DMB at the Gorge

Unbelievable. That pretty much sums up this year's labor day weekend at the Gorge. Dave Matthews Band was headlining the weekend as he has in the past, but this weekend would prove to be a special one for fans and for the band. It was the first trip to the Gorge without saxophone player LeRoi Moore. LeRoi's death was a surprise to many, as an embolism from a June ATV accident would ultimately end his life. The band was very emotional during their 30th appearance at the venue and played with passion that some bands can only dream of. The band put on some of the best shows of the year, and as always, did not fail to awe. The Gorge is truly a magical place, and if your favorite band is lucky enough to play there, I highly recommend attending.

A view from the hotel in Seattle
How much can you pack in a PT cruiser? Good thing we're good at Tetris!
A view of our campsite
A view from the top of the lawn. What a venue!
Cliff overlooking the Columbia River

The Best of July '08

A collection of my best pictures from this month. Enjoy!

A rapidly rising tower forms a pileus cloud

A nasty early morning MCS produces 70+ mph winds on 7-21-08


7-21-08 radar loop (click to enlarge)

A female white-tailed deer feeds in the backyard

A blinding CG on 7-8-08

7-8-08 radar loop (click to enlarge)

Father's day or son's Day?

Father's day is usually all about Dad's, but this one certainly seemed like it was a gift to me instead of my father! The day started off with a bang as I was awoke early to a small elevated MCS traversing through Illinois that produced a beautiful shelf cloud according to Tavis's pictures. The MCS quickly exited allowing for rapid destabilization from late morning till early afternoon before a large thunderstorm complex quickly blew up right over top of us. This storm produced the largest hail I have seen to date in Illinois!

Anvil shield from the early afternoon convection to the west

Penny to walnut size hail!
Posing with a handful of small hail

Little did we know, the storms were not done yet! Yet another round of storms initiated off to our west with some surprising structure. These storms were very intense and very short lived. My guess is that they relieved any of the instability that the early afternoon convection missed...
This storm fired and quickly produced a wall cloud type lowering before quickly dissipating...The images were taken with my phone and are not of the best quality...One thing to observe is the northwest flow nature of the storm and the "reflection view" of a typical southwesterly flow supercell.

Notice the precip core on the left side of the storm rather than the right...

Things quickly settled down after this exciting storm to a normal father's day. We were treated to a beautiful sunset and some hard to photograph hummingbirds!

Breathtaking sunset
Reflection of CB off of the lake

Dad posing next to his pride and joy
Curly enjoys the evening
This guy was hard to photograph!

6/11--Deadly Iowa HP's

The day after my birthday was shaping up to be an interesting day for tornadic supercells in western IA. After picking up Dustin in Oglesby and Travis (another NIU chaser) near Princeton, IL, we headed for our initial target of Council Bluffs, IA. After passing through the Quad Cities, I noticed that the right front tire was shaking violently and that it was going to need to be replaced. Luckily for us, a tire center in Des Moines was able to get us right in and after about an hour of labor, we were back on our way to western IA. We arrived to our target a little behind schedule, but were excited to see the rapidly strengthening storms off to our SW.

Shot of an initial supercell forming to our west

Unfortunately for everyone involved, these storms quickly what meteorologists call HP or High Precipitation. These storms are often very hazardous to many for lots of reasons...Storm chasers and others in the path of the storm because it is very hard to find and identify where circulations are in the storm; National Weather Service forecasters because they rarely have ground truth of these circulations until after they have wreaked havoc on their targets; and their obvious title of very heavy rain producers that causes flash flooding in a matter of minuets.

HP storm that quickly "wrapped up" and passed over the Boy Scout camp...

These sort of situations are always a blow to the stomach to everyone involved and no chaser ever wants to see anyone injured while chasing after mother nature...One chaser even had to bail out of his vehicle after realizing that a circulation was passing right over him! This day was certainly a dangerous chase day, and my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone that had their lives changed due to this event. After staying ahead of the HP blob, it started to coalesce with other HP monsters into a large MCS. We stayed ahead of this mess of convection on I-80, stopping frequently to sample the shelf and lightning.

