Next Week

I know its a little early, but I want to put it out there that I think as of the current models my chase target will be Enid Oklahoma on Thursday April 29th.

April 22nd 2010 CO Chase

Part 1




More to post later, but heres a quick still from my tornado footage today of the Cheyenne County Tornado

2352		12 N FIRSTVIEW	CHEYENNE	CO	3900	10254	TORNADO ON NORTH SIDE OFINTERSECTIO OF COUNTY ROAD DD AND COUNTY ROAD 34 MOVING TO THE NORTHEAST. (GLD)
0005		14 NNE FIRSTVIEW	CHEYENNE	CO	3902	10246	TORNADO WAS ON THE GROUND 4 TO 5 MINUTES THEN ROPED OUT.

April 21nd 2010 Bennett, CO

First Severe Storm Chase of the season! Had lots of hail, was up to 6 inches deep in some areas of pea to marble sized hail. Got some good CGs after the meso died out. Was a fun little chase in the backyard before getting into thursdays forecasted insane day..

April 20th Flagler Area

Today it looks like Flagler area might be a good target. Best surface winds, convergence, low lcls, cape, and position of the lee cyclogenesis. The shear will be good tomorrow, but moisture and energy needs to be amped up a bit. Will have to re-evaluate the models to be more accurate later on this morning.
Yesterday Skinner got some great shots of a cell moving through castle rock area with a nice Meso. Check out his blog!

Me this thursday morning

This will probably be me this thursday morning the way the models are looking right now

April 18th Garden Variety

Some nice convection and a couple little cells that came through weld county today. Skinner was on it since its birth, and I was watching it on GRlevel2AE and decided around 6 that I had to get on it because of the strong shear environment out there today, and the fact that it was so close. Chased it out to Wiggins CO, with skinner not too far. Saw some great lightning, and then it started a fire near a pig farm. The fire got pretty big then it died down as it rained and fire fighters sprayed it. Video as seen on 7 news tonight included.

Tornado Reported Today

A massive squall line came through today, lots of hail and strong winds! A tornado was also reported in Eastern Colorado today. I was messing around with GRLevel2 Analyst Edition for the first time, some pretty cool features. I did not want to go out on it today because I am a little more limited on time and resources this year, and it was a squall line. Not saying that there wasnt some cool stuff to see.. Verne Carlson got some sweet pics today, and I watched some of his live stream, looked like some pretty covered roads by pea sized hail.

Clarification

So over the last year since I worked with Sean and Discovery I have had a lot of people ask how I got the job driving TIV and working on the film crew. I suspect a lot of people especially ask because I haven't been storm chasing for as many years as some. Out of jealousy and resentment some bridges have been burned as well and in my opinion for immature and no good reasons. I wanted to clarify that driving TIV was not a storm chasing job, our mission was an IMAX film, and driving the vehicle took extreme situational awareness. My background consists of video production, and transportation (aviation specifically) which requires a lot of situational awareness to fly aircraft. These were two important attributes to have that did not have anything to do with the storm chasing community. I was not a forecaster... so meteorology was not a priority. I did meet the right people at the right time, and did some networking. After getting the job I was just as excited as anyone would be, and I spent some time sharing with everyone I know. Some people took it the wrong way, and others supported me. I was not trying to be flashy in a way that said haha look what job I have and you dont. I was just being proud of my job and sharing it with everyone I could. Finding my true loyal and supportive colleagues was easy after that, because people would go one way or the other. I have been accused of turning storm chasing into a business and losing passion for what its really for, but thats extremely wrong. I believe creating a business is not only smart but even more passionate, because you are striving to do it anyway you can. Sean for instance is passionate about film making and storm chasing, who should criticize him while hes doing what he loves and was intelligent enough to figure it out. Its too bad that some of you cant just go out and enjoy storms and get over some of that instead of gossiping and attempting to attack personally.