The Debris Cloud

Splish Splash

2008-04-24T18:07:00.002-06:00

April 23, 2008
Hailstorm on I20 south of Gordon, TX

As we drove west to catch the Abilene storms a new supercell went up to our south. Sometime being late to the show gets the ticket.

I'm just glad we found some cover and it held up. I think I found 1 dent from a bouncing stone.

Ice Machine

2008-04-18T04:30:00.003-06:00

April 17, 2008
Weatherford, TX hailstorm approaching 180 and 20 and fixing to bomb the car dealerships. I manage to stay ahead as I move back to 20 and Bryant Irvin. Luckily for me the size of the hail decreased in my location.

Merry-go-round!

2008-04-08T15:58:00.000-06:00

April 7, 2008 Wall-cloud video.

Storm Electra!

2008-04-08T00:28:00.001-06:00

Limited Moisture is all that kept this from being a moderate risk. But on my day off wind profiles like today's were too tempting to not chew on. Target was Wichita Falls. Luckily I noticed a nail in my right rear tire before leaving or things might not have turned out as well.

As we approached SPS we noted fattening towers to the west. We gassed up and continued up 287 and several cells merged in one large beast near Electra. We moved to the south side of town and watched a wall-cloud form as it moved straight at us.

As we moved back to the west side of Electra it turned into a merry-go-round with tornadic rotation. We were blocked from seeing any ground contact but later saw a cone wrapped in the rain. I'll have to review the video that mike shot of this as I was driving at the time.

Nice Wall-Cloud forms.

Close up!

Baylor county storm before getting cut off.

Storm Deliverance

2008-04-04T14:58:00.003-06:00

March 31, 2008. Target today was Gainsville, TX but quickly shifted east as storms went up near Grandbury and moved towards DFW.
We eyed the northern storm in southeast Denton, co and got on it in McKinney just as it died.
Next we turned to the best storm which was just north of the Red River, up Hwy 75 and followed it to Hobart and beyond before giving up on a winding back road seemingly from the movie "Deliverance".

Best shot of the day was at sunset as the front lit up.

New Timelapse

2008-03-25T14:01:00.002-06:00

I put together a short video from March 17th. Just some timelapse set to music. Enjoy!

Big Country!

2008-03-24T15:11:00.008-06:00

Things really didn't look great today, looked like too many storms moving along and north of the front, but since it was a Monday and I was off we just had to get out. We originally targeted Stephensville to Mineral Wells but the dryline was taking it's sweet time. So Abilene made more sense if we wanted to see a storm before dark . We met Tim Marshall along with other chasers also from DFW that had made the trip to the "Big Country" at the local Denny's for a bite while we waited for something, anything to happen.

Finally something appeared on the old radar southeast of us so we were all off on the chase down Hwy 36 to intercept. We settled in front of the storm just west of Oplin for some pics. A rain foot told most of the story here and the storm was moving mostly to the north and it's high base kept splitting so we left in favor of the next storm.

We exited east then south on Hwy 283 for Coleman and the next storm which was starting to look better. Once again this storm was splitting and heading north so we took Hwy 84 northwest for a better view. Soon we could see a wallcloud off to the west and watched several attempts to produce but the best show was the lightning.

One big problem today was that it seemed that every storm was "tornado warned" by the San Angelo office. This definitely did not verify in the field and cluttered things up quite a bit. It's hard to know what's really going on when you can't trust the warning on day's like this. Still a fun chase.

Bet your life... but great video!

2007-06-24T07:43:00.000-06:00

Well known for getting too close and getting the "Money" shot, here's the latest from Canada this time. This is impressive but I'm wondering what happens when a satellite vortex forms in the wrong place or a vortex maxes out. They're toast!

Wisconsin Scars!

2007-06-14T14:06:00.000-06:00

On June 7th, 2007 tornadoes left their mark on the mid-west. Click on the image for more.

Windbags

2007-06-05T13:54:00.000-06:00

Drove down towards Odessa and the old OFB but never found backed winds. These storms looked interesting for a while but were outflow dominant. The last one near Kermit was tornado warned but lifted it's skirt and poofed at us so we started the long drive back to dfw early. Oh well it was fun anyway.

Dimmitt

2007-06-05T13:38:00.003-06:00

We drove a long way from DFW for this storm but the route was pretty clear 20 to Sweetwater then up 84 to Lubbock. Before we got there the only target we had was near Hereford so we went up 27 to Plainview then on to Hart where we drove west to 385 which the storm seemed to be following southbound through Dimmitt. We saw the reported tornado's peaking through the rain a couple of times but the real show was when we took a step back to see the whole storm.

Oh Vera!

2007-06-02T09:07:00.000-06:00

Headed for Childress but was cut short by HP beast already there. We diverted at Vernon to get in front as it approached Thalia. Looked outflow dominant with a barrage of lightning. We worked our way down to Hwy 114 and east of Vera where if appeared meanest then blew it's guts and chased us back home.

Finally got to chase

2007-05-26T08:54:00.000-06:00

Finally got to chase with Mike Cohen this day. There was lots of promise but too many storms and not enough cape. The highlight was the frogs croaking loudly in a flooded field. So far all the good storms have been either too far away or on a work day. Still I'm glad to be working so I'm not complaining.

Back on the job

2007-03-23T15:29:00.000-06:00

Just a quick update. I went back on the job last Monday for my old company so the job hunt is over for now. It's good to be working again.