Typical view of the shelf along I-80 just west of Des Moines

CG bolt near Des Moines

6/4-6/5 Bust and Realization

Everything seemed to be falling into place for a two day severe weather episode, so Dustin and I decided to head to the NE, IA border to catch some action. Initially, Wednesday seemed to be the day that was going to an appetizer as the orientation of the upper level trough was still positive and less progressive than the progged upper level flow for Thursday. We basically figured that any convection we could catch Wednesday would be icing to the cake. In summary, Wednesday turned out to be better than Thursday despite the better looking atmospheric conditions on Thursday (more on this later).
After reviewing some data while stopping at Sonic in Des Moines, IA, our initial target was Aurora, NE. While driving to our target we noticed many storms firing of to the west of Aurora near Kearney and Grand Island. We still decided to keep our target due to the very agitated nature of the cumulus clouds outside our windows between Lincoln and Aurora. To our liking, a pair of supercells fired along this northward lifting boundary and put us in the perfect position to chase.

Initial storm north of Aurora, NE, lacking strong low-level inflow
The TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle) contemplates on a target

Storms seemed to be lacking a low-level inflow, and with darkness approaching we decided to call it quits near Lincoln, NE. While checking into our hotel, many mexican men were standing outside of the entrance to the hotel amazed by the wind, rain and lightning from the leftover convection. Did I also mention that they were downing 24 oz. beers? Sure enough, we found one of them with a phone up to his ear passed out on the steps leading up to the room.

Yes hunny, I'll make it home for breakfast tomorrow.

After a few laughs, we noticed that the lightning on the backside of the convection we were following was amazing. Must say that it was the best display of anvil zit lighting that I have seen to date.

"Anvil Zits" outside of Lincoln, NE

Dessert after the main course.

After returning to the room, attention quickly turned to Thursday's chasing prospects. After waking up to the largest Storm Prediction Center high risk that I have ever chased, I was anxiously awaiting the afternoon convection. Even though the morning high risk was primarily for a threat of damaging wind, it was apparent that a small area in E central NE was becoming ripe for tornadic supercells (see MD below).

Mesoscale Discussion issued shortly after we left Lincoln

I will now go into quite a bit of detail about Thursday's bust...

After choosing York, NE as a target we noticed some convection starting to fire on radar to our west near Grand Island and we immediately traveled west to scope out the action. It was obvious that these storms were not tapping the uncapped surfaced based instability that the SPC mesoanalysis was showing (see below).

17 Z Surface Based CAPE

Notice the lackluster appearance of the convection along the boundary in S central NE

What was happening? You can clearly see that the storms in northwestern KS were thriving in an environment that seemed much less favorable for supercellular convection. After a few minuets of watching this convection moving out of CO and into KS, we decided to try to intercept these quickly moving supercells, with a flying V appearance on radar, as they would hopefully move near the Red Cloud, NE area. The pair of supercells was moving into a very favorable environment rich with extreme theta-e and backing winds along a N-S oriented pseudo dryline. All I could keep thinking is that this was it, these were going to be the storms that we have been waiting for... We made it to Red Cloud, NE with time to spare and fueled up while watching radar. We were very curious to see what was going to happen when these storms hit the boundary and moved into a much better conceptual severe storm environment. The radar scan after the storm hit the boundary, and I mean right after, the storm immediately lost all of its rotation and started to dissipate into a non-severe shelf cloud. WHAT? Hmm...You would THINK that this storm was moving into a much more favorable environment. What was wrong with the airmass on the east side of this boundary? It was clearly having trouble sustaining any sort of an updraft the entire day. One hypothesis could be that the airmass to the east of this boundary was capped despite the RUC's analysis in the SPC mesoanalysis. Wouldn't this boundary help break that cap?

What happened when the supercell that looked so good on radar hit the boundary? Boundaries are supposed to be areas of enhanced vorticity and wind shear. Was it the orientation that storm crossed the boundary that made it dissipate and turn into a shelf cloud? So many questions were running through my mind on the long drive back to Illinois...One thing for sure is that we as meteorologists still know very little as far a mesoscale processes in these sorts of situations. Who knows, maybe someone will do a case study for the event, but I find it unlikely due to the lack of 18Z soundings behind this psuedo dryline... Now 0-5 while chasing high risk events and 0-4 inside of PDS tornado watches. I'm becoming more frustrated every time I see a high risk...one. It always seems like there is just way to much going on!

