Eclipse 2017

There really isn't much to say about the Great American Eclipse.  I started the morning looking at weather reports and expected cloud cover and made the decision to head to central Nebraska.

Our original target of Atchinson ended up getting heavy rain, although they did spot totality.  We ended up at Alexandria State Recreation Area which was a beautiful site, but the weather did not cooperate.  We had some large thunderstorms build and brought in a lot of clouds.

For the first time in my chase career, we ran away from clouds.  Luckily, the sun peaked out and I was able to capture quite a few shots before ending up in Bruning, Nebraska.

I'm still going through more pictures and will post more soon.

Eclipse 2027 Part Deux

Continuation . . .

More Eclipse

More eclipse pictures

From Ruminator Sara Hund, Notice the half moons on the ground.  Leaves will filter the light

From Ruminator Brianna Martinez, notice the eclipse in the lens flare.

Rain starting to form, hoping it would move off.

Not idea for totality.

pouring rain, about 40 minutes from Totality.  Made a run for it and got soaked.

Very nice lake, unfortunately didn't work for the eclipse.

Our final stop. Thanks to all the people that stopped or waved.

Ah Baseball and a Large Storm to the NE

It was a beautiful night for Wingnuts baseball in Wichita.  Cool 80's for late June, a crisp occasional wind, and big storms that blew to the north and east of us, then the dreaded rain delay.  Odd thing was this was the second time that I got soaked shoes in that day. Special shout out to Gunner.  Hope you are feeling better.

Blame Ming!

Lots of lightning to the east as that storm, which caused a tornado in Salina and damage in Butler Co. kept pulsing.

Strong winds 06/15/17

 Wichita was put into a moderate risk for the convective outlook. Talk was a huge hail system with high winds. Luckily we dodged tbe hail but took a pretty good hit from high winds.

 Nothing like a softball game on aluminum bleachers and lightning in the area.

 Storm to the north, which merged with the storm moving from the NE.

NWS radar

Thoughts from the dustbowl? Harvest is ongoing so lots of fields are dirt. Fairly eerie to watch this approach.

From fellow ruminator, Jeanne, from the Maize area which took the brunt of 80 mph wind.

From my brother's house in NE Wichita, looking west.

Damage out near Valley Center on 85th street. A few medium sized trees were taken down in Maize.

Lake Afton Photo Program

Lake Afton is a public observatory that closed last year.  A group of dedicated and passionate astronomers ended up securing and reopening the observatory.  I took part in a Jupiter session several years ago where I captured the bands and Galilean moons.

This was a simple, come out and photograph the moon.  With some of their suggestions, I captured this.

05/19/2017 well this is a suprise

The day after a high risk day, checking out at school, and I was taken completely by surprise by a Emergency Broadcast System coming over the radio and alerting of tornadoes on the ground south and west of Wichita.

I ran out to a line of storms approaching Haven, Kansas.  Luckily I still had some of my camera equipment in the car from the night before.

Couplet was SE of Pretty Prarie.

funnel

Probably on the ground.

Tornado on the left hand side.

Storm couldn't decide if it wanted to squall out or not.

Storm 

05182017 High Risk Day

It was a busy day and an insane week.  Some days I wish I only could storm chase . . . but responsibilities.

Thursday, May 18th was a high risk day.   The weather leading up to this point had been quiet, warm, and windy.  Then on the last day of school . . . Bam!

High risk up to the corner of Wichita, Followed by a PDS tornado watch.

What happened?

.

The storms exploded into a big glob.  The lightning all was incredible but a series of choices led me to chase down into Oklahoma (near Wakita for any twister fans), when I should have gone into Salina, Kansas.  The storm we were chasing squalled out, so we left before getting hit with the wind.