Posted by admin on June 21, 2010
Wow! We drove just over 2200 miles over 3 days on this chase. We had another eventful outing, although we still have yet to observe a tornado. Our first day we left before 6 am, we were heading towards western Nebraska, we watched one storm that just couldn’t maintain itself. It did give us hope with a small wall cloud and a sky full of mammatus clouds before we left it. Thursday we headed to Minnesota, what a trip, trying to maneuver between storms, this happened because we were chasing a cell close to the coldfront, us and many other chasers missed the main line by about 50 miles. This only got more exciting as we continued to try and find a better storm. At one point we were sitting along a road with 5 confirmed tornadoes within 10 miles of our location……We did see damage from one tornado that hit less than 1 mile from where we were sitting. Once we removed ourselves from the situation it was decided it was a bit to extreme for us and we bailed out to Olive Garden then to our hotel for the night.
A more complete summary will be posted in the Storm Chase Reports page this week, pictures can be seen in the Photo Gallery.
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Posted by admin on June 13, 2010
Well, that was one of the worst storms I have experienced since moving to O’fallon in 1994. We recorded a peak gust of 56 mph, and a 15 second rain rate of 17.45 inches per hour. Our home did not receive any damage, although several homes/trees in our area did. I have picture posted in our photo gallery of storm damage from today. 6/13 damage pictures
Filed under: Ofallon Weather, Video and Pictures
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Posted by admin on May 24, 2010
Aaron and I had another fun chase on Saturday. We had chose our initial point of South Central Nebraska, we drove straight past Kearney and then started heading north and further west. Our furthest point north was just into South Dakota on highway 83, we found a paved road that ran east, we really needed this to try and get in front of a tornado warned storm. We went about 8 miles east, through some small hail, then the road turned to gravel/mud, we drove another couple miles and had to turn around, the road was to dangerous.
We did watch the birth of several supercells, this after we had given up. We had just introduced ourselves to David Toner, another chaser from Springfield, MO. We had noticed him in our area on the spotter network map. We left to head back southeast when we noticed some clouds building to our north north west, we turned around back to US 83 to blast north. These storms went up quick, from nothing to hail/wall cloud producers within 30 minutes.
We feel like we had a successful day, the only thing missing would be a tornado. We have figured out that we are taking pictures/watching to much when these storms develop, we need to make sure and get in front of them at this time. Once we decided to move is when we realized the road network was not great, with many roads being unpaved. We did stream video for a short period of time, although once we were near the storms we were on a much slower connection and had to drop the video to 5 frames per second.
Pictures of the storms development can currently be viewed in our photo gallery, 5-22-2010 Nebraska Chase
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Posted by admin on May 21, 2010
Just when I started writing another weekend off it appears some life is coming to a possible Saturday Chase.
Currently looking to head to south central Nebraska, we can head that direction and tweak our destination while on the road.
As long as we can maintain internet, we will have live video and we will be in the chat room also. This area looks well covered by Verizon our data provider. We will likely be on the road around 7 am, with hopes of getting to our destination 1-3 hours before the storms start.
The Chase page link is the top link in the middle column on the homepage. Chase Page
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Posted by admin on May 9, 2010
I have embedded a Google calendar into the blog. It is on a separate page with the link showing in the menu on the left side of the blog. Calendar Link
Everyone keep an eye out Monday night into Tuesday morning, we have the possibility of severe weather. Most likely large hail and wind, but one never knows. Tomorrow looks to be a rough day for Eastern Oklahoma and possibly SE Kansas as well as Western Missouri.
Filed under: Ofallon Weather, St. Louis Weather, St. Peters Weather, Storm Chasing, Video and Pictures
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Posted by admin on May 4, 2010
Quick update on yesterdays hail storm that moved just north of the St. Louis area in both Missouri and Illinois. The largest hail reported was 2 inches, that lies just between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball. A report with pictures can be seen at the NWS site, once you click on an image you can scroll through the rest in the series. Some images show hail covering the ground, some even show the ground covered in fog from the cold air produced by the melting hail.. March 3, 2010 Hail Storm report
Filed under: Ofallon Weather, St. Louis Weather, St. Peters Weather, Video and Pictures
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Posted by admin on May 3, 2010
I will try to make this quick, but I have a few things to update. Friday I was at Gateway Raceway, so again I was being hunted by the storms. We left in time to make it into the North St. Louis area before the storms/tornadoes hit. I was able to keep track the storms with my Ipod Touch using the wifi at the racetrack.
Full storm reports can be seen here: St Louis NWS Significant Weather Events
We have a chance for some hail/wind this evening, then late week could possibly be interesting again. This is my last full week of work until June 7, then I am off the whole week of June 14. I look to get as many chases in as possible.
I will be entering a contract with Severe Studios to broker any storm video we happen to capture. This should happen this week. This can help us gain exposure as well as help with some of the expenses of storm chasing.
Filed under: Ofallon Weather, St. Louis Weather, St. Peters Weather, Storm Chasing, Video and Pictures
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Posted by admin on April 3, 2010
I will try and keep this one short. We stayed home Friday, and it looks like we made a good decision. A bit of seeing lack of supercells and not wanting to drive 10+ hours to try and find some. The forecast were pointing to a more line of storms than the favored discrete cells. No tornadoes were reported, a bunch of nasty wind reports and a few hail reports thrown in here and there.
The upcoming week looks to be “busy”. Sunday into Monday could see some severe weather, including our area, likely more west and then north.Then Tuesday we may get thrown in the game with our area already in an area highlighted by the Storm Prediction Center for possible severe weather.
If anything is near by and during my time off work look for me to be out and about. If it is local or I am at work we will stream from our house. We did this Friday evening as a test and all seems to work well, hopefully the same can be said while mobile.
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Posted by admin on March 29, 2010
I have been watching the models later this week with much anticipation. Locally warm air will return in a big way, dew points are likely to climb into the mid 50′s. We have had the forcing mechanism(cold front) along with plenty of shear to rotate the storms, the moisture seems to have been the limiting factor so far this year.
From what I am seeing, the major area currently looks to be Thursday/Friday in Texas and Oklahoma. I can’t make Thursday, but I am off work Friday, if it looks promising I will attempt my first storm chase of the year. I think I am set, although I have yet to activate my mobile internet….It should only take 10-15 minutes to activate…Stay tuned. :)
Remember, you can view our position, live streaming video and even chat with us while we are out.Live Chase
Filed under: Ofallon Weather, St. Louis Weather, Storm Chasing, Video and Pictures
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Posted by admin on March 10, 2010
Well, just when we think we should be getting ready for severe weather, it is at our doorstep.
We are under a slight risk for severe weather into Thursday, the predominant threat in our area will be high winds and hail.
If I can get things setup before going to work we will stream live from our house, I will check it out for quality, as I will have to shoot through a window. It will be a good test, but I am sure my wife will have an issue with the camera and laptop in our bedroom looking southwest! I guess she won’t find out until she gets home from work! (Shhhhh) :)
The live video and chat can be found on our chase summary page
Filed under: Ofallon Weather, St. Louis Weather, St. Peters Weather, Storm Chasing, Video and Pictures
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