June 13th Chase Summary

What a day. I think the best way to put this is that my friends were able to see what can go right on a stormchase and dangerously wrong on a stormchase. I've used up my adrenaline for the year but we did see a long-tracked supercell. Here goes the long summary:

Started the day off by stopping by the office to look over data. There are some things I just can't get easy access to on-line and using my unnamed employer's system makes diagnosing the atmosphere that much easier. Late morning indications were to head north into the Texas Panhandle which was my initial target area. Swinging over to my friends A&N house to pick them up, we started to fiddle with my laptop and Blackberry tether connection. This stupid thing would never connect and we spent about 45 minutes in Plainview, TX trying to get the darn thing to work.

Finally, A mentioned that the local book/music/movie store had free wi-fi so we trucked down the road to get the latest data. While doing so, we could see towers starting to build off to the east. A quick call back to the office also confirmed what we were seeing; new towers were popping up out east of Lubbock while special soundings in Amarillo and by the VORTEX-2 crew showed there was a stout cap in place over the Panhandle area. Our only play now was to head east and see if we could get in a good position on the rapidly developing storms. As the laptop/Blackberry combo wasn't working, I once again had to solely rely on RadarScope on N's iPhone which is an important thing to remember later on in this post.

Heading out US 70 from Plainview, we entered into Floydada and tried to figure out the best way to get into position. Unfortunately, my map was not quite clear enough and we started heading south and west as opposed to continuing east. This was sort of fortuitous because by the time we got turned around and in position, the biggest storm in the area had started to split and we were able to look at both storms (storms split due to a somewhat straight-line hodograph). Stopping east of town at the intersection of US 62/70 & FM 651, we saw this:




Backside of the left split with RFD wrapping around, 3:23 PM CDT

We continued to sit at this intersection and watch the RFD try to spin up a meso on the left-split member but it became clear we were not going to see much. HOWEVER, it did give us one glimpse of things to come, producing a weak mid-level funnel:

Funnel is slightly above and left of center, 3:24 PM CDT


By this time, the right-mover was starting to move away from us to the southeast and we needed to reposition. Unfortunately, the RFD had cut off our best option on FM1958 to Roaring Springs, so we had to backtrack down FM 651 to FM 193 and then head east. As we headed east out of McAdoo and off the edge of the Caprock, the storm was belching large amounts of warm RFD resulting in quite a bit of dust being kicked up. We passed through a wind farm surrounded by gustnadoes of various sizes and shapes and finally made it to the intersection of FM193 and TX70, just west of Afton. A couple of other South Plains Storm Spotting Team members had finally gotten ahead of the storm and were in East Afton looking at things as well. Looking of to our east, we could see a wall cloud with broad rotation. The other spotters could see the same thing, and they were looking west. In my mind, we were seeing the same thing until they said they had possible funnel cloud developing when I couldn't see that. A few frantic messages later, A leaned over and said I had better take a look out the drivers window:



Developing funnel is O V E R us! 4:10 PM CDT

A got this series of pictures looking out the passenger rear of my pick-up:

Needless to say, we had to bail south in a hurry and made it down to Dickens on TX70 in a HURRY. The only option from there was to head east on US82 as the storm had started to move more east than southeast. We made it somewhere east of the intersection of FM2941 and US82 and sat up on top of a hill watching the storm move towards us. Although a wall cloud had wrapped up back in the notch of this HP storm, a new wall cloud tried to develop on the leading edge and started to look good.

New wall cloud developing northwest of our location, 4:29:03 PM CDT




Wall cloud continues to lower and rotation slowly increases, 4:29:39 PM CDT


Unfortunately, the RFD was still ruling the storm and the wall cloud quickly became undercut by outflow and the rotation sheared out right in front of us.



Wall cloud starts to fall apart, 4:32 PM CDT


Although the RFD had undercut this wall cloud, a new one started to form to the south of the RFD punch where a new updraft was developing. Based on spotter reports from my friends, I'm guessing that this next picture was looking north of the end of FM2941 to our west northwest by quite a few miles...




Is it a tornado or is it not? 4:38 PM CDT


Taking a closer look, zoomed in to the area of interest at native resolution:



Is it a tornado or is it not? 4:38 PM CDT


The funnel dissipated around 4:39 as another RFD surge hit the storm but we continued to watch the area of rotation rotate around back into the notch. The storm looked like this by that time:



Panoramic at 4:40 pm CDT, possible wall cloud in the notch to our northwest.


By this time, several things started to happen. The number of chasers started to increase in our area from both the west and the east. Earlier on up at Floydada, I knew of only 2 other people on the storm and all of us were spotters based out of the Hub City. Now there were probably about 20 vehicles on the storm which caused problems with finding the few places to pull off between Dickens and Guthrie. The second thing was a second storm had started to develop south of this one and we were now getting precipitation where we were located. This wasn't good because the chances for lightning and large hail were increasing. Finally, RadarScope showed the storm would move south with an RFD surge than back to the east as the meso would redevelop and strengthen. Visually we could see this as the RFD gust front rapidly approached from the west...