Now I can think about storms!

What now?

2007-03-07T11:03:00.000-06:00

I guess it's about time I updated everyone about what's been going on in my life.

After my last post way back when I went to the eye doctor because I had a blind spot in my left eye that had been there since June. I probably wouldn't have still went except it was getting time to renew my drivers license and I knew the eye test would spell trouble.

After a complete exam the eye doctor referred me to another more qualified specialist since he was seeing swollen optic nerves and bleeding in the back of the eye.

The specialist actually sent me for MRI's to find out if something was causing pressure on the back of the optic nerve. These showed microscopic bleeding and the new specialist referred to a specialist about this.

In the meantime they finally checked my blood pressure and it was sky high more than 250 over 150. Both agreed this could be the root of everything. I was blowing a gasket!

I didn't even have a family doctor. I'm never sick, or so I thought.

I was told to go strait to the emergency room and I did where they put me on 5 medications which lowered my BP but totally numbed the brain in the process.

Once out of the hospital I found a family doctor and turned things over to him and improved for a couple of weeks.

Then I started having trouble holding food down and it got worst and worst until a blood test showed that my Kidney's had shut down. This put me back in the hospital on November 27th.

I was scheduled for a tube through the chest so Dialysis could start the next morning. Then my numbers started looking better and the Kidney specialist wanted to see me around mid January. I liked that turn around.

I was released on December 1st after the doc informed me that I was now Diabetic to go along with everything else.

What a mind trip! When I go in I couldn't hold anything down and 3 days later I was having to worry about eating enough.

I'm finally feeling pretty good and have lost about 40 pounds, though I wish I'd done it some other way.

The doctor has ok'ed me to return to work but I was gone so long that they replaced me. Yes, they can do that after 12 weeks. Trouble is that right now there's no opening at my job. They're working with me but so far I'm SOL.

So after all of that I've gotta look for a job. What fun!

Been on hold

2007-02-03T16:24:00.001-06:00

All projects have been on hold for the last 2 to 3 weeks since the old Taurus bit the dust. I finally lost the transmission on the way to work and had smoke pouring out and with 236,000+ on the oddometer there's no way she's getting fixed.

The rest of the time has been spent finding a new car and going through that nightmare. New or Used was the question and I finally ended up with a 2006 Hyundai Elantra for the value and a killer warranty. I like it more everytime I drive it.

Now that that's settled I plan to get on with things as posted before.

Done for now

2007-02-03T16:22:00.001-06:00

I'm finally done getting my 2000-2003 tapes over to DVD. The new DVD's are available on chaseone.com at the same old price.

Now on the the 2005-2006 stuff.

Old tapes to DVD

2007-02-03T16:14:00.000-06:00

I'm halfway through a new project that's been a long time coming. I'm transferring all of my old chase tapes to DVD. I'm starting with the 2000 through 2003 tapes and I'm done with 2000 and 2001 now. I should have 2002 and 2003 done this week.

As soon as I'm done with these 4 tapes I plan to put together a 2005-2006 DVD since I think there's enough material for that. Then I'll go back and probably take care of the 1991-1999 stuff.

These DVD versions will be offered on chaseone.com, as available for the same price as the tapes, $15.00 + S&H

I figured it was about time to get these over to DVD before the old master tapes wear out and everything was lost.

Finally some relief!

2007-02-03T16:12:00.000-06:00

With a weak front forecast to pass through North Texas tomorrow giving much needed relief a reflection is due. So how does this heat wave rank?

Yes it's been very hot across a broad section of the US with records set. An all time record for any day of 117˚F at Pierre, SD stands out. Yes it was extremely hot farther north than you'd expect. But anyone who experienced the heat wave of 1980 knows this episode doesn't compare at all.

Here in DFW we had 69 days above 100˚F between June 23rd and September 6th with 42 in a row at one point. The worst was June 26th and 27th when it hit 113˚ on both days. An all-time record. Sticking your arm out the car window had the same effect as sticking it in your oven. We broke or tied records 29 times.

It was hot all over the southern plains where Wichita Falls hit 119°F, Memphis hit 108°F with 15 days straight above 100°F, Kansas City stayed above 100°F for 17 days straight.

The worst statistic of all was the death toll. This heat wave took the lives of between 1250 and 10,000 people nationwide. Even on the low end of this scale this was the true disaster.

So bring on the relief tomorrow and get us out of the triple digits. Let's hope we've seen the last of them for 2006. I'm not betting on it. And when you start moaning about how hot it feels and start debating about whether it's because of "Global Warming" think back and remember.

My best chase of the year

2007-02-03T16:07:00.000-06:00

April 15th was probably my best chase of the year being that I left for my target the day before to be in place. I drove to Wichita, KS the day before then on to southeast Nebraska and the Beatrice tornado.

Still I wasn't able to get as close as others (not that I wanted to get as close as some) and was only able to shoot video as the first tornado was down. It was already raining and all I could do was find a place to pull off, grab the camera and start shooting. No time for a tripod.

At first there appeared to be only one tornado with this storm but the NWS survey revealed a 30+ mile damage path. A review of my video shows the original meso wrapping in rain and another larger tornado developing inside.

Even with all this I had a blast and ran into Jimmy Deguara and his group from down under. This seems to happen quite often. It was great to see old friends that came such a long way.