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.
I totally missed this last month, the St. Peters weather station has now been operating for over 1 year! Things have been operating very nice. Special thanks to Andy, he host the station and computer at his house.
Well locally it has been quiet and getting a bit dry for spring with the O’fallon station down 3-4 inches of precipitation for the year so far. Next week is looking like some of this deficit could be made up with an extended period of unsettled weather.
This coming week starts a series of long weekends for me, I scheduled time off work for storm chasing, hopefully the weather permits. We have already tested the live video streaming as well as the chat room. Each weekend from now until the first full week of June is either 3 or 4 days, the second full week of June I am off the whole week. Keep an eye here or become a fan of ourFacebook Page
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.
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.
Looks to be a bit wet now through the weekend. Friday we are under a slight risk for severe weather, although south and west appear to have better chances of receiving severe weather.
I will have our equipment with us Saturday, we will be busy most of the day, but if severe weather rolls in, look for a live stream on the Chase/Live Video/Chat Page.
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.
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
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) :)
I will warn everyone upfront, this post is going to be long. First of all we are now in Awareness Week, I try to keep it simple and say have access to information and have a plan. Here is a link to the NWS, please check it out and refresh yourself. If you find you can be a bit more prepared, it is never to soon, severe weather can happen anytime. I encourage everyone have a weather radio with s.a.m.e technology. With this you put in your county code, the radio will then only alarm you if your county has a watch or warning. The model I own has the ability to program to alert for just specific watches and warnings. I have mine set to alarm me of a Tornado Warning or Severe Thunderstorm Warning, it also has the ability to sound for other situations like a nuclear spill or even a sunami.
Okay, now to the website and our hopeful successful upcoming storm chasing season. I now have my video streaming account active and working. I have some new/used equipment coming within the next two weeks to help improve the quality of streaming we will offer. Fair warning, with mobile internet the video will be a fairly low bitrate, around 150 Kbps. We will likely only stream when approaching a severe storm, we do plan possibly streaming from the house if we are unable to go mobile. If you go to our chase page you will see I have inserted a “chat” box, this will enable us to communicate with others live while on the road. You do have to sign up and verify your account. Below the chat box is our video screen, if we are not streaming it will just be a black with an arrow. Next to the video stream is a map showing our position tracked via gps, in this box you can even enable the radar button to see where we are in relation to storms. We will try to notify all people signed up for chat that we are heading out. You can also gohere and install a notifier, I have not tried it but you will have access to 400+ storm chasers streaming video. You can personalize it to only notify you when certain streamers are live.
I guess that is it for now, look for this week to be in the 50-60 degree range, with 1-2 inches of rain. This is not the “boring” weather of the last couple of weeks, sorry Bob, no golf for you! ;)
Well the weather has really become “boring”, look for temperatures to fluctuate this week, but the trend is looking warmer. Looks like we may have a chance of rain and possible thunder come early next week.
I have been trying to prepare for this years storm season, we are set at home, but I am busy getting things setup for chasing.
I have applied for a live streaming account, I have tested my equipment and I believe we should see live video from the field this year!
I also plan to try and stream video from the house when we are unable to go mobile.
I have a few items left to gather for this years chase season, a portable weather radio, a dash mount for the video camera, and some wiring of extra power ports in the car.
I am currently planning on taking several days off in mid-late May, if weather is still active, it’s possible that I may have a whole week open in June to dedicate to storm chasing.