Here comes the gust front, with some rotation along the leading edge. 4:42 PM CDT.


We piled back into the pick-up and started heading east into King County and stopped a mile or two inside the county line. Sure enough, a new wall cloud was trying to form on the northeastern edge of the RFD surge:



New Wall cloud with weak rotation, 4:55:59 PM CDT


A funnel tried to form on the north/northeast side:



New Wall cloud with weak rotation, 4:56:27 PM CDT


But the wall cloud started to be undercut by outflow once again and the rotation totally dissipated:



It is almost gone. 4:57:36 PM CDT


As the storm continued to approach, we started to head into Guthrie. One of the spotters called in with reports of another wall cloud possibly back in the notch and we stopped across from the 6666 Ranch headquarters. By now, a southern storm had started to interact with the main storm and we had finally gotten out from under the precipitation from the anvil of the second storm.



New updraft area developing west of Guthrie, looking west. 5:09 PM CDT


Opting to continue south to try and to keep even with the area most likely to develop a wall cloud, we took the new bypass around Guthrie and stopped for a bit to look over radar data at the US82/US83 split on the south side of town. The loop on RadarScope confirmed that the storm was starting to move southeast and we had a chance to stay parallel with it on US 83. Continuing south, we headed down into the Salt Fork of the Brazos River basin and got caught at the bridge which was under construction and down to one lane. We got through the light and crested the other side of the valley to hear one of the spotters behind us reporting that something possibly had wrapped up in the notch again. Unfortunately we couldn't see anything as we had ended up quite a ways south of the area of interest:



Looking back towards Guthrie to our North. 5:42 PM CDT


The reports of a possible lowering and funnel cloud continued to come in and we could barely make something off in the distance:



All we could see was some low hanging clouds. 5:44 PM CDT


Enhancing the image reveals this (but not much better than before):



Same image as above, contrast and brightness adjusted.


I didn't know what to think. However, the area we were concerned with off to our west was starting to try to spin up a new wall cloud as well. Although it was being pushed southward by more RFD, we did see this area start to develop:



Somewhere 5-10 miles north of Aspermont, 5:47 PM CDT.


We continued to watch it with 5 sets of eyes and the area started to show some better rotation with a few small funnels trying to develop along the leading edge.



5:50 PM CDT.


This was an impressive storm! Unfortunately it had turned into a massive HP monster and you had to be in the right place at the right time to see anything. Unfortunately, the road networks in this area wouldn't allow that...



5:51 PM CDT.


Based on the way the radar looked, we decided to head down into Aspermont and figure where we should go. We knew we were in a bad spot because the storm looked like this:



Taken on the south side of Aspermont at 6:07 PM CDT.


RadarScope also showed that there was a good storm heading towards Silverton that would be our only play unless we wanted to follow this all the way to Abilene. I didn't want to do that as I had to be up early Sunday morning to play electric guitar at church. My plan was to head west on FM 2211 out of Aspermont and skirt around the west side of the storm/RFD. However, this plan was an epic failure.

Driving north through Aspermont, we hit the outflow head-on. Dust reduced visibility to zero and I missed the road sign for FM 2211. By now, the locals had taken shelter in all available spaces and those that weren't occupied were of questionable construction. My second bad choice was that it looked on RadarScope and my maps that we would be able to skirt south of the high reflectivity core on US380 since we were already at the US83 split. About this time, we started to encounter winds that I estimated to be 60-70 MPH with gusts approaching 80. We were in zero visibility, not from dust but blinding rain and occasional leaf debris falling from the sky. I couldn't raise the spotter in front of me or anyone else on the radio and we continued to go westbound. Right before Swenson, the wind was blowing so hard that I could feel the rear of the pickup occasionally slide sideways, we were pushed into the oncoming lane of traffic (with NO traffic thank goodness!), and the windshield wipers were lifted off the windshield and I couldn't see. There were also occasional periods where tree branches were breaking off and landing in the road. Calling back to the home base, I informed the office what was going on and we pushed through the storm.

Finally, about 10 miles from the county line, we broke out of the rain although the wind was still rather high. I called back to the office to report some power lines down since my ham radio wasn't working and this was when I was informed that the West Texas Mesonet station at Aspermont hit a gust of 100 MPH with a possible tornado passing over the station.

Best I can tell was that we were probably about 5 to 7 miles east of the tornadic circulation and caught in the core of the RFD. Fortunately for us there wasn't any hail involved. We finally stopped in Spur for a much needed bathroom break and opted to try for Silverton. Pulling into Dickens however, that storm had already started to weaken and we opted to grab some BBQ at the Ponderosa Cafe. After refueling our bodies with the delectable goodness of that BBQ, the drive back to Lubbock was quite somber; I nearly screwed the pooch on this chase big time.

