April 26th, 2013 Elk City, Oklahoma Supercell

Before you even get the idea, I WAS NOT THERE!!!!!! A little history, Elk City is my home base for storm chasing since I have a family I go to for shelter and crashing on their sofas during storm chasing season. I have known this family for many years and we go way back, all the way to high school, so you can say that makes this family a very important part of my life. Enough background.

On April 26th, I was in Aurora, Colorado on the internet checking on the severe weather criteria happening around the Elk City area. I always like to look after my family, so I contacted them and they were all over this like wild on rice. More background check, both parents in the family have years of chasing experience through me taking them out individually on storm chase extravaganzas. I have to take one at a time because they have amazing kids to raise and take care of, can't just go off and leave them, lol.

On April 26th, Jamie Duncan was on her way back from a party when she noticed the tall updraft and towers billowing towards Elk City. She immediately thought of me and took a bunch of random shots given I had given her a few tips on how to get a good shot when out chasing severe weather. She had her daughter with her at the time so driving and stopping was most likely unusual cause her daughter prolly wondered what momma was up to since they are not normal storm chasers.

On April 26th, Brad Duncan at the home base was out and about his house watching the other kids and taking pics of the supercell outside. As it was beginning to form in the west heading towards Elk City he noticed lowering in the distance apparently in the picture. It was than he got a call from his wife Jamie and a plan was inevitable.

On April 26th, I was sitting on my hospital bed internet-ing (it's a verb) around, watching the weather and such. On IMAP I could see other chasers were chasing the cell that was about to grow intensity and hit Elk City head on. The potential threat was not to threatening in my forecasting since I didn't see the dangers of it becoming a intensive supercell with tornadic capabilities. Hail was the only risk factor that I saw coming out of these cells due to the frontal boundary they were striving on to survive. Only to grow intensify than get undercut by an outflow boundary, than repeating the process as it moves eastward since there exist all the variables for severe weather to sustain itself for long periods of time moving the state of Oklahoma.

On April 26th it was great being a part in terms of ears and eyes through the Duncans as they kept me up to date on what was happening. Than they gave me the biggest surprise of them all, they went out for a drive around elk city to take some pictures for me. They went chasing. Now if I had heard they went chasing 6-7 years ago, I would've been pissed and told them that was the stupidest thing you could've done, but with the knowledge that I have bestowed upon the whole family on storm chasing and forecasting. They were safe from any dangers, but still of course had the risk; knowledge was the key factor in why they went out to have fun chasing just so they could help me out.

Lookout Kids

Dime Sized Hail

Quarter, Nickel, and Dime Sized Hail

Flooding

Hope you enjoyed these photos, want to thank the Duncans from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to use these pictures and doing a write-up. Looking forward to getting down there to get my chases in for the spring/summer in Oklahoma!

Welcome to Colorado in the spring

April has been a busy winter/spring mix given the conditions for snow every other week has put a hold on setups for severe weather even remotely entering into our state. With that being said April 8th, and maybe another day that I can't recall have given the opportunities to position a CO/KS chase. All in all High Pressure has contained the central part of the U.S. bringing massive blasts of cold frigid Canadian air keeping things at its norm in Colorado for springtime conditions. Snow is vital given we haven't had the greatest of snow levels the past 3 years to give a good report of snow packed percentages. This April though has been rough for the chasers syndromes of wanting to get out there and chase again. OK and TX are pretty much the main areas of fun for the time being as we wait out the change in jet and get out of this ruckus of High Pressure Omega Blocking. Get some heating and the jet to spit out some developing Low Pressure systems that don't collapse. I'm not complaining at all though, I look forward what we all hope to be a good May/June play for severe weather setups.

I will be caravaning with other groups and individuals since I don't have my wonderful beautiful white Saturn anymore. I miss the car, but things changed and it had to be given away. Anyways enjoy the blizzard if you live on the front range tomorrow (Monday) and I'm looking into the border of KS/OK just near Bartlesville, OK to get a potential tornado threat as the cold front comes screaming through the Kansas plains. In between highway 99 and 75 and east to west highway 60 this is my target for a tornado. Have fun chasing out there, and will see you in the plains. Be safe.

Canon T3 and Collage 2013

Learning how to take photographs with my new Canon T3 has been my project for the last couple months as 2012 winds down. Most of the photos are either sunrises or sunsets, but some have their own story in the photos of randomness. I look forward using this camera for this spring in Colorado severe weather activity. It's been a blessing to shoot what I have been able to capture cause most of the time I'm either sick or tired. Cystic Fibrosis has been challenging somewhat this last year. I will keep on trekking and keep the camera on the skies.

Here are some photos over the last few months that have really stood out.

Next I will be working on the new Collage of 2013, so give me a week or 2 to get that up. Till than stay tuned and keep chasing.

Loner Lazy Lumph

Entry ~ May 3rd, 2012

I watched radar today, with no hopes of any gas being burnt. Watching the skies dwindle with an exiting mini trough isn't fun if you hope for some convergence or boundary to help some of these wayward clouds group together. The mountains were creating a nice upslope condition along with a nice easterly wind with weak dewpoints best at near 40's pushing it. This would be enough to collaborate a nice group of unorganized embedded low level clouds to blow up just over Kersey, Colorado. Everything was slow moving and drifting. Once the sun went down, things began to organize and converge. I than found myself not just taking pics from where I was currently staying, but with my foot on the gas pedal driving just outside of Greeley to get a better view. It was a beautiful cell billowing along a stream of moisture all the way up near Sterling, Colorado. I only went out 3 miles east just to enjoy timelapsing the sun setting and bouncing beautiful colors to the eyes.

Looking at the mechanics of the storm, nothing more than a little kick there in moisture, a little umph in upsloping convergence, and a little lumph to recognize the little things of what a storm needs.

Chase 4 Complete.

Timelapse:

Storm Reports
None

April 30th 2012 TX Panhandle 287 Boundary Cells

        Entry ~ April 30th, 2012

1. (06Z-10Z) Boundary from late night active SVR WX.
2. (17Z-21Z) Dryline initiate west of Amarillo.
3. (22Z-01Z) a.Not enough helicity to support upper level
                     b.HP dominant
                     c.Timing and location set things out of order
4. Chase 3 was fun and awesome in everyway.

In Chase 3 Shep and I took two people with us. One problem I had my Saturn. My Saturn is smaller than most electric cars lol. For all of us to go we took two vehicles. Brandon Rycroft is a friend and experienced chaser chasing with people trained at the NWS in Norman and local media. His skills of navigation were really great since he lives in wild lands of OK/TX. So Shep rode with Rycroft, and Jamie, another great friend from Elk City hopped in my vehicle. I was excited to take people cause I love the environment of having other people to enjoy weather with in the plains.

Jamie had let me take her husband a couple times, so she really wanted to have an opportunity to go see a tornado from a safe distance with us :) It may not have been class A chasing. It sure was fun and we were able to see explosive updrafts, little structure, lots of rain and hail. Now we didn't drive through the core of fear of losing windshields thankfully. So this writeup wouldve been different if I had punched the core as well lol, instead there were reports of baseballs and softballs destroying other friends' windshields, lol. Glad all are ok though. We were able to punch the backside of the RFD and got into golfballs. That was fun to run out in the hail outflow. Jamie even got to experience a little hail punching outside as well running from the gas station to the my car. Pic Fail.
Will have to report another time.

At the end of the chase a line of cells merged moving through SW Oklahoma and TX Redriver area/ Hwy 287. So we followed behind these cells while watching some beautiful anvil crawlers and spectacular cloud-to-cloud lightning.

Reports:

Golfball Hail