Wanted to post a link to the news story out of Ohio which covers the F-0 tornado which touched down in Pickaway County less than 10 miles from my hometown of Circleville. This report is from WBNS-10TV in Columbus on the August 28 storms.
Pickaway County Tornado Does Damage
Here is an interesting picture from a 10TV viewer 'Seth' out of Pickerington, which is on the southeast side of Columbus..
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Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Wanted to write an update just to get something recent in here. I'm in the second week of the semester and things are off to a decent start. My internship at Channel 7 began last week and I'm already having a blast with it. Classes are off to a good start, but I'm sure that'll get packed as Diffi-Q and Dynamic Met. get into the blood and guts.
Chasing has been almost non-existant for me with the lack of any real time to do it. With that, I was working through what's probably the best tornado day of the year in South Dakota. I saw video from Roger Hill last night and wanted to cry. I then read Mike Hollingshead's reports and felt a bit better about things (sorry Mike, but there's always worse than simply not chasing). None-the-less, I have emptied my van of most of the chasing gear and have everything packed away in the closet. I probably won't crack that plastic tub open again til March.
I did begin working on a rough-draft of the new website layout over the last couple of weeks. There's a lot to do before I think about going live with it, so I'm figuring Christmas. Will probably release the new version on New Year's Day just for a nice round number. We'll see how it all goes.
Back to studying! I'll try and update things a couple times a month until winter when hopefully I'll have some snowstorms to discuss. Conferences should start to be scheduled here soon as well, so I'll be planning my escapes to those in the coming time as well!
Ciao!
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Thursday, August 17, 2006
Busy times ongoing for me right now, but I thought I'd drop a quick life update between reviews and lightning pics. With another semester upcoming and tons to do between now and then, my internet time has been severely limited. Hence the lack of further reviews which I was in the process of doing. They'll be coming down the pipe here in the coming weeks, but just too much going on outside of that to keep up right now.
I thought it was worth a mention that I resigned as a Stormtrack moderator. This has to do mostly with the upcoming semester and the schedule which I'll be juggling. My participation in recent months has been less than usual on chase-related forums and as a moderator, I should spend more time there. With that trend expected to get worse, I used the recent ST reset as a chance to resign quietly.
I also find that I post less and less to forums. Stormchasers.org, for instance, has been quiet all season long. And to be honest, I've probably logged into SC.org all of 5 times in the last few months. With a quiet severe weather season and hurricane season, there just isn't much to talk about. Stormtrack continues to shows its signs of life, but again, its the same old stuff. I show off my lightning pics on there from time-to-time and may chime in on questions to which I have experience with. Beyond that, a majority of my internet focus is with my own website.
Speaking of my website, I'm tossing around ideas of a facelift for her. With no plans for a highlight video this year, I'll need a winter project to work on around school. I haven't really sat down and mapped anything out as of yet, but its something I am considering. Maybe something of a simpler, less cluttered site with my focus being on the chasing I do as opposed to chasing in general. This would eliminate the need for Chasing 101 and other educational pages which I have scattered across my site. Obviously I'll be happy to point new chasers in the right direction for assistance in getting started, but this place is to show off what it is I do.
With that, my chasing logs will likely get the brunt of attention. With my experience in Excel allowing me to get creative, I am probably going to incorporate a lot of statistics into the new site. I believe it is
Shane Adams who loves stats as much as I do. Not sure where the numbers game became such a fun thing for me, but none-the-less, it is. I definately want to change the layout of my logs to clean them up a bit. Again, this is several months from even being worked on, but its something I am considering.
After this semester, I am three classes away from my Meteorology Degree. While I probably won't finish college with the completion of those due to the double-major I am working towards, I am likely going to get all three of those classes knocked out in the Spring semester. This will conclude my classes for my Meteorology degree and Math minor. I have about a year and change left on the Technical Communications degree and am definately far enough along to warrent finishing that. I've slated my graduation date with both degrees in Spring 2008.
My first goal beyond graduation is to try and relocate outside of Denver to someplace a bit smaller. I've eyeballed the obviously places in Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kansas (I've come to love this town), but am keeping my eyes peeled just about anywhere east of where I'm at right now. I have no desire to be west of here, nor do I care to be along the Eastern Seaboard. I'd go back to Ohio if the offering was good and definately would take anything in the Plains. Its all on the road ahead and anything's possible. An open mind is definately something I'll be walking with.
I've picked up a semester internship with
Mike Nelson over at
KMGH - Channel 7 News. I am very excited to get a chance to work with him over this coming semester. I'm hoping to squeeze out a day or two of severe weather early in this internship, but am really looking forward to the chance to forecast the crazy winter-weather we can get out here. I start there on Monday and will post periodic reports on my experience over there for the next 16 weeks.