So what went wrong?

My first mistake was using and trusting poor resolution radar data on a small iPhone screen and trying to mentally overlay the roads out of my Texas Atlas and Gazetteer. From the pure reflectivity view, we should have had no problems driving north of Aspermont and then west. What I failed to do was keep the big picture in mind and remember that the RFD would surge south. We likely drove right through one of those surges right as it hit the ground (which matches up nicely with radar data). Would I have made a different decision if I had GRLevel3 up and running with a road overlay, who knows? A good chaser wouldn't need technology when under the storm because training, knowledge, and experience would have been enough. Perhaps it is time to ditch the technology and go "old school" as I do at work every morning...

The second mistake was losing sight of the big picture north of Dickens. When we drove off the caprock, we were under a lot of towering cu; likely the flanking line of the storm. Unfortunately all the dust and winding roads kept me from looking up; I had to keep my eyes on the road the whole time and then out the drivers window to make sure nothing was coming at me in the strong crosswinds. The WHOLE sky should have been the first thing I surveyed, not RadarScope.

Thirdly, I've had two close encounters with HP storms and this makes the third. After those first two times, I thought I learned my lesson. The lesson is never to drive straight towards an HP storm if it is coming at you at 40 mph. Imagine the game of Pac Man, being a dot in his mouth as it is closing moving towards the right side of the screen, and that is what the situations were like the first two times. Somehow, after 10+ years, that lesson was forgotten and I opted to go against my better judgement and try to outmaneuver a storm. I got to close and nearly paid the price.

I was lucky. Lucky that I didn't get pounded by large hail. Lucky that I didn't have tree limbs fly through the windshield or windows. Lucky my friends weren't hurt. To A&N, my apologies for getting into those spots. N, you learned an invaluable lesson by my mistake; remember it and you will do well as you start your spotting "career".

I'll still chase, but this was a dang good reminder that without the proper respect, Mother Nature will use storms to bite you in the a$$ if you aren't careful...

Where the heck have you been?

Well, I'm glad you asked! I've been busy...what else is new? Quite a bit of time has been spent working on trying to get my Pod XT Live to produce sounds ranging from The Edge in Streets Have No Name, to the Hillsong United crew, to Eddie Van Halen in Eruption, to a whole slew of other lead/backup guitar players. Unfortunately this drives a perfectionist like myself mad because it just doesn't quite sound the same. One big reason is that I'm trying to pull off sounds produced by Gibson LPs with a modified Fender Jimmy Ray Vaughn Strat. And then there is the task of learning new riffs and chords to new worship songs for church as well as trying to define my "own" sound. Who knew that after so many false starts on various instruments growing up that I'd end up playing guitars?!

Another things that keeps me busy is trying to learn the intricacies of my new ham radio. The Kenwood TM-D710A is pretty much a ham radio wrapped around a computer that has some pretty slick features. One of the biggest reasons I purchased this radio was for APRS tracking during stormchases; this allows my colleagues to see where I am at IF I am within range of a base radio hooked up to the internet. However, amateur radio is one of the few communication methods that can work after natural disasters and is the safest way to relay information in emergencies especially if there is a widespread power outage. Being a ham radio operator can help out quite a bit in natural disasters and a mobile rig such as mine can be used to fill in gaps in coverage should the need arise. Now that I have a surplus radio (my trusty TM-V7A that I've had for 7 years); I'm also in the process of getting the Jeep set up for when I'm on the trail. You would be surprised how far you can talk at the top of a 13,000 ft. mountain in Colorado! There are also so many other cool things that you can do with ham radio; packet, PSK (yes, it does look like the picture on the top right - matrix style!) DX, and many many others. Unfortunately, this isn't a cheap hobby to be involved in!

Then there is the shift work that is constantly reminding me that I'm not as much of a spring chicken as I used to be. Typically I could bounce off of the graveyard shift or evening shift without too many problems. Now, I'm more of a zombie for a day/day-and-a-half as my body tries to regain a "normal" circadian rhythm. Those days are usually planned out to accomplish quite a bit but typically end up vegging out in front of the T.V. or computer cleaning out the DVR or working on pictures.

How can working on pictures you ask take up too much time? Well, having recently rebuilt my laptop for Photoshop, it takes a long while! I'm still very much a novice with Photoshop CS3, can accomplish the important tasks (copyright, minor fuzz/speck removal, and minor color adjustments), and have started to explore some of the neat features of album management within CS3. In other words; too much time staring at 10 Megapixel images at 200-400% zoom to get that one dust speck out of there. Here are a few oldies I had laying around from my KWAJEX experience almost 10 years ago...