Disappointingly, the best picture of the day

Time lapse of the shelf cloud

Bust, War Wound, & End of Trip 1

Today started off at the Budget King motel in Salina, KS. I have to say that the stay was not that bad considering how cheap we got the room. Anyway, it was evident at the beginning of the day that we were going to have to head south and west to catch nice convection during the day. Our initial target was Greensburg, KS although we ended up just east of Greensburg in Pratt, KS so we could grab some food and some internet data. As you may remember, Greensburg was the town that was devastated by an EF-5 tornado on May 4th, 2007. We began heading towards Greensburg after noticing that an outflow boundary from early morning convection was sagging southwest through our area. It was a nice cool down, but we knew we wanted to catch the initiating storms to our southwest and then follow them as they interacted with this mesoscale boundary. These storms were again outflow dominant for the most part, as well as large hail producers. In fact, while chasing the only good looking storm on radar back towards Pratt, we were munched by the core of another developing storm. This was by far and away the largest hail I've ever encountered... We were pounded by hail anywhere from about penny to egg size. The vehicle sustained a small windshield crack just above the drivers side, as well as other small dents on the roof. Fortunately for us, we were able to get out of the large hail core and head east of Prat and eventually called it quits in Wichita, KS. Numerous chasers stuck in the hail core behind us reported tennis to baseball sized hail in the location that we were just able to get by. Unfortunately, many of those chasers suffered broken windshields and windows that immediately ended their chase. Overall, a great chascation with a cooperative weather pattern and some great supercells as we will call an end to trip 1 while a ridge dominates the central plains for a couple days. Will post pictures of the war wound tomorrow, and unfortunately we do not have pictures of the large hail because we were trying to get out of it!

Initial Convection...

Outflow + Scud = No Tornadoes!

Last night we camped at Cedar Bluff State Park with about 10,000 little bugs that looked like ticks. I'm not sure exactly what they were, but I can tell you they were very annoying. After cleaning up camp, we migrated to back to the headquarters this year (Hays) and soaked up some data as well as some Sonic breakfast and Arby's lunch. Mmmm...healthy! While choosing a chase target in Hays, we sighted a small storm on radar developing off to the west of were we had just been camping the previous night. Around 12:30 P.M. this storm became severe warned, and 2 radar scans later, tornado warned. We were in very good position to intercept this storm, in fact, we were one of very few chasers of the many in the plains this week on this initial storm. In short, this storm produced a very picturesque wall cloud and very intense inflow. We got caught behind this storm after photographing the most beautiful inflow band I have ever witnessed. While behind this storm, we were munched by quarter to golf ball size hail. I was amazed we didn't break the windshield or sustain any damage to the vehicle! Overall the day was marked by outflow dominant storms and low hanging scud that prompted sherrifnadoes and eye catching structures that you swore would go tornadic. Tomorrow will be another chase day as our chascation has been marked by 1 slight, 4 moderates, and 1 high risk from the Storm Prediction Center. I think we picked the right week :)

Beautiful wall cloud
Golfball hail anyone?


Inflow band

Frustrating day!

We awoke to a great severe weather set-up across west central KS and headed back to Scott City, KS after staying in Phillipsburg last night. After a PDS tornado watch was issued, we were able to get on the first storm that initiated near Dighton, KS. I have to say, we have been making very good decisions as far as initiation is concerned. This storm produced a photogenic supercell with attendant wall cloud, but just couldn't develop enough low level rotation for a tornado. After drifting north all the way to Wakeeny, KS with this storm we learned about a tornadic supercell that was crossing I-70 just to the west of Wakeeny. This storm produced several tornadoes and I have already seem some great pictures from other chasers of what appears to be a large wedge tornado. Overall, we were basically bouncing back and forth between supercells and ended up not seeing a tornado. The storm we followed to the north had LCL's of nearly 100 m and was very hard to tell what was going on. We later found out this storm was producing a rain wrapped tornado. Oh well! Looks like we will camp in KS tomorrow and sit out the chase in eastern NE and western IA tomorrow and try to catch some storms in southern KS on Sunday. Frustrating day, but to be expected every once in a while...

Severe thunderstorm near Scott City, KS.
Intense inflow sucks up dust from a field.
Funnel cloud just north of Scott City, KS.

Long haul pays off!

We awoke in Goodland, KS to a classic climatological severe weather outbreak set-up in which a warm front was rapidly lifting northward, while a dryline was mixing eastward. We decided to head south to Scott City, KS around 12:15 P.M. and noticed the first reflectivity echo starting to form just south of our target. After gassing up and realizing the show was going to start early, we played with an outflow dominant cell just to the east of Scott City just before noticing that a cell was quickly becoming organized to the south of the original storm. This cell had a beautiful wall cloud and ended up producing a tornado in southwest Gove county. A funnel was extending to the ground and we were able to see attendant dust clouds at surface for a solid 5 minuets. We were playing catch up to this storm for most of the day, and ended up watching it cycle many times before calling it quits in Phillipsburg, KS. Overall a great day, and looks like we will have another chance to catch supercells along the dryline in either KS or NE later day.

