Saturday, January 27, 2007
For the 6th weekend on a row, the Metro area is seeing more snow. Only a couple inches so far of this very fluffy snow.
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Friday, January 26, 2007
Melting ice results in minor ponding on side streets in Littleton. More snow, cold, and ice on the way.
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Thursday, January 25, 2007
I just made my final big purchase for the upcoming season! I ordered a Holux 236 Bluetooth GPS puck, antenna, and Delorme Street Atlas 2007 for the Treo 700p. The ProClip arrived yesterday and was the absolute EASIEST thing I have ever had to install in my life. Well worth the pennies I put into it! Gave it an initial run this morning on my way into campus and the viewing location will be perfect!
The Delorme 2007 Street Atlas will install over the current version I have on my laptop (2005) and I'll start getting maps over to my Treo to cover the areas around tornado alley. The Bluetooth Holux unit I ordered should connect to my phone with ease allowing me to use the phone as a GPS tool. I'll give that its initial test on a pie driving shift in the next week or so. Coming with it was a 6ft antenna which I'm hoping will reduce interference from my HAM radio which happens with my laptop USB version and perhaps allow me to place the puck out of sight.
With the successful testing of my GPS equipment (can return in 30 days with ALL payments refunded - shipping included), I'll be able to dedicate my laptop GPS puck for Baron and not have to switch back and forth between programs. Not to mention the GPS on the phone will allow me to use it in more general applications as well as use in different vehicles. I'm very excited!
Most of the accessories have arrived for my Treo with the exception of my vehicle cables. Those I would imagine will arrive today or tomorrow. The ProClip mount allows easy access to run the power/usb cables from the bottom of the phone, so I am very happy with the setup for this.
Weather-wise, a system is expected to move through the area over the weekend (6th weekend in a row) bringing light snow potential to Colorado. We may see a few inches, but certainly not a maor storm. Next week, another system is expected to drop into the region bringing another shot of bitter cold air. Hard to judge snow potential this far out, but it certainly is a possibility with any system of that magnitude!
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007
After over a month, we can start to see the grass beneath all the snow.
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Monday, January 22, 2007
Yesterday's storm dumped another 4 to 8 inches of snow across the Metro area with upwards of 15 inches in areas southeast and west of Denver. This storm came as a surprise to most as heavier snow fell for a longer amount of time leading to accumulations several inches higher than forecasted the day before. I enjoyed most of the storm driving pies around the area and was able to shoot some stills between runs. With that, I've uploaded a couple dozen shots and updated the winter weather logs with a storm I measured at half a foot. You can view the log and photos here.
The mobile logs sent yesterday were thanks to my new phone which arrived Friday and was activated successfully on Friday. My Treo 700p came extremely fast, less than 48 hours after my ebay auction ended. I've taken most of the weekend aquainting myself with the new toy. I was happy to get a chance to test the picture mail and blogging capabilities of the phone and came home last night to see all three posts made it easily. Picture quality is about the same as the old phone, but none-the-less, it IS a camera phone.
Speaking of ebay, I have a couple auctions ongoing for gear I'm no longer using. Obviously I no longer need my old cell phone, so that's gone up. Also, the Dell Axim which I purchased last season from another chaser has gone up as well. I found very little use for it during last season and thought I'd offer it up to the auction world. If interested, the links to those are below. Bid high! :o)
Dell Axim X30 w/ GPS Software Leather Case and Chargers
Samsung Bluetooth Camera Phone a920 Sprint MP3 Player
I'd like to recoop about $200 of the $500 I spent on the phone and accessories which will then bring me to about the cost of the phone had I signed up for a new agreement.
I made another mount purchase over the weekend to accomodate the Treo. I shelled out some good money for a ProClip dash mount. It clips on to my center air vent and is angled toward the driver's seat. It should work very well with my phone. I'm hoping to have it and all my accessories in hand by the end of the week.
A bit of a break from the weather this week as temps should bounce into the 40s and near 50 by week's end. How it will carve out our snow, its hard to say. According to NWS-Denver, we're at 33 consecutive days with at least 1 inch of snow on the ground. The record is 63 days which was back in November of 1983 through January 1984 ( check official product here). Whether we make that record remains to be seen, but this week oughta put a good dent in the snow pack around the area. I think we'll easily make the top 5! None-the-less, its a break I'm sure is warmly welcomed among Coloradans.
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Sunday, January 21, 2007
Snow still coming down heavy in Littleton.
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Clearing out more snow in Littleton. So far, I have measured 4 inches of new snow.