Then there is the yard. My backyard is an oasis in the desert (to which I'm paying out the wazoo thanks to the Hub City's failure to properly manage the water department); canopy of trees with a nice green fescue lawn. Unfortunately the oaks in the backyard hadn't been trimmed in a while so I had to thin them out a bit to keep the limbs off the roof and to allow ample sunshine to reach the lawn to keep it green. Squirrels have taken fancy to chewing on my hammock and I've been developing ways to keep them at bay (right now an emulsion of cayenne and black pepper spread on the strings seems to be working). Another pest issue are the neighborhood cats that think they can use my yard as their personal litterbox. That one is a bit harder to remedy as these suckers are mighty elusive to "catch in the act".

And last but not least are the plethora of other things going on - stormchasing when I can, trying to formulate intelligent and thought-provoking responses to friends/colleagues blog posts, tackling new books (I'm thinking next up is The Federalist Papers in book form to better understand what our founding fathers had in mind for the constitution and our form of government), trying to get back into the workout routine, non-stop research on powder, primer, caliber, and cases for handloading, and trying to spend time with friends outside of church and work. Yeah. Adult A.D.D. for sure.

Oh, stay tuned for a stormchasing summary as well from April 29th. I've been sitting on that for too long...

Pictures as Promised

Here you go:

Canadian River Run 2009

I Survived (fill in the blank)

Sorry for the lack of posts...busy. Had my first severe weather event in my new office and it was a doozie. Arrived at the office at 8 am for my day-shift and our team issued the first warning shortly before 3 pm. Eventually we had multiple storms that were spreading the radar operator's attention then so we split our area of responsibility in half. I worked the southern sector of our area of responsibility while two of my co-workers worked the northern half. Unfortunately this also meant I had the figure out what to do with a storm munching straight towards the Hub City. Adding to the craziness; an office towercam that allowed me to actually see the rotating wall cloud on the storm as it approached. Nothing is more unnerving that knowing you have a 50/50 chance of seeing a tornado develop in the city you live in AND watch it unfold LIVE in front of you. We lucked out...no tornado. However, 1-2" hail throughout the southern part of the city did it's damage. Mother nature also decided to "ice the cake" by producing one confirmed tornado northwest of the city which one of our employees was urgently sent out to chase from his home (which I had to vector him in via ham radio and radar data). Turned out to be a stovepipe tornado that hit some power lines to light things up. Ended up leaving the office at midnight on an adrenaline rush and without a voice.

Trying to sleep was a chore since not only was coming down from an adrenaline high, but also the stress of working the event. A fitful 4 hours of sleep later, the alarm went off for me to head back up to the office for damage surveys. This is how we "rate" a tornado's intensity; by the damage that is done. When you watch the boob tube and hear the EF-scale, that is what they are talking about; the intensity of the tornado as rated by damage on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Our survey team headed down to Justiceburg and outside of Girard. The survey out to Justiceburg resulted in multiple reports of large hail and the disturbing sight of 100-200 moble homes close to Lake Alan Henry (a disaster waiting to happen IMNSHO). Several reports of funnel clouds, or "fingers" from many of the folks we talked to (thanks Twister). As for the survey west of Girard; there was N O T H I N G for possible tornadoes to hit. Seriously. A few power lines, a few center pivots, a few mesquites, and LOTS of open fields. Again, no way to really confirm a tornado from the ground but aerial surveys are next to impossible to get nowadays thanks to guv'ment red tape. Once we returned to the home office, I rushed home to get things ready for our annual Canadian River Run.

Needing to unwind from the aforementioned severe weather event, I didn't want to make an early go Saturday morning and instead left Friday evening to have a full day of wheelin' and time with my good friends from across the U.S. It is always fun showing up when no one expects to see you...but not so fun trying to find a level spot for a tent in the dark! I did O.K. and although my feet felt as if they were frozen in blocks of ice, I collapsed after getting very little sleep over a two day period. Saturday morning, after airing down the tires and disconnecting the swaybar, the rock-climbing fun began! Wheel stands, aggressive lines, and even some interesting all 5 tires on the ground began to take place. After lunch however, I managed to have a good scare; I nearly rolled my Jeep down the trail when I was attempting to get un-stuck on a ledge. Based on the hoots and hollers, as well as my best friends eyes being as big as dinner plates, indicated that at some point I had the front two tires in the air at nearly a 90 degree angle to the ground. Expeditious use of the go-pedal safely planted all four tires on the ground but not before I nearly had a heart attack from adrenaline overload and fear combined. Needing a couple of minutes to recover, I sat there in the Jeep, said a few prayers of thanksgiving, and finally got up the obstacle...this time with a safety line attached. The rest of the day, well, lets say I decided to take the easier trails around the area.

So now it is back to the grind of shiftwork, unpacking from the off-road trip, seeing what all is broken on the Jeep (nothing so far!), and continuing to fight the battle with the home warranty company to try and finally get my drywall fixed. I'm working on the pictures from the River Run as I type this (figuratively of course...I needed a break from Photoshop) so tuned for those.

Flash Flood...In My House!

