Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Botanica Illuninations

Illuminations is Botanica's little Winter Fest.  The night we went, there was high pressure overhead so the smoke from the chiminea's was forced down and caused a very smoking evening.










Yeah, It's overfiltered.

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Santa!

Follow Santa on NORAD.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Odds and Ends at the Cosmosphere

I recently got the pleasure of teaching Solar Weather and Severe Weather to teachers at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas.

While there, the TIV had been left for the premier of Tornado Alley.





Sunday, October 9, 2016

Storms 10/7/16

It was a chaotic week. First the storms coming through on Tuesday then a sudden increase of storms Thursday with tornado potential increasing on every Storm Prediction Center update.

With a cold front add dry line descending quickly into Wichita by that afternoon, there was an increasing chance for severe weather. Tornadoes were reported north of Wichita near Salina and SE of Wichita near Ark City.  For information on this check out the National Weather Service link:  http://www.weather.gov/ict/oct6th_tornadoes.

from http://www.weather.gov/ict/oct6th_tornadoes

Slowly storms began to fill in and had some severe potential before giving in and forming a squall line with below severe level winds.
At Woodlawn and K-254
Not sure what it was trying to organize.

360 degree panoramic

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Storms 10/04/2016

Is second season starting early?  A cold front and dry line combo moved into the Wichita area with high winds, hail, and an area of rotation that quickly became rainwrapped in the dark and caused some fear that a tornado had touched down north of Wichita.  High winds caused damage to Maize, Bel Aire, and Valley Center areas and at one point left 8,000 without power.

Sunrise in Valley Center


Storms off to the west in Kingman Co.


Non rotating SCUD or scary looking clouds

inflow feeding the storm


The storm hitting Maize with high winds.  Look for the face in the clouds and the hand reaching out.






Friday, July 29, 2016

Hurricane Force WInds, oh my 07/28/2016

It's been a while since I captured a nice shelf cloud coming into the Wichita area.  It set up on a nice cold front that swept into the Wichita area. . .

From the NWS Wichita Website:

Radar animation


Velocity animation


The first picture was taken up near Newton. Not real spectacular, a bit of a blob.  Maybe a hint of a shelf forming in the lower right hand corner.  I relied on radar data and the storm looked to gain a nice bow echo, so I headed back to the Valley Center area (north of Wichita).
Taken from Galaxy S5, a small fire is seen right of center.  This was non-storm related.

























The shelf cloud had developed well and was approaching quickly.  I found an open area facing north and west, (the road goes east and west).














Early reports had baseball sized hail out near Kingman and 80 mph winds.
 I was beginning to see the gust front, so I headed home before the main winds hit.  Although not too bad of winds were recorded in Valley Center, a wind gust in NE Wichita was recorded at 78 mph.



Hurricane Force WInds, oh my 07/28/2016

It's been a while since I captured a nice shelf cloud coming into the Wichita area.  It set up on a nice cold front that swept into the Wichita area. . .

From the NWS Wichita Website:

Radar animation


Velocity animation


The first picture was taken up near Newton. Not real spectacular, a bit of a blob.  Maybe a hint of a shelf forming in the lower right hand corner.  I relied on radar data and the storm looked to gain a nice bow echo, so I headed back to the Valley Center area (north of Wichita).


Taken from Galaxy S5, a small fire is seen right of center.  This was non-storm related.

























The shelf cloud had developed well and was approaching quickly.  I found an open area facing north and west, (the road goes east and west).














Early reports had baseball sized hail out near Kingman and 80 mph winds.
 I was beginning to see the gust front, so I headed home before the main winds hit.  Although not too bad of winds were recorded in Valley Center, a wind gust in NE Wichita was recorded at 78 mph.