Wind farm at twilight

Figured I had to enjoy the 70F temperatures out there. What better way than a photography trip. I had no idea where I wanted to go, but gassed up the car and grabbed a 32 oz. Coke and was on my way. I left DeKalb and quickly decided I wanted to play with the ever expanding wind farm just south of town. Here is what I came home with.

PWX 2009: A Tale of Two Seasons

Well, a typical late release on my end, but it's finally here.

The next in the line of PWX 20XX storm chasing DVDs, PWX 2009; A Tale of Two Seasons features the beautiful, and the very ugly sides of storm chasing in the central United States. 2008 featured one of my most successful two week periods in the end of May and first week of June including the western Kansas events on May 22/23, culminating with the June 7th wedge-fest in northeastern Illinois. I came out of the gate sprinting in 2008 and fell flat on my face in 2009. A very difficult year for storm chasing which did still prove fruitful to some was unrelenting on my end. If I wasn't being hosed by mother nature, it was such inconveniences as a totaled car in a construction zone. PWX 2009 is packed full of 2008 action, and 2009 pain (and I suppose a few nice storms as well!).



Charging $15, shipping included. Any chasers out there wanting to trade can shoot me an email.

All the information can be found here: http://prairiestormmedia.com/PWX2009.html

DVD Production

The 2009 DVD is about 90% complete. For the bad luck that I faced this spring, I'm pretty happy with how this one is turning out. It helps that my DVD's always cover the current year, and previous year and I wound up having an excellent 2008. The crappy luck this year kind of played into the theme for the DVD which wound up being "A tale of two seasons". Just watch how quickly your luck can change out there!

Help Needed...

Figured this should be posted here as well. Some may already be aware of the situation, but might not be aware of the new method to help out here. If you had not heard, good friend and fellow chaser Darin Brunin and his girlfriend Alexis Sullivan lost their apartment the other night during a lightning induced fire. Dick McGowan has set up a method for donations to them, so I will let him finish the talking:

"As some of you already know, yesterday morning, Darin Brunin and his girlfriend Alexis Sullivan, were woken up to a fire that was triggered by lightning in Lawrence, Kansas, which consumed the top apartments where they lived and left their apartment uninhabitable. Fortunately, two good samaritans rang all of the resident's door bells in the building, giving them all enough time to escape, unharmed. Here is a link to the story.

According to the fire department, they have lost pretty much everything and unfortunately didn't have any insurance. They both have received support from the Red Cross and have been temporarily moved to another apartment, but still lack a lot of essential goods for their new home (including clothes) . It is to my understanding, that they will not be able to return to the apartment to see what's left/salvageable for another week, until a structural engineer evaluates the scene.

Unknown to them, I am asking anyone who wishes to contribute to their devastating loss, to send funds to my paypal address: midwesternmeso@hotmail.com

You may also email myself at the same address to give Darin and Lexi any support or encouragement, and I will pass it along to them. If you wish to donate anything else, please PM me or email me and I will send you an address to where you can send something.

If you can not do this, I fully understand (as would Darin and Lexi). Thank you so much to everyone who have already given their sympathies to Darin and Lexi; they are both thankful for all of those who have been so kind to them and have given them the support they need."

Shabonna State Park / Twin Groves Wind Farm

After a rough Monday, I had most of my Tuesday evening free so I decided to take off for a drive around 4 PM. Ended up meandering my way to Shabonna State Park. It was windy and chilly, but what are you going to do? It will be a whole hell of a lot worse in a month or two. After the lake, I wound up back at the Twin Groves Wind Farm near Interstate 39. Still don't understand how some can protest these things.

Another Time Lapse

On a cool, dreary evening with dashed severe weather hopes in the central US, there's nothing better to do than to time lapse an old favorite.

This would be the evolution of the minisupercell near Manchester, Illinois on June 3rd 2008. This thing didn't stand a chance, with almost no surface flow to speak of. However, a morning bow echo left an outflow boundary draped across central Illinois and this storm was able to take full advantage.