I spent most of Friday afternoon outside; I had the day off and it was a rare non-dusty day even though the breeze had kicked up. I figured it would be better to mow the lawn and choke on just the pollen and dirt that had been kicked around recently rather than add additional dust that had come in from New Mexico as was forecast to happen on Saturday. Having a three day weekend also made it a great time to get caught up and ready for our annual Canadian River Run in a couple of weeks as well as (finally) change the Z71 over to Mobil 1 synthetic to try and boost the gas mileage as much as I could. So, I had spent a full day outside, was covered in grass clippings, dust, and the noxious smell of gasoline and 2-stroke engine exhaust. The hot shower felt rather good!

Having forgotten a few items on my last grocery store trip as well as needing to get oil/filters for both the Jeep and Z71, I headed out Saturday afternoon to round up all the stuff. Realizing that I did in fact buy items needing refrigeration, I swung by the house since it was on the way to O'Reilly Auto Parts (WalMart was sold out of both 10W and 5W-30 oil!) but perhaps it was divine intervention (it turns out O'Reillys had the oil about $2 cheaper for a 4-quart container and 75 cents cheaper for 1-quart...but I digress). When I pulled into the garage, I noticed water pooled on the floor, along the wall, and in my garage closet. Several "colorful adjectives" flew out of my mouth in quick succession and I swung open the water heater closet doors only to find things dry as a bone. Running into the house, I could see where water had seeped under the wall and where the grout was wet in the laundry closet but all the hoses to the washing machine were dry. Thoughts went from leaking hot water heater to busted pipe in the slab. Next I ran into my bedroom to find that, yes, the carpet sounded like walking in the Canadian River mud...sopping wet.

Not knowing what was going on, I went and shut off the water to the whole house. Fortunately I have a homeowner's warranty from when I bought this house so the next call was to the warranty company to file an emergency repair order. Unfortunately the automated system wouldn't escalate up to an emergency so I had to spend 15 minutes or so on a second call trying to get to an actual person. Luck was on my side and I was able to get the service request upgraded to emergency after talking with a very helpful and responsive gal named Valencia (THANK YOU!). The difference you ask? Having to wait until Monday for a plumber to come out versus the next day. Once all this was done by 7 pm, I made one last trip over to Home Depot to rent a wet-vac since mine disappeared during the move (can't complain; was the most expensive of 3 items that disappeared...). The rest of the evening was spent trying to suck up as much moisture out of the carpet and pad as I could...about 2 full tanks of water.

At 11 am, the plumber came to the house and opened up the shutoff valve. Only problem was the meter wasn't spinning. I say problem; it was good because that meant it wasn't a leak in the slab. Bad news was he still had to track the problem down or I'd end up paying all the emergency fees. The next test was to run something through the washing machine and that did the trick. No sooner did he turn on the hot cycle and he could see water running underneath the water heater closet (it also holds my A/C and the return-air registers feed underneath there). Unfortunately came the part where he had to rip out some drywall.

Here is the culprit:
The leaking section was about 4 feet up from the elbow or about halfway between the hot water heater and elbow to distribute hot water through the house. Only problem was that the access to this busted pipe was through the laundry room wall:
After two hours, the leak is fixed and I now have hot water...but I lost an entire day of my weekend waiting for the plumber and continuing to try and mitigate the "flood" damage in my bedroom. I also have to wait for the home warranty company to schedule a drywall person to come in and rough-out patches to the drywall. The insurance adjuster will also be called Monday...unfortunately my attempt to vacuum up the water and then steam clean must not have been good enough even in this arid climate I live in. I'm starting to smell mold/mildew in there so it looks like I'll have to see what can be done. It never fails...just as soon as I plink down quite a bit of moolah for ham radio and stormchasing gear, something major breaks. My house now looks and smells ghetto...a cut up trash bag with painters tape covering the holes in the drywall with the smell of wet carpet in part of the house.

Hopefully it won't interrupt a trip to the Hill Country this week...I need the break!

How I Hate Parking

Sorry for the lack of posts...lots going on at work and on the home front. The weather hasn't helped; a cycle of one day warm weather and (relatively) calm winds spent outside (if not at work), then a day of strong westerly winds and blowing dust spent inside practicing on the electric guitar and enjoying my DVR (if not at work), then a day of strong northerly/northwesterly winds and colder again spent inside the garage or enjoying Fox Soccer Channel (if not at work), and then repeat on a 3 to 4 day cycle. It also seems that the nice days; warm temps and "light" winds; are usually when I'm having to work and the crappy days are when I am off. Oh well...such is the life of shiftwork.

Anyway, I had to make a grocery run the other day and I had to take the pickup out since the Jeep has some funky steering problems (likely a loose steering stabilizer or bad upper ball joint) recently. Although I've had the Z71 for three full months, I'm still trying to learn how to park it. Unfortunately the parking lot was pretty full but I saw what I thought was an open space. When I got down the aisle, well, I'll let my friends from XKCD explain my feelings and thoughts...

