadic activity was a little out of reach.

There was an interesting storm blowing up south of the Oklahoma border that I decided to intercept vs. chasing east (by chasing I mean finding out that I wouldn't get to the storms until I hit Missouri).

I stopped at the Bel Plaine rest stop to figure out what the storm was doing. Unfortunately, it was dying. It looked like it might try to rebuild but had a definant rotation to it. The bottom produced a nice shelf cloud as the updraft gave up and released all the wind, rain, and hail to the earth below.

I took this about 7:30pm. The storm passed overhead and the temp dropped about 10 degrees. I stood out in it until the wind driven rain started to hurt.

More storms possible tomorrow.

Another rough day?


Sunday, June 7, 2009

Pictures after storm 6/7/09




I always find it interesting when my little town is mentioned. We're a little suburb on the highway, but twice this year I've heard the town's name called out for severe weather. I wished this came out a little better, in the clearing was blue sky with some great clouds building but I couldn't get it to come out in this.


Sounds like we're under Severe Thunderstorm Warning #3. More later . . .

Storms 6/7/09


Picture taken from the home base before the storm hit.


In play? 6/7/09

Storms are thought to initiate around 4pm.


Hot and heavy cap may keep them in place until late afternoon, then watch out.