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More snow for Denver. Another 3 to 6 inches possible by tonight.
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Wednesday, January 17, 2007
With plenty of extra cash coming my way, I elected to make an upgrade. I was bouncing back and forth between a dashboard GPS unit and a new smart phone. With options weighed, I elected to go with the smartphone.
After reading reviews and talking with others, I elected to go with the Treo 700p Smartphone. I picked a new phone up on eBay for $400 and am currently getting accessories for it. A leather case and a USB hotsync cable are certainly in order, as well as a car mount for it.
As for my old phone, I'm going to switch my Sprint service to the new phone and have the old phone cleared for resell on eBay to cover the cost of my accessories. The old phone, the Samsung a920, served me well over the last year, but the need for a few other items and the desire for a new toy are moving me into the PDA phone area.
The Treo I've picked up includes features I really enjoy; the phone-as-modem quirk is really a musdt-have and is included with this phone. I also have a bigger screen on this which lead me from the Windows based 700w models. I will have the ability to surf the internet, blog, and get email from this phone in a more readable format than my current smaller-screen flip phone.
I expect to receive the phone early next week and should have it activated within a day or two of that. Then will begin the fun process of learning the bells and whistles of this new machine! I'm excited! Me love new toys!
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Monday, January 15, 2007
We're at the back end of this cold snap which embraced us over the weekend. The last several evenings have seen temps below zero and highs struggling to make the teens. Snow was lighter than forecasted, but probably to the delight of most people as we still have a ton of snow on the ground from the previous storms. Still, we saw several inches over the last several days, so it certainly wasn't a dry cold.
With the new year upon us, I'm going through my chasing inventory to see what I need to get. With last year's big buys on eBay, I'm good on blank media and batteries. I find my biggest void is cables, namely A/V cables for the video cameras and charging cables I've misplaced or lost. No major upgrades and purchases are expected, so most of my pre-season money will go into readying the van. Thanks in part to a 25% off coupon from Checker Auto Parts, I will probably get my parts through them and get an auto-buddy to put them in cheap for me.
With that, not much to speak of. The first of the conventions and conferences comes up in about a month. The National Storm Chaser Convention kicks off a list of conferences which lead up to the season. I'm still planning on being in Dallas for the TESSA conference, but beyond that, I'm not sure I'm going to dedicate a ton of time to going to many.
As for early season chasing, my plan is to try and avoid going out in March and save my marathon chasing for weekends in April. I start to loosen up with work and school as I'll finish a class in mid-March and start to get a more relaxed work schedule. While the middle of the week gets pretty tight in April, I shouldn't have a terribly time squeezing a chase or two in Friday through Monday. I have no intention to spend the time, effort, and money I did last March, but as we all know, anything's possible. However, the law of stats showing my poor record in early season chasing combined with the fact that I want to enjoy the several weeks in May and June means I'll probably suck it up for as long as I can hold out before going gangbusters in May. The more money I stash away prior to that, the more fun I can have on the road!
So with that, I'm off to enjoy lunch! Tomorrow starts the Spring 2007 semester which will share time with classes, internship, work, and other projects. Chasing will take a back seat through the first half of this busy semester.
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Monday, January 08, 2007
Still keeping tabs on the incoming winter system which is progged to unleash its fury starting midday Thursday. Here's my forecast as of this afternoon after sitting down to Channel 7's computers this afternoon...
SNOW POTENTIAL: Snow will begin to fall with the passage of the front mid to late in the day on Thursday and continue through early Saturday. Snow will be more of a fluffy snow and will be hard to measure with any winds, however, I think its safe to say 6 to 12 inches of fluffy snow will be possible through early Saturday. A second surge of cold air will move through Sunday with potential for some more snow Sunday into Monday. At this time, I don't think it looks all that much.
COLD POTENTIAL: This is the big/HUGE story with this system. We're talking the coldest air in nearly a decade. December 1998 was the latest major cold-air outbreak with January 1997 having a similar spell with a couple days where highs didn't get above zero. I think this spell will do much of the same starting potentially Friday. I went in my forecast with a high of 0 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday, and 7 on Monday. I'm not ready to pull the trigger on sub-zero high just yet, but imagine the potential will exist through Wednesday as the GFS keeps that cold air bubble over us through the middle of the week. Lows will drop well below zero Friday night well into next week. I wouldn't be surprised to see readings as low as -20 at some point next week. This will easily outdo last February's weekend cold snap and probably push at all-time records. And the end of it, not in sight just yet.