Not Quite Out and Down for the Count...

Sunday Morning around 4 AM. That is when this most recent hell started. Something I ate disagreed with me prompting a quick scramble to the bathroom. Dunno what triggered this round of dysentery but it was one of the worst cases of food poisoning I have had. In a LOOOOOONG time. The second and third days were not too bad but then yesterday morning I felt like I had been thrown under the bus. I'll spare the details but it wasn't bad but not pretty at the same time. With most (suspected) cases of food poisoning, I usually feel better after a day or two. This time was different. After four days of dealing with whatever I came down with, I finally decided to go see a doctor.

See, I hate doctor visits. Needles and I are not good friends nor do I enjoy being poked and prodded (especially when I feel like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man). When the nurse was in the exam room getting the vital stats, there was no cheery conversation; just answers of yes, no, I don't know, and other pertinent health info. Finally the doctor walked in and asked all the SAME questions over as the nurse apparently didn't enter them into the form properly. Bugs caught from camping or going out of the country were ruled out, but the Doc was concerned as I was running a 100-degree fever so there was some kind of infection I'm probably fighting. More tests and a prescription for antibiotics and hopefully I'll be on the mend. The only other issue was family genetics have finally caught up with me; when looking over my blood pressure he was concerned that it was high. This runs on my Dad's side of the family; but it also didn't help that I felt like crap AND had just come from my unnamed employer where I had just spent three hard hours trying to figure out what kind of products/advisories we should have out. Yeah, just a bit stressful at work this morning and afternoon so cut me some slack on the blood pressure levels. Try measuring again when I'm on a day off and have had a solid eight-hour sleep...

So, I came home and had a B.R.A.T.-style dinner with Gatorade and a bottle of water. I'm fixing to start the (apparently super-strong) antibiotics and go to bed. At 8:30 in the P.M. Hopefully I'll finally sleep through the night, wake up refreshed and feeling better, see no ice or snow on the ground, and can get to the e-mails that I've let pile up over the last 4 days. Sorry about that gents...amazing what a not-so-little stomach bug can mess up. I'm also tired of bland food; smelling co-worker's meals isn't fair to someone who cannot enjoy the tasty goodness of "real" food. When I finally kick this bug, it will be time for some serious TexMex to make sure it is totally gone!

Fort Worth, Then and Now

I was fortunate enough to take a couple of extra days to visit a relative who lives on the east side of the Metromess on my recent trip down there. The extra days also allowed me to spend one full day driving around Fort Worth to reminisce about all the good and bad times, the long-haul drive from the house I grew up in to the magnet schools I attended, and various locations that provided those childhood lessons that seemed unnecessary but now are viewed as important life lessons. Much has changed; I thought I was lost when driving west on I-30 and seeing the new Cowboys super-mega-damn-the-recession-Jerry-Jones-showing-off Stadium which made me think I was on Loop 12 heading towards Irving, the newest addition to the Fort Worth skyline throwing me for a loop, redevelopment of my childhood playground, and the incessant expansion of the city towards the southwest (Bryant Irving, Alta Mesa, Benbrook Drives to name a few). However, many important places still remain and still appear just as they have in my mind for so long.

Kincaid's Burgers still is in the old grocery store and serving up some of the best hamburgers in town, the elementary school still looks the same from the front (although has been expanded multiple times in the back, my childhood home still looks the same, Ridgemar Mall still has the one parking lot where Dad and I would go and sit for hours watching the various bombers and fighters take off from Carswell Air Force Base (now known as Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth Carswell/NASJRBFWC...and NOAA thinks it has the run on acronyms), and all the soccer complexes that countless Saturday mornings were spent at in my much younger years still show signs of generations of kids running across them. The local "Bureau" office still stands a bit out of place buried in an area of industrial warehouses, but with a minor addition of some horses that they can now count as neighbors.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to take a ride through Downtown to see Sundance Square and then north into the Stockyards as I am still trying to get the hang of driving the pick-up in urban traffic. There were some accidents that afternoon that would have required creative navigation among the skyscrapers and parking lots of Downtown. That in and of itself would need a sharp recall of what streets were one-way or not, and it has been WAY too long since I had done that...but I digress. I would have loved to have gone back to the old Fort Worth National/Texas American Bank building and taken a picture in the room that used to be my Dad's office to see what had become of this childhood playground (on weekends when I'd go with Dad if he had some catch-up work to do and I still remember the view from the windows). I can still remember the taste of the burgers from Billy Miner's Saloon and hear the crunch of the peanut shells on the floor, the aroma of Chicago-style deep dish pizza at Uno's Pizzaria, and the fried alligator and jambalaya from Razzoo's Cajun Cafe. However, it is satisfying to know that those locations still stand as a reminder, a beacon perhaps, of childhood days gone by and the opportunity to recall various memories with the full sensory experience they can provide.