Chasing in 2007 is still a ways away, but its never too early to look ahead. When the school posts its schedules for Spring, Summer and Fall of next year, I'll be able to start slating dates for next year's Mayathon. I'll definately do the two weeks between semesters as usual, but may elect to go chase-by-chase around that. As I proved this passed season, I was able to get out on most chases from March through June. With no classes to report to in summer, as was not the case in those early season chases, I should be able to keep some flexibility which hopefully will limit these 1000 mile marathon chases post-May. While they are fun to pull off and make for awesome stories later, they do tend to burn you out a bit quicker. After 17,000 miles this season, my motivation to venture beyond the 470 outerbelt has been lacking. I figured this out when
Katie Burtis texted me about the Colby, Kansas tornado a couple weeks ago and the first words out of my mouth were NOT cursing. I'm definately on a chasing break as of now. But come January, I'll be itching again for sure! I'll keep you informed of the upcoming season as it gets closer.
My hope is that I'll have to do little in terms of spending money prior to the season to get ready. I already have a vehicle and it is well set up. I have WX Worx, cell phone internet, laptop, and all the gear I could need. My hope is any money I do need to spend preseason is for vehicle maintanance. This hopefully will make saving for the season less of a burdon.
My "other" season is a few short weeks from starting. The Redskins open their regular season the Monday after I return from an Ohio wedding. They play the Vikings on Monday Night Football on September 11. They then head to Dallas for a week 2 showdown against the Cowboys. I'm sure Dallas is seeking revenge for the pair of losses they suffered by the hands of my boys, so it oughta make for a good game. The NFC East looks like it'll be a helluva fight, and I am definately looking forward to this season. I'm sure I'll exchange some friendly words with fellow chasers
Amos Magliocco and
Roger Edwards who will be suffering the addition of T.O. to their Cowboys team. I hope Sean Taylor does them all a favor and puts T.O. in traction for the season! We shall see! It'll be an interesting year for all fans in the NFC East this season, and I for one am very excited for things to get underway.
Well, I think that pretty well covers everything weather-related in my neck of the woods. Aside from lightning photos I may get in the coming weeks, it'll be a bit quiet til I get into my normal schedule again. I'm only taking a pair of classes with my internship this semester, but those classes will be a handful. Differential Equations and Dynamic Meteorology; enough to make any man cringe. I'll post at least once every few days if there's anything to mention.
Ciao!
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Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The monsoon season continues to be good for us here along the Front Range as yet another shot of evening storms rolled through. I was delivering pies early in the evening and sprinted through this narrow downpour to obtain a few decent shots as the storm slid east and died out.
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Sunday, August 13, 2006
A couple early shots from some storms this evening; nothing emmy-award winning, but decent enough. Heavy rains prevented much better shots in a storm which was in perfect position for me this evening. I shot for about 30 minutes off Alameda near Bear Creek and these were the two better shots I got. Again, tons of lightning illuminated clouds, but heavy rains which produced urban flood warnings prevented much better shots.
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Friday, August 04, 2006
Some good storms hammered parts of the Metro area yesterday. Work kept me from getting under any of them, but reports of minor flooding were received. Nothing too serious. As for me, I was able to capture some decent rainbows from the storms which moved through Douglas and Elbert Counties yesterday evening while I was driving pies. Below are the pics..
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Tuesday, August 01, 2006
We interrupt your reviews to bring you actual chasing news... sort of...
An interesting day setting up for this first day of August in which we could be talking landspouts. Deep moisture finally made its way into the area after yesterday's frontal passage. Good shear and instability should also be present to allow for storm development early this afternoon. Hail is a possibility, but with the anticipated development of a DCVZ setting up, the area along that convergence could also be condusive for landspouts. Models indicating the potential for 60s to get as far west as the I-25 corridor with upper 50s to near 60 TDs all across the Eastern Plains. Post-frontal upslope at the surface should aid in storm development along the foothills and mountains early in the day beore storms move onto the Plains later in the afternoon. I would anticipate the first warnings coming out between 2pm and 3pm for areas along the Palmer Ridge (Elbert, Douglas, and Lincoln Counties) as well as areas along the convergence zone (Adams, Arapahoe, and Southern Weld Counties). The concern for me at the moment sits with the cloud cover which is currently draped over the area. Visible sat at this hour shows the area pretty socked in. Those clouds will need to clear in order to warm into the upper 70s and lower 80s, otherwise we can expect a rather stratto-type day with little in terms of severe weather.
A mention of last night, I ventured out east after dark to attempt to make some lightning shots, however, blinding rain prevented any real chance to shoot, thus I made a trip out to near Deer Trail and back tacking on another 110 miles to my total this season. Its amazing how fast those miles go by! LOL
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