Why late season chasing sucks.

YES!



Damn it.

No I did not chase today, however. Desperate as I was, this one wasn't worth it no matter how you tried to swing it.

Another Pointless Low Cape Chase Forecast

I know some a pretty in to the 4km simulated radar output, so I figured it's worth mentioning it seems pretty keyed up about tomorrow. Forecasting supercells along the warm front in northern Missouri and potentially western Illinois, along with potential tornado producers along the cold front from Chillicothe, MO southward into northern Arkansas.

This seems fairly in line with what I was predicting earlier in this thread. Not sure how realistic the scenario is, as it still goes largely against the NAM and GFS solutions which are very against producing any sizable cape aside from the jungles over southern Missouri and Arkansas.

Springfield, Missouri looks to be in the line of fire once again. I'd look to this area along north-south Highway 65 in central and southern Missouri to be potentially under the gun tomorrow from 3-6 PM. Earlier in the day, I still would not rule out a few tornado warnings / reports along the warm front in northern / northeast Missouri, near Kirksville and then potentially even into portions of western Illinois. That second area is a really big *if* right now, and will require very close monitoring of real time data once tomorrow rolls around.

Here's a crude image to go along with my thoughts. Making these always seems to jinx my forecast, but here goes.

Everything looking down!

Looking at the NAM and GFS forecasts for tomorrow, things look absolutely done for.

I'll continue to watch this system however, as the dynamics themselves warrant it. Large amounts of early morning convection are the culprit for putting a damper on the tornado chances with this system in the northern sector. Our biggest hope, is that this is being slightly over forecast, and that with the rapid deepening of the cyclone most of the early waa precipitation is quickly lifted northeastward out of the potential target area.

If this scenario is realized, I think northern Missouri would warrant some attention. Just ahead of the surface low and near the warm front, low-level shear profiles would lend themselves towards updraft rotation. Should early day convection be lifted out of the area soon enough, and some insolation can occur a broken line of supercells across northern Missouri southward does not seem unreasonable. The Chillicothe, Missouri area would not be a bad place to be in this scenario.

Just hard to accept a 500mb prog like this would go to waste.

http://weather.cod.edu/forecast/WRF/...500_spd_36.gif

Of course, this is hoping for a lot and going largely against what model data is showing. I think it warrants careful observation through tomorrow morning, however.

I have been served.

Another flame war broke out on Stormtrack yesterday evening. I decided to jump into this one, mainly because it was a slow, dreary, blustery Monday afternoon. Mid-war, I was served.



I really lost interest in the flame-war quickly though. However, I saw several involved calling for blood even as night fell. I find these events to be hilarious, personally. Getting so worked up over trivial things, I just love sitting back and throwing in minor attacks. I guess it's the immature child in me acting out, and apologize for the trouble it causes the admins at ST, but I always have and always will love a good flame war on that forum. There is nothing like it to get you through the off-season.

I guess it's just a big reason why I hate other storm chasers. I associate with a very small group who I've grown to know and trust through the years. Those people know who they are, of course. Just seems most out there love to talk big talk, but then get offended and play the victim when the feathers they were ruffling strike back. But seriously, talking "big talk", about storm chasing. Really? Of all the things to talk big about, storm chasing to me just seems hilarious. I'm sure there are other nerds out there, like volcanologists, talking smack to each other threatening to "throw down" on top of the next active volcano. Or geologists telling other geologists they better not show up to that next big dig or they're going to get pummeled. Meh. Perhaps I'm an asshole, but this whining is why I don't really care for chaser networking, and even have a lot of the "chasers" out there "Hidden" on that big social networking site that EVERYONE is a chaser on.

I've written a lot about a topic that I don't care that much about. I'll run off for now and contemplate more meaningful things, such as why storm chasing in Iowa on Thursday would be a bad idea.