Alas, the weekend was too short. I would have loved spending a couple of evenings at The Flying Saucer with many of the people I saw at Al's retirement dinner, again reminiscing of storm chases gone past, the prospects of the upcoming chasing, and various other hobbies or state-of-the-world discussions that inevitably come up over a stein of whatever your favorite brew in the world is. Unfortunately the real-world beckoned and the time-warp started as I drove west on I-20 that Saturday; all the drives from Fort Worth to grad school seemed to compress as the miles clicked down, all the memories of people I have met and interacted with started speeding by at a fast pace, and then I arrived in the present on the South Plains. And now it is back to the grind; a week chocked full of conference-calls, webinars, staff meetings, and shift work.

Keep the places where the West did begin for me Fort Worth; don't let the folks to your east try to change you at all...

Farewell to a mentor, teacher, and good friend

I return to the South Plains filled with a mix of emotions after spending the last two days in the Metroplex. The trip was an opportunity to visit my sister for an evening, to see an old family friend, but most importantly to see someone off for the start of his retirement.

In the summer of 1994, I walked into "The Bureau" as a wet-behind-the-ear junior in high school who had an insatiable desire to become a meteorologist. After the introductory tour and explanation of what I was going to be doing, I started to meet my fellow co-workers. When the next shift came in, a gentleman walked in with a red Rubbermaid box in hand and quickly started getting a briefing on what the state of the weather was. One of my fellow SCEPs leaned over and whispered "Do you know who that is?" to which I, very much a rookie in the weather world replied "Should I?". Her response: "That's Al Moller."

And so began five years of mentoring and teaching while I worked in the summers at the North Texas "Bureau" office. However, it was also the start of a friendship that went beyond meteorology...into love of baseball, photography, stormchasing, and Texas blues music. Al was the one that (patiently) taught me the intricacies of hand analysis, took me on my first stormchase, and challenged me to apply what I was learning in my college career to my job at "the Bureau". Through these activities, I was able to develop a finer appreciation of our common interests as well as meet many people in the research and stormchasing communities that I now consider my friends as well. We would usually run into each other at least once or twice each year through stormchasing, workshops, or conferences and it never failed that he would find some way to challenge my mental picture of meteorological processes or discuss whether the upcoming spring would be a banner year for wildflowers in the Hill Country. He would also continue to remind me to not give into the meteorological cancer that continues to permeate the organization I work for and would reinforce the fact that I had to be one of the people to keep "meteorology" alive. That sometimes seems impossible but if Al could do it for 34 years, so can I.

You see, Al is the kind of man who would make the impossible happen. In the summer of 1996, Al and I were working graveyard shifts shortly before the Memorial Day weekend started. We were discussing the favorable pattern for chasing coming up but I lamented that I didn't feel I had enough experience to chase on my own, but that didn't matter because I would be without a vehicle that weekend anyway. The second to last mid-shift, Al came up and said that I needed to pack enough clothes for four days and I should bring it with me to work the next day. He had taken it upon himself to contact a fellow chaser and arrange for us to meet up in Amarillo so I could go stormchasing that weekend! The morning of May 24th, Al and I headed up "The Highway to Stormchasing Heaven" as he called it (Highway 287) to Amarillo after our mid shift. As we headed up there, Al informed me that we would be meeting his chase partner and that my ride wouldn't arrive until the following morning. His advice was to keep quiet in the back seat, talk only if asked a question, and most importantly listen. I knew of this person only by name from the various papers and manuscripts Al had me study for the previous two summers. This probably wasn't the best way to be introduced to CAD III but Al took that chance and I am definitely a better forecaster and chaser because of the example of these two men. The arguments discussions they had that afternoon and evening while we chased storms in the Panhandle of Texas probably tought me more about scientific debate and storm morphology than the previous two years combined ever did.

Unfortunately I was not able to remind Al of this experience when I arrived at the party. When I was finally able to take my turn and give him my congratulations on his retirement and thanks for all he has done for me and taught me, I could see in his eyes that the neurons weren't connecting and that I was a stranger to him once again. All I can do is shake my head and wonder why crappy things happen to good people. As much as it hurts to think that the past 15 years might have faded into the sunset of his mind, it also increases my resolve to live the example that Al set forth for me. Zeal is what I have decided is the best one-word description; tireless passion for what I do, continuing to pull science into operational meteorology as he did, but most importantly to share those things and more with others.

To Al Moller; mentor, co-worker, teacher, and friend - thank you for all that you've done and introduced me to. For the mutual friends we have and for the knowledge that you have bestowed on me to share with the next generation of meteorologists. May your retirement be a "long journey into the sunset of life" under many a supercell on the plains.