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Sunday, January 07, 2007
From The Denver AFD this morning...
LONG RANGEMODELS ARE STILL ADVERTISING A MAJOR TROF ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN ANDASSOCIATED COLD AIRMASS WHICH MOVES INTO NERN CO THU MORNING. THISUPPER LEVEL TROF MOVES VERY SLOWLY THRU SAT WHILE STRONG JET ENERGYREMAINS ACROSS MUCH OF THE CWA. BOTH GFS AND EUROPEAN MODELS ARESHOWING THIS DEVELOPING STORM AND WE MAY BE LOOKING AT SIGNIFICANTSNOWFALL YET AGAIN. EVEN COLDER AIR WILL BE ASSOCIATED WITH THISSTORM AS READINGS MAY NOT GET OUT OF THE SINGLE DIGITS BY FRI ANDSAT. DUE TO THE SLOW MOVEMENT OF THIS TROF ACROSS THE GREATBASIN...THIS SNOW MAKER MAY BE A MORE PROLONGED EVENT LASTINGPOSSIBLY INTO LATE SAT OR SUNDAY.
The GFS is showing a huge system moving into the area from Thursday into the weekend. Still way too far out to start making guesses on what exactly this system is going to do, but considering the storm-after-storm pattern we're in right now, you can't help but get a bit excited. The big story right now with this system is the bitter cold air this system is expected to bring. And I'm talking single digit highs. The GFS at 0z Saturday has temps near 0 in the Front Range area with extreme cold breaking out over the mountains at 12z Monday with readings gettings forecasted as low as -55 to -60! That's unreal!
This will be an unfolding event throughout the week; but heavy snow plus bitter cold within this series of storms could easily be the knockout blow for the Front Range. We'll continue to watch very eagerly to see how this begins to play out.
In the meantime, high winds are the main story as we get into a favorable pattern for a high wind event. Probably will be the first big one of the windy season. This combined with blowing snow will make for interesting conditions over the next 24 to 36 hours. HIGH WIND WARNINGS are in effect for the Foothills and western Denver suburbs. Hard to capture wind on still camera, but I'll certainly post any wind-related damage as I come across it.
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Friday, January 05, 2007
Snow starting to wind down with this third round. Totals are ranging from a foot in the foothills to a couple inches out east. Boulder is at 10 inches; areas near Arvada are reporting as much as 7 inches. My delivery area has seen over half a foot which added to the crap which is still on the side streets oughta make for helacious driving tonight. Customers, tip your drivers well tonight, please!
Anywoo, some more shots, these from the Auraria Campus where about 5 inches of snow has fallen. I imagine this will be it for snow in this round, however, I'll have a camera with me tonight to capture images from my pie-driving ventures!
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Another week, another snowstorm! This unprecidented series of storms continues as yet another blast of snow is hammering parts of the Metro area. Last night's advisories were upgraded to WINTER STORM WARNINGS for the western parts of the Metro area. I took a measurment at 7:00am and recorded 5.5 inches of snow at my apartment in Lakewood. Then I spent 15 minutes trying to get my van up the poorly plowed parking lot of my apartment complex to finally get out and on my way to work. I took some photos along the way which I'll post here. If we can hit the 10 inch mark, this will be the third storm in less than three weeks to dump double-digital snow totals and the forth storm of the season to do so. Unreal!
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Thursday, January 04, 2007
More snow is on the way for the Denver area. SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW ADVISORIES are in effect through early tomorrow afternoon with a quick 4 to 8 inches of snow possible. With a foot STILL on the ground from the previous two blizzards, we may be looking at areas with two feet again after this little system clears through. At this rate, we may not see dry ground again til sometime in March! LOL
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The blog is back online after nearly a month! Not sure what happened and why, but blogger sure picked the worst time weather-wise for such a retarded issue. None-the-less, I did some research and was finally able to create a fix for this issue. Now, I should have full posting capabilities again!
And with that said, there's not much going on to talk about. A brief snow tomorrow will add another 2 to 4 inches of snow to the ton of snow leftover from December's blizzard pair. I was out of town on holiday travel for Son of Blizzard, so I missed the second storm which spared the Metro area of its worst while delivering its fierce blow to Southeast Colorado. The Metro area saw another 10 to 20 inches, but missed out on the ton of snow other places got.
I'm doing to touch-up work to the site in preparation for the 2007 Chasing Season, nothing which will be very apparent til the chase-related stuff starts to go online. I'll keep you updated of that as well as go live if we are to see another huge winter storm!
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