First tornado in SW Gove county KS.
Woo Hoo!

More Moisture Please!

Tuesday was largely a travel day as we drove nearly 900 miles to Scottsbluff, NE. We camped near Scottsbluff National Monument which I have to say was pretty nice compared to what I was expecting. We awoke in the middle of the night to the lawn sprinklers shooting water into our tent! Argh! After waking up in the morning we dried out the tent and headed south to Fort Morgan, CO. The first storm initiated around 2:00 PM and we were on it shortly thereafter. It was very high based as many storms in these situations tend to be. We were hoping for some high plains magic with low dewpoints, but unfortunately the upslope flow just didn't have enough moisture to realize any highly organized supercells. I was pleased that we picked a good target and managed to get on the storms that looked the best on radar. We are currently staked out at the Holiday Inn Express in Goodland, KS and will be anxiously awaiting what appears to be a significant severe weather outbreak on Thursday; or so we hope!

Some high based, moisture lacking crapvection.

Negative Helicity

I captured this image this morning after looking at visible satellite over the Gulf of Mexico and pondering over the idea of negative helicity. Most of the Storm Relative Helicity that meteorologists think of is in the sense of a WAA regime in which the winds turn clockwise as you increase in altitude through the atmosphere. In this case one can see the winds at the surface are out of the NE, while just a few thousand feet higher in the air, they turn to the SW. This is a textbook CAA scenario for much for the Gulf Coast. The cooler temps are also reflected in the 11 AM surface observations...So not many MET's think about helicity in the negative sense, but if you had upward vertical motion in that sort of a field, it would provide the parcel with the ability to rotate clockwise, instead of your normal counter-clockwise rotating supercell. Because this type of wind profile is associated with CAA, we can usually eliminate any possibility of storms being able to tap into "negative helicity."

Nearly a 180 Degree Turning of the Winds w/ Height

CAA for much of the Gulf Coast

New Orleans, LA, Hodograph Shows the "Negative Helicity"

Forward, Together, Forward

NIU will forever be changed after tragedy struck our campus on Feb. 14th. Events like this often leave us asking, "Why?" This may turn out to be one of those situations that may not have an answer, but it saddens me to know that students trying to further their education would have their lives cut short from such a heinous act of violence. I have met so many wonderful people during my stint at Northern, and I could not imagine enduring what others are going through with this week. Times like these make you step back and take a look at what is really important in your life, and for me that has been the cruel realization that lives can be changed in a matter of minuets. I have learned to make sure to not take things for granted, as they may not be there tomorrow.
Another thing on my mind is the media attention surrounding the case. I understand that the media has needs, and companies will go to great lengths to get media coverage nowadays. However, I do think that this may have a negative societal impact. IMO, the media is giving way to much attention to the people committing these crimes. For instance, if you were mentally sick enough to think about committing suicide, people now can get all of this attention for committing a violent act from CNN...etc. (Virginia Tech was a prime example of this) I'm not saying that news companies shouldn't cover these stories, but I think they need to regulate the amount of information released to the public. Food for thought I guess...

Rockin' Research

In my office

Talk about flash flooding!

Hard to believe that summer is almost over! The research is winding down and it is now time to start wrapping up my paper and final presentation. I do have to say that this has been one of the best summers of my life, and the overall experience and networking that I have achieved out here is a once in a lifetime experience and I am thankful for that! Soon it will be back to the grindstone to finish out the senior year...I'm looking forward to coming back to NIU and finishing out strong :) Wish me luck next week for my final presentation!

Eat, Sleep, Project

Cool replica of the NWC

Title of the blog seems appropriate right now due to the fact that this project has owned me the past couple weeks. I am currently studying convective parameters from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis with Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Lab here in Norman. I have been writing code, making spreadsheets, and analyzing graphs to help further understand the climatology of severe weather parameters. The NCEP/NCAR reanalysis is basically a 40 year model output study that created point based variables for 18,048 points on the globe. I have been writing a program to determine which points are valid, in our area of concern, and then decipher all the data e.g. CAPE, Deep Shear, LCL's. So far it has been rather challenging, but rewarding. If you would like to know more about the data and subject, let me know and I can send a slide show to you that I have been working on. Adios!