I Hate Ice

Don't get me wrong, frozen forms of precipitation are good for some things especially when this frozen precipitation falls in the form of big fluffy flakes. Snow is wonderful because without it we wouldn't be able to enjoy skiing, snowmen, snow caves (something I have YET to be able to do), snow cones, or snow angels. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the large form of frozen precipitation; hail. This is a bit more dangerous as anything larger than dimes can cause some serious problems. Yes, ask any cotton or corn farmer in the Llano Estacado or the portion of the High Plains in the Panhandles and you will hear them say dime size hail can ruin a crop through the seedling stages. Then you get the big end of hail, the softball to holy-crap-it-is-punching-holes-in-the-roof which doesn't care about whether the material under it's fall is man-made or a part of nature. Typically, the monstrous hail falls with severe thunderstorms as strong updrafts are needed to support large hailstone formation which is a whole different realm of mother nature...

However, there is tiny range of frozen precipitation that I personally cannot stand. This often arrives in forms varying from a fine mist/fog/drizzle that occurs with temperatures below freezing, or when the temperatures profiles in the atmosphere favors sleet (properly coded as ice pellets), and the worst of all: freezing rain. My personal dislike for these hellacious forms of precipitation rise from the fact that there is little a city can do to lessen the impacts from various problems that arise (slick roadways, downed power lines, etc. since this accumulates and cannot be plowed away like snow) and it turns my normally easy 5 minute drive to work into a 15 minute, stress-inducing, profanity laced ordeal. Likewise, any form of winter weather warning/advisory that goes out induces a sense of mass hysteria among the residents and thus a run on local grocery stores ensues. It is as if people believe they will run out of bread and milk (and for those of the college age in this town - beer) in the 3 days of wintry precipitation and they have to hoard as much as they can. Store shelves and coolers are picked clean of the essentials and the stress and profanity move indoors as impatient people try to rush through the line in order to get home before the arrival of the end-of-the-world, cataclysmic, biblical end times winter weather.

Sidebar - In my town, a fair amount of people have "so called" 4x4/four-wheel drive/all-wheel drive vehicles and the majority of these are in the pickup/truck form. I say "so called" because 90% of these vehicles are in reality 2-wheel drive thanks to open differentials, another 8% are "2.5" wheel drive thanks to limited slip diffs, with another 1% some combination of open/limited slip/locked differentials yielding a "3" wheel drive. Finally rounding out the group is the 1% that have "true" four-wheel drive where both the front and rear differentials are "locked". (Note: all percentages are wild a$$ guesses). My pickup right now is a 2.5 wheel drive (open front, limited slip rear) while the Jeep is a true 4x4, locked front and rear but I digress.

My point is that via personal observation, the people around here assume 4x4/four-wheel/all-wheel drive means "damn the road conditions, I can drive the speed limit because I'm in a 4x4!". This lack of understanding in their vehicle plus an apparent tendency for people to generally disregard traffic rules (and common sense) yields a portion of the population who are a greater danger to the rest of the residents. The drive in both yesterday and this morning was spent watching out for everyone else and avoiding those fishtailing down the major roads while I plugged along at what I felt was a personally safe pace (25 in a 45 isn't too bad...). However, I was mildly humored with the expressions on the faces of people who had experienced temporary loss of vehicular control...some of whom probably needed to go home and change their pants.

Unfortunately, the hardest part happens while I am at work. Forecasting wintry precipitation in this neck-of-the-woods is part skill but majority luck. A difference in 100 miles can mean the difference between the fluffy stuff or the scrape half an inch of ice off the windshield stuff. In some cases (such as Tuesday), a 25 mile distance can mean the difference between flurries and accumulating sleet. Although my gut instinct is that the majority of the population could care less about our forecasts, there is at least a small minority that does check our forecasts and it is for those people I am trying to figure out what can happen. Walking into the forecast desk Monday was nothing but utter stress and chaos; phone ringing, hand analysis to do, a quick glance at the incoming forecast models, and then a decision on what kind of product to issue 3 hours into the shift to start the aforementioned mass hysteria in the general public. When I walked out the door at 4:30 pm, I ached from the stress of trying to forecast frozen hell falling from the sky and from trying to see the microscale features in the data that could make or break the forecast.

I can handle stress; convective severe weather events are a yearly reminder of that. Yeah I might have a few more gray hairs mixed in with whatever hasn't decided to fall out, I might develop a stomach ulcer or two from drinking too much caffeine (a la 2007 severe weather season in the Top 'o Tejas) during a prolonged period of active weather, and I might pass out for 24 hours when I need to catch up on sleep. However, the stress during convective events is of a different variety than in this icy hell. Severe weather usually lasts for a brief window whereas wintry precipitation can continue for days on end. Give me 12 hours of tornadoes, hail, lightning, winds, and flooding compared to 72 hours of sub-freezing, whiteout inducing, slip and sliding crap.

Give me 3 feet of snow and not this eigth-inch of ice that coats every surface. Let me plow through powdery bliss in my Jeep and not play a game of ice capade chicken on the roads. Did I mention it is going to be 55 degrees today??? All my troubles will literally melt away...